Australian films about childhood

A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia; 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

In the irreverent spirit of fun that made “The Lego Movie” a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble—Lego Batman—stars in his own big-screen adventure. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.

Living a bleak existence at a London orphanage, 12-year-old Peter finds himself whisked away to the fantastical world of Neverland. Adventure awaits as he meets new friend James Hook and the warrior Tiger Lily. They must band together to save Neverland from the ruthless pirate Blackbeard. Along the way, the rebellious and mischievous boy discovers his true destiny, becoming the hero forever known as Peter Pan.

After moving to a small town, Zach Cooper finds a silver lining when he meets next door neighbor Hannah, the daughter of bestselling Goosebumps series author R.L. Stine. When Zach unintentionally unleashes real monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong.

1975: A 200-ton blue whale gets washed up on a local beach and the kids think it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened in Australia. Behind closed doors, the Mums and Dads of a quiet suburban street are going to celebrate in their own special way, by joining the sexual revolution and throwing a wife-swapping key party. And like the rotting whale, it’s all about to go spectacularly wrong.

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Newly arrived to a remote desert town, Catherine and Matthew are tormented by a suspicion when their two teenage children mysteriously vanish.

A young Aboriginal boy is torn between his unexpected love of acting and the disintegration of his family.

Ben Hall is drawn back into bushranging by the reappearance of his old friend John Gilbert. Reforming the gang, they soon become the most wanted men in Australian history.

It’s 1929 on the vast, desert-like, Eastern Arrernte Nation lands that are now known as the Central Australian outback. Sam Kelly, a middle-aged Aboriginal man, works the land of a kind preacher, Fred Smith. After an ill-tempered bully arrives in town and Kelly kills him in self-defence, he and his wife go on the run as a posse gathers to hunt him down.

Griff, office worker by day, superhero by night, has his world turned upside down when he meets Melody, a beautiful young scientist who shares his passion for the impossible.

Three detectives become embroiled in a tense struggle after a tragic accident that leaves a child in critical condition. One is guilty of a crime, one will try to cover it up, and the other attempts to expose it. How far will these men go to disguise and unravel the truth?

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

Storm Boy lives a lonely life with his reclusive father on a desolate coastline, but when he forms a close bond with a pelican, Mr. Percival, his life takes a new and unexpected turn.

A comedy about a groom and his three best men who travel to the Australian outback for a wedding.

A great white shark hunts the crew of a capsized sailboat along the Great Barrier Reef.

In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.

The uncensored story of one of Australia's most successful bands, INXS. A story of mateship, a story of success and excess, talent and sheer bloody will, set to a pulsating soundtrack including all of INXSs greatest hits.

When a pop-star cousin comes to stay, a family's once normal life changes drastically.

When John Doe is convicted of being a vigilante serial killer, a vigilante group named 'Speak for the Dead' emerges in support of John's cause—elevating the debate about justice versus vengeance.

Detectives Tori Lustigman and Nick Manning are assigned a brutal murder case in Bondi, where they begin to uncover mounting evidence to suggest the killing is connected to a spate of unexplained deaths, "suicides" and disappearances throughout the 80s and 90s. Haunted by the disappearance of her teenage brother, Tori's fascination with the case soon turns to fixation. When more ritualistic murders occur with the same bizarre signature, Tori and Nick will need to put their relationships, their careers and their lives on the line to finally reveal the truth.

Life's gone pear-shaped for Jack Irish (Guy Pearce). He's back to takeaway Chinese for one after his girlfriend Linda (Marta Dusseldorp) abandoned him for a career in Sydney, a flashy Brisvegas type is muscling in on the racetrack action, and his cabinet-making still leaves a lot to be desired. So when an old teammate of his dad's turns up looking for help, it's a welcome distraction for Jack. Des Connors' (Ron Jacobson) son Gary (Nicholas Coghlan) has gone missing, having nicked off with all Des's money. But sometimes prodigal sons go AWOL for a reason. As Jack begins to dig he discovers Gary was a man with something to hide and a very good reason to disappear - or be disappeared. .

Leaving the safety of their nursery behind, Wendy, Michael and John follow Peter Pan to a magical world where childhood lasts forever. But while in Neverland, the kids must face Captain Hook and foil his attempts to get rid of Peter for good.

Cane Toads: The Conquest is a comic yet provocative account of Australia’s most notorious environmental blunder from filmmaker Mark Lewis.Shot against the harsh and beautiful landscape of northern Australia, Cane Toads: The Conquest tracks the unstoppable journey of the toad across the continent. Director Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, The Natural History of the Chicken) injects his trademark irreverence and humor into the story as he follows a trail of human conflict, bizarre culture and extraordinary close encounters.Filmed with high-resolution 3D technology, Cane Toads is the first Australian digital 3D feature film.  Custom designed equipment allows viewers to get up close and personal with these curious creatures like never before. The unique viewing experience is like being immersed in the world of the toad.

Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

A group of elite soldiers sent to infiltrate and extract the lead science team from Pine Gap, Australia's top secret underground military compound, after it comes under attack from unknown forces. The mission is compromised when they encounter a young woman with no memory of who she is or how she came to be there. As they try to escape, the group quickly discovers all is not as it seems and the facility has become a testing ground for something far more sinister.

Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts -- Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander -- crown him as their king, play rumpus, build forts and discover secret hideaways.

Laura and Tyler are best friends and drinking buddies whose hedonistic existence falls under the creeping horror of adulthood when Laura gets engaged to Jim – an ambitious pianist who surprisingly decides to go teetotal.

The story of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.

The Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby is taking an anti-comedy stance in her newest special.

Beneath the placid facade of Canberra, amidst rising tension between China and America, senior political journalist Harriet Dunkley uncovers a secret city of interlocked conspiracies, putting innocent lives in danger including her own.

Author P.L. Travers travels from London to Hollywood as Walt Disney Pictures adapts her novel Mary Poppins for the big screen.

Kye is a prisoner of war caught between two armies that he doesn't believe in. When offered an opportunity for freedom, Kye sets out on one last rescue mission only to become stranded when his ship crash lands. Kye soon realises that the deadliest creature on the desert moon is himself.

The story of Allan "Swampy" Marsh and his Maremma dog Oddball. Swampy convinced local authorities to allow Oddball to protect a colony of Little Penguins on Middle Island from wild cats and dogs. Oddball succeeds in his campaign and becomes a front runner for Maremma dogs being used to protect other endangered Australian wildlife.

Set against the badlands of colonial Australia where the English rule with a bloody fist and the Irish endure, Ned Kelly discovers he comes from a line of Irish rebels—an uncompromising army of cross dressing bandits immortalised for terrorising their oppressors back in Ireland. Nurtured by the notorious bushranger, Harry Power and fuelled by the unfair arrest of his mother, Kelly recruits a wild bunch of warriors to plot one of the most audacious attacks of anarchy and rebellion the country has ever seen.

After freeing a young Bedouin girl from her unjust imprisonment in Jerusalem, an Australian adventuress, together with her devoted police detective friend, begins to unravel a decade-old mystery concerning priceless emeralds, an ancient curse and the disappearance of the girl's mother and massacre of her tribe.

Luke O'Brien, a washed-up salesman turned night law student, decides to sue Satan for $8 trillion dollars. On the last day before Luke files a default judgment, Satan appears to defend himself. On Satan's legal team are 10 of the country's best trial lawyers. The entire world watches on Legal TV to see who will win the Trial of the Century

Seventeen talented Australian directors from diverse artistic disciplines each create a chapter of the hauntingly beautiful novel by multi award-winning author Tim Winton. The linking and overlapping stories explore the extraordinary turning points in ordinary people’s lives in a stunning portrait of a small coastal community. As characters face second thoughts and regret, relationships irretrievably alter, resolves are made or broken, and lives change direction forever.

A story about friendship and loyalty, guilt and vengeance, and the fateful affect the past has on the present.

Young police officer Shane Cooper's first day on duty, after relocating to the small town of Red Hill, rapidly turns into a nightmare. News of a prison break, involving convicted murderer Jimmy Conway, sends the local law enforcement officers - led by the town's ruling presence, Old Bill - into a panic and leads to a terrifying and bloody confrontation.

The true story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare—one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and mystifying conflicts of WW I. It was secret struggle BENEATH the Western Front that combined daring engineering, technology and science. Few on the surface knew of the brave, claustrophobic and sometimes barbaric work of these tunnellers.

Dean Randall has sponsored a young Chinese orphan Mei Mei for many years, when she arrives in Sydney out of the blue to thank him, their lives are changed forever.

Dylan discovers he has a knack for making paper planes. He has a chance to compete in a world championship, but he'll have to help rally his grieving dad, Jack, and face bullies and self-doubt to do so.

An adventure-loving couple convince their friends to explore a remote, uncharted cave system in the forests of Northern Australia. With a tropical storm approaching, they abseil into the mouth of the cave, but when the caves start to flood, tensions rise as oxygen levels fall and the friends find themselves trapped. Unknown to them, the storm has also brought in a pack of dangerous and hungry crocodiles.

This pulse-racing real-life adventure follows two of Australia's greatest surf legends on their quest to hunt down and ride the Pacific's biggest and most dangerous waves. With 3D cameras installed on their boards, Ross Clarke-Jones and Tom Carroll defy middle age by pushing the limits of what they — and cinema technology — can do. (TIFF)

After breaking up with his girlfriend, Josh comes to the realization that he is homosexual. With the support of his now ex girlfriend Claire, and his best friend and house mate Tom, Josh must help his mother with her battle with depression and the rest of his family embrace his new found lifestyle.

When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.

American high school sweethearts, Wade and Lisa, travel to Australia to experience nature at its finest. As their relationship strains, they head inland to Uluru, navigating remote dirt roads with an unreliable GPS. Soon, they find themselves stranded and ill- prepared and, with only each other to rely on, the two are driven to extremes in order to stay alive in the harsh and unforgiving Outback.

A small group of town residents have to band together after a devastating ground invasion. As they struggle to survive, they realize they must stay one step ahead of their attackers, and work together for a chance to strike back.

When young urbanites Ian and Sam decide to go camping, they arrive at their isolated destination to discover another tent already set up, but no sign of its owners. With the other campers at large, Ian and Sam's discovery of a child wandering alone sets off a terrifying chain of events that will push them to their limits – and beyond.