Australian cinema in 2025 will offer plenty of tasty treats, in a variety of genres and styles. In addition to the films on this list, there are a few titles from last year’s still yet to arrive, including the Nicolas Cage movie The Surfer (which will be on Stan at some point) and Sally Aitken’s documentary Every Little Thing (which had a festival release in 2024).
1. Magic Beach
Release date: in cinemas 16 January
You could say my family are mega-fans of Alison Lester’s children’s book Magic Beach: our copy is tattered from turning the pages a zillion times, and we’ve even visited the beautiful coastline that inspired it. Director Robert Connolly’s adaptation is divided into separate chapters animated by various Australian artists, with a framing device involving a group of young characters who are transported to the eponymous location after reading the book.
2. One Mind, One Heart
Release date: on SBS on Demand on 19 January
Euahleyai/Gamillaroi documentarian Larissa Behrendt has an exciting, expanding body of work; I particularly love You Can Go Now, her wonderfully splashy portrait of artist Richard Bell. Her next film unpacks the story of the Yirrkala Bark petitions, two of which were sent to Australian parliament in 1963, becoming highly significant documents in the push for Aboriginal rights.
3. Inside
Release date: in cinemas 27 February
In 2018, Australian film-maker Charles Williams won the Cannes film festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or for his short film All These Creatures. Now his feature debut is almost upon us, joining the canon of prison-set Australian dramas à la Stir, Ghosts … of the Civil Dead and How to Make Gravy. The ever-reliable Guy Pearce leads the cast as an inmate preparing for parole, who becomes a mentor to a young man (Vincent Miller) transferred from juvenile detention. The cast includes Cosmo Jarvis, recently terrific as the spectacularly potty-mouthed John Blackthorne in Shōgun.
4. Spit
Release date: in cinemas 6 March
Goonish nincompoop Johnny “Spit” Spitieri is a hilarious side character from the 2003 crime film Gettin’ Square, and now has his very own movie. Old mate Spit – unforgettably played by David Wenham – is in a spot of bother, locked up in a detention centre after attempting to re-enter Australia on a false passport, having spent the last couple of decades on the run overseas. The trailer shows Spit busting some thoroughly gifable dance moves. This film made last year’s list, but it now has a 2025 release date locked in.
5. The Correspondent
Release date: in cinemas 17 April
Director Kriv Stenders and star Richard Roxburgh bring to the screen the true story of journalist-cum-press freedom champion Peter Greste, who served 13 months in an Egyptian jail after being charged with terrorism offences, in a case that was widely and roundly condemned. The Correspondent, which opened the 2024 Adelaide film festival, adapts Greste’s memoir The First Casualty, focusing on his arrest and imprisonment in 2013.
6. In Vitro
Release date: TBC
Set on a cattle ranch in a not-too-distant future, this sci-fi thriller from co-directors Will Howarth and Tom McKeith generated strong buzz after premiering at the 2024 Sydney film festival. Ashley Zukerman and Talia Zucker play the married couple – Jack and Layla – who run the ranch, where the former experiments with cattle cloning technology. But what other secrets is he hiding?
7. Crocodile Dundee: The 4K Encore Cut
Release date: TBC
The highest grossing Australian film of all time – starring an iconic Paul Hogan as a knife-comparing rube in an Akubra – will return to cinemas in 4K. The most interesting thing about this “encore cut” is that content has been added and taken away. The producers are keeping mum about what to expect, begging the question of whether this’ll be a sanitised version that removes or reduces the original film’s sexist, racist and homophobic elements.
8. Ellis Park
Release date: TBC
The first documentary from Australian auteur Justin Kurzel is a beautifully made portrait of musician Warren Ellis, a member of Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The titular location is an animal sanctuary in Indonesia (co-founded by Ellis and animal-rights activist Femke den Haas) that rehabilitates injured animals. As I wrote in my review: “It quickly evolves into a work with a living, breathing, morphing energy, as if the film – which is drifty and amorphous, in a good way – is swelling and shrinking, expanding and contracting, right in front of us.”
9. Kangaroo
Release date: TBC
Continuing the theme of animal sanctuaries, this family comedy was inspired by the true story of kangaroo carer Chris “Brolga” Barns. Ryan Corr plays a former TV weather presenter who, with the help of a 12-year-old Indigenous girl (Lily Whiteley), takes care of a joey he hits with his car, which leads to him caring for and rehabilitating other kangaroos. Expect soft, squidgy, life-affirming messages.
10. R.U.R.
Release date: TBC
It’s been eight years since Alex Proyas’ last feature: the mega flop Gods of Egypt, a film so awful it seems to have all but killed his career. The director went from helming Hollywood blockbusters to asking fans to cough up for his next project, which sounds quite fun: an adaptation of a 1920 Czech play about a robot-producing factory and the potential end of the world. It claims to be like “Brazil and Dr Strangelove meets Young Frankenstein and The Greatest Showman”.
