Morbid jokes, profound loss, demonic possessions, extreme drug use – but enough about my weekend. This year’s best Australian films are a particularly edgy bunch, from black comedies to white-knuckle drama. To be eligible for this list, films must have had a release outside the festival circuit, either theatrically or via streaming.
10. In the Room Where He Waits
Where to watch: no streaming options now available
Setting his psychological horror movie inside a Brisbane hotel room during Covid-19 lockdowns gives the writer-director Timothy Despina Marshall a novel way to pry open the well-worn ghost movie genre.
Daniel Monks delivers a commanding performance as Tobin, an actor who landed a big Broadway role but has returned to Australia for his father’s funeral without telling his colleagues, with whom he rehearses on Zoom. But something’s strange about the room he’s in … could it be haunted? Marshall makes a lot from a little, deftly building tension and squeezing every drop out of an obviously small budget.
9. Revealed: Otto by Otto
Where to watch: Stan
Gracie Otto has crafted a deeply personal production that nobody else could have made – about her father, the great Australian actor Barry Otto. Her documentary evolves from being a strong if unremarkable picture of Otto’s career to an affecting, tender portrait of his life and art. This film got me thinking about how artistic energy can be like happiness, in that everybody wants it but nobody can know when they’ll get it or how long it’ll last.
Read more: Revealed: Otto by Otto review – nuanced portrait of a generational talent
8. He Ain’t Heavy
Where to watch: available to rent on Apple TV+, Prime Video and YouTube
Can you save a loved one from drug addiction by kidnapping them and locking them in a room? Jade (rousingly played by Leila George) gives it a crack in this gritty, twitchy drama that pushes the old “cruel to be kind” logic to extremes.
Intending to save her violent nogoodnik brother (Sam Corlett), Jade’s actions propel a film that explores the desperation that arises when all reasonable options have been exhausted. The writer-director David Vincent Smith keeps scenes lean and tight, building unnerving momentum.
7. Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story
Where to watch: still showing in some cinemas – and will end up on a streaming platform
A gooseflesh-raising energy permeates this pacey doco about the former tennis champion Jelena Dokic. It’s not just a portrait of a great athlete but a survival story about a person trapped in an abusive relationship.
Dokic’s father, Damir, was often portrayed by the media as a belligerent idiot rather than a menace. In Unbreakable we learn the full extent of the suffering he inflicted on Jelena. It’s a story of courage and fortitude, crafted with electrical intensity.
6. Audrey
Where to watch: available to rent on AppleTV+
“Black comedy” isn’t a strong enough term to describe Natalie Bailey’s bitterly funny film about a family who are delighted when their daughter/sister slips into a coma; this is jet-black. Jackie van Beek excels in a devilishly good yet relatable performance as Ronnie, a mother who pretends to be her titular comatose daughter (Josephine Blazier) to take part in her acting classes, hoping to reboot her once-promising career. Razor-sharp jokes and drollery continue all the way into an fiendish final act.
Read more: Audrey review – a deliciously snarky comedy about a girl in a coma
5. Late Night With the Devil
Where to watch: Netflix and Shudder
When I think about this already legendary horror movie I imagine a television variety show set dislodged from the space-time continuum, spinning through hell. Jack Delroy, a ratings-hungry Johnny Carson-like host played by David Dastmalchian, has no qualms about bringing a possessed young girl (Ingrid Torelli) on to his show, along with a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon).
And while they’re here, why not get a demon to pop out and say hello? Things of course go terribly pear-shaped; the film is deliberately campy but also super creepy.
Read more: Late Night With the Devil review – diabolically funny found-footage horror
4. Flathead
Where to watch: showing at Acmi until 29 December
Jaydon Martin’s directorial debut is an evocative hybrid of documentary and narrative drama, presented in beautifully poetic monochrome. The subject of this richly ruminative film is Cass Cumerford, a hard yakka old-timer from Bundaberg, Queensland, who drinks, smokes, reminisces on his years as a drug user and flirts with Christianity. Irrespective of how much of this story is real or fabricated, the subject is a great find, with a rough-hewn, transfixing aura that compensates for a near-absent plotline.
Read more: Flathead review – a beautiful meditation on life in rural Queensland
3. Better Man
Where to watch: in Australian cinemas from 25 December
Narratively speaking, this is a fairly conventional star-is-rising biopic, charting Robbie Williams’ humble beginnings, breakthrough into stardom and descent into self-destruction. But the musical numbers are intensely rousing and the bizarre decision to depict Williams as a CGI chimp means the film has one foot in an alternate reality, allowing an easy passage into symbolism, metaphor and heightened emotions.
What happened is less important than how it felt. This film has one hell of an emotional kick, bouncing around the dark chambers of Williams’ psyche en route to a hard-earned inspirational finale. Though Williams is a Brit, it was directed by the Australian film-maker Michael Gracey, stars several Australian actors, was shot in Victoria and was substantially funded by Australian coffers – all of which make it eligible for this list.
Read more: ‘Fame is a drug like LSD’: Robbie Williams on success, sexuality and his simian movie alter ego
2. You’ll Never Find Me
Where to watch: Binge and Shudder
The psychological energy of this debut feature by Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen is noxious and gluggy; the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. This nightmarish chamber piece takes place in a caravan, where a young woman (Jordan Cowan) comes a-knockin’ in the dead of night, asking for a lift into town.
The intensely morose man inside (Brendan Rock) tells her she’s “knocked on the wrong door” but is happy to chat, philosophising about the human condition. The question of what exactly is going on is brilliantly teased out until the very end.
Read more: You’ll Never Find Me review – profoundly creepy and thrillingly bold Australian horror film
1. Memoir of a Snail
Where to watch: still in some cinemas, and can be bought on Prime and YouTube
Adam Elliot is the rarest type of auteur – an artist so distinct his work can be recognised through a single shot. His second feature (following Mary and Max) continues his unique claymation aesthetic: lots of skewwhiff lines, clumpy figures and big bulging eyes. Everything on screen is handmade, imbuing the film with a wonderful tactility.
The story is at times breathtakingly sad, about an orphaned girl from the suburbs, Grace (voiced by Charlotte Belsey and Sarah Snook), who is separated from her twin brother (Mason Litsos and Kodi Smit-McPhee) and hit by a series of crises. But this is a sublimely humane film, full of light and shade.
Read more: Oscar-winning animator Adam Elliot: ‘Why does everything have to be Disney?’
