Australian films about emperors and empresses

An innocent discovery of a well-preserved mummified Emperor from 200 BC China unearths a 2000 year old nightmare - a secret that should have remained buried.

Blinky Bill is a little koala with a big imagination. An adventurer at heart, he dreams of leaving the little town of Green Patch and following in his missing father’s footsteps. When Blinky discovers a mysterious marker that hints at his Dad’s whereabouts, he embarks on a journey that takes him beyond the boundary of Green Patch and into the wild and dangerous Outback.

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.

When a high school party goes dangerously off the rails, one teenager finds that revenge is just a computer click away.

Young, charismatic, and hardworking, Sparra Farrell seems to be sailing into a happy, respectable life. He has a solid job and an adorable fiancée named Paula, and already owns a modest house in the country outside Melbourne. The only odd thing is that Sparra says precious little about his past — but that past is about to catch up with him, and wrest control of his present.

The story of Helen Reddy, who, in 1966, landed in New York with her three-year-old daughter, a suitcase, and $230 in her pocket. Within weeks, she was broke. Within months, she was in love. Within five years, she was one of the biggest superstars of her time and an icon of the 1970s feminist movement who wrote a song which galvanized a generation of women to fight for change.

Prostitute. Hooker. Sex Worker. Whore. Candid and seductive, Angie is determined to set the record straight about sex. As she reveals herself, layer-by-layer, she also exposes the man who is interviewing her. Sometimes provocative and confronting, sometimes tender, poignant and sexy, Black & White & Sex takes you behind the scenes and into Angies very special world. There's a question here for every man and an answer for every woman. Anyone who pays is welcome - but leave your expectations at the door sex is never black and white. Written by Angie Winter

Accompanied only by her faithful dog and four camels, an Australian satisfies her craving for solitude by embarking on a solo trip across the desert from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean.

Holly Rowe's retiring, kissing her callgirl life goodbye. She just has to get through her last night on the job. Shay Ryan's a teenage runaway, broke and alone. She just has to get through her first night as a hooker. Then fate throws them together on a job that goes horribly wrong and they're trapped on an out-of-control roller coaster ride, through the twilight zone of sex-for-sale. X is a sizzling adults-only thriller about love, chance, escape and the oldest profession experienced by two women, on a night that will change their lives forever.

Mike has felt alienated and alone for as long as he can remember, until a new boy arrives at his school - awakening feelings and a world of possibilities he'd never before dared to dream of.

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.

Jack Irish is a man getting his life back together again. A former criminal lawyer whose world imploded, he now spends his days as a part-time investigator, debt collector, apprentice cabinet maker, punter and sometime lover – the complete man really. An expert in finding those who don’t want to be found – dead or alive, Jack helps out his mates while avoiding the past. That is until the past finds him.

Dr Lucien Blake left Ballarat as a young man. But now he finds himself returning to take over not only his dead father's medical practice, but also his on-call role as the town's police surgeon, only to find change is afoot, nothing is sacred, and no one is safe.

In 1983, a naive man is detained by Australian Federal Police with lethal narcotics hidden in his stomach. After being apprehended, ‘The Mule’ makes a desperate choice... to defy his bodily functions and withhold the evidence – literally.

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.

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.

Explores the early events leading up to Red Dog's discovery on the road to Dampier, and his ultimate rise from ordinary dog to Australian legend.

In the 70s two brothers battle killer waves, conservative society and ruthless bikers to kick-start the modern surf industry.

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.

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.

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.

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

An indigenous detective returns to the Outback to investigate the murder of a young girl.

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.

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

A mostly true account of future Hollywood star Errol Flynn's sea adventures in the early thirties, sailing from Australia to Papua in search of gold, along with his best friend Rex, a former Canadian smuggler; Dook, a handy English gentleman; and Charlie, a grumpy old sailor.

Based on true events, 16 year-old Jamie falls in with his mother's new boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, a relationship that leads to a spree of torture and murder.

Lured by the promise of an Australian holiday, backpackers Rutger, Katarina, and Paul visit the notorious Wolf Creek Crater. Their dream Outback adventure soon becomes a horrific reality when they encounter the site’s most infamous local, the last man any traveler to the region ever wants to meet; Mick Taylor (John Jarratt). As the backpackers flee, Mick pursues them on an epic white knuckled rampage across hostile wasteland. Only one will remain to be dragged back to his lair to witness the true magnitude of his monstrosity. And if the last man standing is to have any hope of surviving where no one else has survived before, he’ll have to use every ounce of cunning to outwit the man behind the monster and become every bit as ruthless as the monster inside the man.

Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.

While on a seemingly routine job, a jaded hit man discovers that he's not the only one with his target in the crosshairs.

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.

Mumbai, India, November 26, 2008. While several terrorists spread hatred and death through the city, others attack the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Both hotel staff and guests risk their lives, making unthinkable sacrifices to protect themselves and keep everyone safe while help arrives.

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.

Anja and five friends join anthroplogy student, Dace, on a journey to study a remote, ancient rock painting. Their excitement vanishes when Mel becomes delirious after skinny-dipping in the waterhole. Feverish, bleeding, confused, she physically and mentally regresses to a vicious predatory state. Mel has gone primal. Mel’s lover and friends realise they are the prey as she savagely hunts them down. Before they can escape another one of them starts to regress, posing a hideous choice; kill their friends or be killed by them. Their only hope of survival is through a cave, where Anja learns too late the meaning of the ancient rock art they came to study.

Jack is a charismatic larrikin who has just discovered the one thing he's really good at — go-kart racing. With the support of his mentor, Patrick, an old race car driver with a secret past, and his best mates Colin and Mandy, Jack must learn to control his recklessness if he is to defeat the best drivers in Australia, including the ruthless champion Dean, and win the National title.

A boy finds a strange creature on a beach, and decides to find a home for it in a world where everyone believes there are far more important things to pay attention to.

Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound - the unsolved death of a teenage girl.

In 2007, in the midst of the drought and water shortages, the NSW State government has unveiled plans to tap into and recycle millions of litres of water trapped in a network of abandoned train tunnels just beneath the heart of Sydney. However the government suddenly goes cold on the plan and it is not made public why. There is talk of homeless people who use the tunnel as shelter going missing, even though the government states that there are no homeless people in there. This, and the silence from the officials and ministers, leads a journalist, Natasha to begin an investigation into a government cover-up. She and her crew Pete (Producer), Steve (Cameraman) and Tangles (Sound Technichian) decide to investigate the story in the tunnel.

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

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)

A woman grieving over the death of her daughter loses grip of reality when she begins to think her girl may still be alive.

In 1919, Australian farmer Joshua Connor travels to Turkey to discover the fate of his three sons, reported missing in action. Holding on to hope, Joshua must travel across the war-torn landscape to find the truth and his own peace.

In the Australian Outback, two brothers discover old secrets and family lies. As their friends start to go missing they fear they are being stalked by someone or something from their worst nightmares - But is it just - A story? A legend? A hoax? Or is it real?

The series follows two complete strangers, Lola and Chelsea, who intervene in a fatal carjacking while waiting at a suburban bus stop, and are subsequently thrust into a chase from authorities across Australia with a vehicle filled with cash. The strangers must rely solely on each other while they are on the run.

This dramatic adventure series tells the story of a group of teenagers who are separated from their families following an invasion of their country, a conflict they never saw coming.

Sixteen-year-old Billie’s reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for gender transition, and their time together becomes limited to Tuesdays. This emotionally charged story of desire, responsibility, and transformation was filmed over the course of a year—once a week, every week, only on Tuesdays.

On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.

Everything seems uneventful for Dean and Claire, as they head out into beautiful rural Australia for a weekend away. Their biggest problem is what to do about Claire being accepted into an interstate University. The couple come across Knuck and things start to spiral out of control. Heath and Jarred only stoke the fire and both Claire and Dean's greatest fears are made reality.

Reg and Lindsay run an organic fertiliser business. They need a fresh supply of their "secret ingredient" to process through the meat grinder. Reg comes across two guys and a girl with a broken-down vehicle on their way to a music festival.

A mysterious woman is perched between the harsh legacy of World War II and the hope of a new life in Australia. A sweeping romantic drama set in 1950s rural Australia following the lives of the Blighs, a wealthy and complicated pastoralist family, who lives in Inverness, NSW.