Australian cinema gets a bad rap – there, we said it. Despite the few iconic beauties that everyone knows and loves, below the tip of the Uluru-shaped iceberg of Aussie cinematic history is an entire underworld of hidden treasures and undiscovered masterpieces. Forget the g’days and cork-dangling Akubras – these filmic gems are stories of raw honesty about our land – and people – down under.

IF YOU LIKE THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU, YOU'LL LOVE THE LONELY SPIRITS VARIETY HOUR Wes Anderson may have perfected the whimsical pastels of twee movie-making in his fourth feature film – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – but his aesthetic sensibilities are found in films all over. Whether Platon Theodoris – writer and director of 2022’s The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour – is a Wes Anderson fan need not be debated, for this quaint vessel of lovely storytelling seemingly has only used the American filmmaker’s style as a jumping off point. This quiet little film quickly reveals itself to contain brilliant originality of its own.

IF YOU LIKE SPOTLIGHT, YOU'LL LOVE DON’T TELL Tom McCarthy’s 2015 biographical drama and Best Picture Oscar-winner Spotlight is a classic of procedural storytelling. The movie follows the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team – a crew of rag-tag journos investigating the hidden abuse by priests. Don’t Tell – released in 2017 and directed by Tori Garrett – takes a leaf from the same book with its “based on true events” declaration and parallels with covered-up systemic abuse by a religious institution. Only, it’s Australian – and it has all the grit and quiet heroism to prove it.

IF YOU LIKE THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, YOU'LL LOVE PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK A quarter of a century before there was Sofia Coppoloa’s directorial feature debut The Virgin Suicides, there was Peter Weir’s dreamy period piece Picnic at Hanging Rock. An icon of Australian cinema, Picnic at Hanging Rock featured a bundle of beautiful young women cloaked in billowy blouses and chock full of old-fashioned sensibilities, not unlike the Lisbon sisters of The Virgin Suicides. Come for the girlish threads and haunting soundtrack, stay for the mind-boggling mystery.

IF YOU LIKE TRUE GRIT, YOU'LL LOVE SWEET COUNTRY The Coen Brothers’ 2010 movie True Grit has all the dirt, guns and cowboy hats you’d expect from a classic American western film. What it doesn’t have, though, is the silhouette of 1929 Central Australia and the social tensions that come along with it. Warwick Thornton’s modern masterpiece Sweet Country is a revisionist exploration of justice, race and the red dirt of the outback, culminating in a story as old as colonisation. Aussie films are known for their unrelenting rawness in depicting untold realities, and Warwick doesn’t hold back. Now that’s true grit.

IF YOU LIKE CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, YOU'LL LOVE MY FIRST SUMMER There’s something very special about a coming-of-age queer romance set in the soft dreamy light of summer. Luca Guadagnino just about perfected it with his 2017 Timmy Chalamet-starring tale set in the lush Italian countryside – whereas Katie Found did perfect it with her 2020 hazy summer-set movie My First Summer. Swap out Northern Italy for rural Victoria in this gorgeous story of teenage romance and queer exploration, underpinned by a haunting mystery and familial tension.

Keep the good times rolling with this list of spooky Aussie films or this collection of witchy flicks. Plus, sign up to our newsletter to discover more great movie recommendations.