BIFF: 23 of the best Queensland-made films

This year’s Brisbane International Film Festival is the continuation of a proud record of movies made in Queensland. Here are 23 of the best.

TO MARK this week’s opening of the Brisbane International Film Festival, here are our top 21 Queensland-made films

1) MURIEL’S WEDDING (1994)

GS: 9.5/10

P.J. Hogan’s pitch-perfect dissection of how the socially awkward survived in the booming ’80s. The film that deservedly launched Rachel Griffiths and Toni Collette is hilarious, dark and delightful.

LP: 9/10

Don’t be fooled by the light and frothy exterior. Beneath the surface, you will find a complex and disturbing social satire. Fuelled by a biting wit and forceful intent most Australian comedies have deliberately shied away from. One of a kind in the best possible way.

Toni Collette with Bill Hunter in a scene from 1994 film Muriel's Wedding.

2) THE PROPOSITION (2005)

GS: 9/10

A masterful and ethically muddy tale from the colonial era. Basically a bushranger story, it doesn’t compromise on the inherent violence and racism of the times, and every scene is unflinchingly raw. The soundtrack is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and the acting ensemble is led by Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, Leah Purcell and John Hurt.

LP: 9/10

This self-styled “Australian western” is powerful, punishing drama of the highest class. The violence is graphic, all emotion is repressed, and the atmosphere is totally combustible throughout. Highly under-rated, and well worth tracking down.

Ray Winstone in a scene from the Australian film The Proposition.

3) THOR: RAGNAROK (2017)

GS: 8.5/10

The quirkiest volume in the ridiculously voluminous Marvel cinematic universe. Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Hiddleston and Cate Blanchett don’t just chew up the scenery, they devour it, in director Taika Waititi’s wild romp.

LP: 7/10

The third big-screen solo outing for Thor saw the big burly bearded bloke in his best form yet. While delivering the kind of sprawling action spectacle Marvel is renowned for, it is also a sly, dry comedy packed with deadpan punchlines and absurd sight gags.

4) DEAD CALM (1989)

GS: 7.5/10

Nicole Kidman is captivating as her hysterical character goes over the top in this three-hander (Sam Neill and Billy Zane are also onboard) thriller from director Phillip Noyce. It’s like Hitchcock directing Highsmith on the high seas.

LP: 9/10

An impeccably conceived thriller from one of Australia’s best-ever directors, Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence). The kooky climax (and the trap-door developments either side) is a perfect example of how the ridiculous can somehow become sublime when serious skill is at work.

Nicole Kidman as Rae Ingram holding a spear gun in Dead Calm.

5) THE FRINGE DWELLERS (1986)

GS: 7/10

This early-career film by director Bruce Beresford, around the time he was being tempted to Hollywood, was co-written by him and then wife Rhoisin Beresford. With indigenous actors in all the lead roles, it was a bit of a landmark film in Queensland cinema history – it’s also a tautly wound drama about the pull between tradition and a brave new world.

LP: 7/10

This beautiful, carefully calibrated adaptation of the Nene Gare novel has aged well, in spite of being seemingly out of step with contemporary issues facing our indigenous people. Can be seen for free at SBS On Demand if you’re interested (you should be).

6) GETTIN’ SQUARE (2003)

GS: 8/10

Come for the comedic adventure of small-time crims, played by Sam Worthington, Timothy Spall and Gary Sweet. Come away with the lasting image of David Wenham wearing nothing but a mullet, animal-print jocks and thongs, making his clip-clopping escape down an alleyway.

LP: 4/10

A depressingly derivative crime comedy (a good alternative title would have been Lock, Stock and Too Flamin’ Late) about cops, robbers and dobbers scamming it up in sunny Queensland. Worth seeing only for a show-stopping, virtuoso turn by David Wenham as the smartest dumb crim you’ll ever meet.

Sam Worthington in scene from film Gettin' Square.

7) THE TREE (2010)

GS: 7.5/10

The centrepiece is a massive Moreton Bay Fig, but the heart of this richly rewarding film sits with Morgana Davies, then 9, who plays the little girl with a big imagination. It is a warm, symbolic, and essentially Queensland-feeling drama despite having French co-parentage.

LP: 3/10

Flimsy mood-piece. Cinematography is tops, as are the young actors. The script is loaded with sappy symbolism to leave you wishing you had a chainsaw handy, and pauses pregnant enough to put a fertility clinic out of business.

8) BENEATH HILL 60 (2010)

GS: 7/10

We’ve made some fine war films in Queensland (The Thin Red Line, Kokoda, Unbroken, Danger Close, The Odd Angry Shot) but Beneath Hill 60’s claustrophobic style lends it an unnerving reality when viewed in a darkened theatre. Directed by Jeremy Sims, written by David Roach and filmed in Townsville.

LP: 5/10

Convinces with its depiction of the hellish conditions which Australian soldiers endured in Europe, but a corny, cliché-riddled script and flat performances undo a lot of the good work. Best enjoyed by military buffs who don’t get out much.

9) THE REEF (2010)

GS: 6/10

Sure it’s a bit of circling-shark horror nonsense filmed in the waters off Hervey Bay and Fraser Island, but The Reef worked thanks to engaging performances from Damian Walshe-Howling and Zoe Naylor. Yacht overturns, group decides to swim to nearby island, shark picks them off one by one. Ridiculously tense but fun.

LP: 2/10

A group of friends. A Barrier Reef cruise. Boat capsizes. Most aboard decide to make a swim for it. A shark decides to make a meal of everyone. Splashin’. Gnashin’. Red dye. Shaky-cam close-up. Screams. Silence. Repeat.

Keiran Darcy-Smith, Zoe Naylor, Damain Walshe- Howling, Adrienne Pickering and Gyton Grantley in The Reef.

10) AGE OF CONSENT (1969)

GS: 4.5/10

There were mixed feelings at the time about this adaptation of Norman Lindsay’s once-banned novel, especially moving the setting north to the Great Barrier Reef. The result though is a bubbly, romantic comedy-drama with a top international cast – Irish actor Jack MacGowran, the inimitable James Mason, and Helen Mirren in her lead debut.

LP: 5/10

Very sluggish drama with stilted performances and almost zero chemistry between its oddly cast leads. James Mason had been around forever. Helen Mirren was just starting out. Nevertheless, there is a certain something here which a modern remake could definitely bring to the fore.

11) ACOLYTES (2008)

GS: 7.5/10

An impressive horror/thriller with shades of Patricia Highsmith in its plotting. You get not one baddie, but two for your dollar, as they stalk some teens through the Gold Coast hinterland. Joel Edgerton and Michael Dorman are said baddies, both adept with a blade.

LP: 4/10

The direction delivers plenty of sudden jolts, and keeps the levels of dread peaking at well-judged intervals. However, everything keeps falling apart due to dopey lapses in logic, credibility and taste that could easily have been avoided with better scripting.

Actors Joel Edgerton (L) and Seb Gregory during making of the film Acolytes at Redcliffe.

12) BLURRED (2002)

GS: 5/10

It’s Schoolies Week on the Gold Coast, circa 2000. What you expect could happen, happens, but it is a reasonable amount of fun as the cast includes Matthew Newton (before he fell out of favour), Legend of the Seeker’s Craig Horner and Sea Patrol’s Kristian Schmid.

LP: 1/10

In keeping with its setting during Gold Coast Schoolies Week,
this dreadful teen comedy-drama leaves you feeling like you are actually there – on the brink of throwing up, desperately
needing a shower, and telling everyone you never want to do this again.

13) THE COOLANGATTA GOLD (1984)

GS: 5/10

Contemporary love story (well, for 1984, at least) in a sporting world setting. Dad wants son (Colin Friels) to win the iron man competition. He’s lost for words when his other son (Joss McWilliam) also decides to compete. Both go up against Grant Kenny in their budgie-smugglers.

LP: 1/10

Better films have formed atop day-old soup. Watchable only on a so-bad-it’s-kinda-good level, and even then, that approach could wind up doing you more harm than good.

14) DAYBREAKERS (2009)

GS: 4.5/10

The Spierig brothers (Michael and Peter) misfired with last year’s Winchester, but sci-fi/action/horror film Daybreakers, where vampires “farm” humans, was a more enjoyable and solid effort. Some exterior scenes were filmed in the Brisbane CBD.

LP: 5/10

Set in the year 2019 – hey, that’s right now! – where as a result of a viral vampiral outbreak, the Drac pack rule. Chaos looms when crucial supplies of human blood dwindle. Goes quite OK for a B-movie until ditching everything for outright splatter in a fizzer of a final act.

Ethan Hawke in Daybreakers (2009)

15) GOODBYE PARADISE (1983)

GS: 4.5/10

A Raymond Chandler-style crime caper set on the Gold Coast with Ray Barrett well cast as a gruff, disgraced ex-copper, who’s got some murders to solve and some revenge to exact on the police.

LP: 6/10

A one-off, just like Ray Barrett himself. The bloke was one hell of an actor who never quite got the opportunities he might have in a later era. Watch it for him.

16) PAPERBACK HERO (1999)

GS: 5.5/10

Hugh Jackman and Claudia Karvan show chemistry as the leads in this patchy rom-com that starts well but slows to a plod as if worried they were heading too quickly towards the Y2K bug.

LP: 1/10

Gormless rom-com about a truckie who gets a local tomboy to put her name to the flowery love stories he hopes to publish. A 90-minute journey from no hope to no idea. Could have been all over for a young Hugh Jackman had anyone in the US.

17) PARADISE ROAD (1997)

GS: 4.5/10

Memorable mainly because Glenn Close and Frances McDormand were in the cast, this WWII drama was ultimately overblown and off-tune. Julianna Margulies and Pauline Collins round out the international cast, while Cate Blanchett, Susie Porter, Wendy Hughes, Pamela Rabe, et al, tried to add some puff to an over-stuffed cast of characters.

LP: 3/10

A true story of survival that disenchants when it should inspire. Reduces an amazing, death-defying struggle to a dire drama.

18) PETER PAN (2003)

GS: 6/10

Don’t confuse this with Hook (that stinker was made more than 10 years earlier). This is the more commendable one with Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook and Jeremy Sumpter as Peter Pan.

LP: 8/10

Filmmaker P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding) didn’t let J.M. Barrie’s beloved fantasy fable barrel along under its own power. Instead, he shifted focus to a lavish visual realisation that gave Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge a serious run for its money.

19) THE SETTLEMENT (1984)

GS: 6.5/10

Bill Kerr, John Jarratt and Lorna Leslie shack up for a menage a trois on the outskirts of the backward backwaters of Cedar Creek. Shock, horror, scandal ensues for the sleepy country town.

LP: 4/10

Saw this just the once on telly when rain stopped play at the cricket. Was a day-nighter at the SCG, from memory. Missed the ending though, because the weather cleared up in time for Michael Bevan to come back out and hit the winning runs. Suspect that might have been a superior finale.

20) BEDEVIL (1983)

GS: 5.5/10

While the US was churning out slasher horror films, indigenous director Tracey Moffatt delivered up a thoughtful take on the genre. Breaking her film into three “episodes”, it is a tale about ghosts and about the cultural traits of telling ghost stories.

LP: 5/10

A totally polarising head-scratcher. Alternately a black-ish comedy and a rag-tag, roguish drama, the movie is only ever fleetingly in control of the many emotions summoned.

21) CELESTE (2018)

GS: 3/10

A messy mixed-message film set in far north Queensland. Radha Mitchell plays the title character, a former great of the opera scene, who wanders around the ruins of her life and the actual ruins of Paronella Park buried in the rainforest outside Innisfail.

LP: 5/10

Lead actors Radha Mitchell and Thomas Cocquerel work hard to impress in spite of their unlikeable characters, and the far north Queensland setting is evocatively framed by cinematographer Katie Milwright.

22) HE DIED WITH A FELAFEL IN HIS HAND (2001)

GS: 5/10

Ahh, share accommodation in the ’80s and ’90s … fun wasn’t it? Not for sad sack Danny (Noah Taylor), who trudges through some interesting living arrangements.

LP: 6/10

A slyly adventurous take on the John Birmingham best-seller about the great Aussie share-house experience. The movie trails its nomadic anti-hero as he rolls with the punches in the 47th (outer suburban Brisbane), 48th (inner-city Melbourne) and 49th (central Sydney) dumps he has called home.

Actor Noah Taylor in 2001 film He Died With A Felafel In His Hand.

23) MYSTERY ROAD (2013)

GS: 7/10

Shot in and around Winton, this solid crime drama revolves around the murder of a teenage girl. But it is the discussion on race that underpins the narrative.

LP: 5/10

Clunky, generic stuff, just like its sequel Goldstone.