Thousands of votes have been cast, and more than 300 Australian features – fiction and documentary – have been named as audience favourites in Adelaide Film Festival’s global poll for the top three Australian films of all time. The films range from quotable Australian comedies like The Castle (1997) and Ali’s Wedding (2017), films that tell the story of our history like Sweet Country (2017) and Gallipoli (1981), as well a host of works filmed in Adelaide, like The Babadook (2014) and Bad Boy Bubby (1993). See the list of films named so far.
The oldest film on the list is Thunderbolt, a 1910 film about the bushrangers that used to roam the Australian outback. And it’s not the only film from that decade to receive a mention: Home Of The Blizzard (1913) and The Sentimental Bloke (1919) join it.
There are only two weeks left to vote, so have your say in helping curate the program for the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival now. Special screenings of your top-voted films will feature in the October event.
The #YOUMUSTSEE campaign calls on audiences to celebrate, honour and acknowledge their favourite Australian screen stories and supports the current #MakeitAustralian campaign which throws the light on building a sustainable national screen industry.
“It is exciting and frankly somewhat staggering to see the number and diversity of Australian films that audiences feel are the must see films of all time,” said Amanda Duthie, CEO and Artistic Director of the Adelaide Film Festival.
“They are drawn from all the decades since Australia produced the world’s first feature film in 1906 and represent more than 300 stories of our national identity, of the people and places that have shaped Australia’s view of itself. We have been overwhelmed by the response.”
Voting closes Monday, 30 July.