Australian films about the Second World War

Near the end of World War II, the survivors of a torpedoed hospital ship cling to life aboard a crowded lifeboat. With no food, water, or shelter, all seems lost – until an eerily silent German minesweeper drifts ominously towards them, giving them one last chance at survival. As our motley crew explores the ship, it becomes all too clear that some diabolical fate has befallen its German crew. The mystery only deepens when they encounter a young Romanian girl, apparently the sole survivor, who leads them to a locked room in the bowels of the vessel.

After NASA picks up a trio of mysterious signals from within our own solar system, astronaut Roger Nelson is dispatched on a multi-year solo mission aboard the Magellan spacecraft to investigate the sources.

Palestine, 1917. The British advance has been stopped by the Turkish line running from Gaza to Beersheba. The latest attack on Gaza has failed. The attacking forces included a regiment of Australian mounted infantry, the Light Horse... Lighthorseman Frank is wounded in a skirmish with Bedouin. He is replaced by a young soldier, Dave, who proves to be a crack shot, but reluctant to fire at the enemy. Dave proves himself during a German biplane attack. Recuperating in hospital, he meets a sympathetic nurse, Anne... The regiment is called upon for a bold flanking attack on Beersheba. But how do you convince the Turks the main attack will come at Gaza? And how do you attack across a desert without water?

In 1943, five US soldiers are recruited by the OSS for a time travel mission to save the world from the tyranny of Hitler's 25th Reich.

A victim from World War II's "Death Railway" sets out to find those responsible for his torture. A true story.

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.

A freak tsunami traps shoppers at a coastal Australian supermarket inside the building ... along with a 12-foot great white shark.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes

PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.

Travel plans for three men in ill-fitting wedding tuxedos goes horribly wrong.

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

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.

A remake of 'Reservoir Dogs' by Quentin Tarantino, with the noticeable difference that all the male characters have been replaced with female ones.

In 1825, Claire, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

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.

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

An Australian urban legend comes screaming on the Ozploitation scene. It’s said that if you drive down the creepy road of Lemon Tree Passage, and witness a sudden flash of light in the trees, you'll be forever haunted by the tormented spirit of a man killed by thrill speeding teenagers. Wanting to put this old wives’ tale to the test, a car-load of non-believers take the supposedly cursed journey and do indeed see a strange manifestation. But it’s not the one of popular myth - this sudden possession of one of their number involves another altogether more shocking crime. That of a young girl raped and murdered on the same stretch of highway. As one urban legend trumps another, the scared passengers must sort out the facts of both cases before vengeful justice from beyond the grave can be meted out with moody atmosphere, ghostly thrills and supernatural suspense.

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.

A heartbroken young man decides to walk 4000km up the coast of Western Australia naked, for charity, with the secret goal of making his ex-girlfriend jealous.

Fourteen year old Nim, more determined than ever to protect her island and all the wildlife that call it home, faces off against resort developers and animal poachers. Soon she realizes she can’t depend on her animal cohorts alone and must make her first human friend – Edmund, who’s run away to the island from the mainland – to save her home.

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.

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

Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers & experimented on by a psychotic doctor. While Brooke plans her escape Barry goes out on the road to find her & teams up with Benny, a fellow survivor - together they must arm themselves and prepare to battle their way through hordes of flesh-eating monsters in a harsh Australian bushland.

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.

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

Lore leads her four younger siblings across a war-torn Germany in 1945. Amidst the chaos she encounters a mysterious refugee who shatters her fragile reality with hatred and desire.

Born with an energetic power to absorb fear from others, a young woman must find love to balance the fears of her own and fight an ever growing storm of negative energy.

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.

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.

A widowed reporter recruits the help of a federal agent to investigate her late husband's secrets, but the two become the target of unknown attackers. When FBI Agent John Nelson’s key informant, Miles, is abducted and shot, all that’s left is a severed finger. In order to find a new lead, Nelson travels to New York City to inform widowed magazine reporter Rebecca Scott that her long dead husband, Miles, had only recently been murdered to see if she had heard from him in recent years. Perplexed, Scott joins Agent Nelson in the wealthy enclave of Australia’s Gold Coast to find out what really happened. The two soon discover Miles may have been part of an elaborate “Ponzi scheme” to bilk investors, and a vengeful billionaire, out of millions of dollars. As more layers of Miles’ secret life are exposed, can the two stay ahead of the mysterious attackers who will stop at nothing to halt their investigation?

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.

Ellie Linton, a teen from an Australian coastal town, leads her friends on an excursion to a camp deep in the woods, dubbed "Hell." Upon their return, the youths find that their town has been overrun by an enemy army, and their friends and family have been imprisoned. When the hostile invaders become alerted to their presence, Ellie and her friends band together to escape -- and strike back against -- this mysterious enemy.

A group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women creates a vocal orchestra while being imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp on Sumatra during World War II.

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.

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.

To escape the outback, a young Afghan cameleer falls in with a mysterious bushman on the run with stolen Crown gold.

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.

In this cunning mystery-horror hybrid, college student Ben inherits a curious old mechanical box that churns out voodoo dolls. When a shadowy figure starts using the box to murder Ben's friends, Ben must find the killer.

Our lady sleuth sashays through the back lanes and jazz clubs of late 1920’s Melbourne, fighting injustice with her pearl handled pistol and her dagger sharp wit. Leaving a trail of admirers in her wake, our thoroughly modern heroine makes sure she enjoys every moment of her lucky life. Based on author Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery novels.

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.

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.

Adapted from the bestselling novel by Madeleine St John, Ladies in Black is an alluring and tender-hearted comedy drama about the lives of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney.