Författare: Ari Mattes Lecturer in Communications and Media University o

Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the production budget to let people know about a film. But this is usually not the case with the local industry.

Frequently, Australian films will do well enough on the festival circuit to be picked up by a theatrical distributor who spends virtually nothing on marketing – and then pulls the film when it doesn’t prove to be the next Muriel’s Wedding.

This is painfully in the back of my mind as I try to compile a list of my top five Australian films of 2024. Top five? Did I even see five? It turns out I did. Did I miss many? A few, because they never crossed my radar – no posters, no advertising, no social media presence.

Out of the, let’s say ten, Australian films I did manage to see in 2024, this is my top five (which isn’t to say they are, necessarily, five films that I would recommend).

1. Late Night with the Devil

Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is a solid genre film.

The narrative frames the film as found footage. We watch an episode of a late night talk show from Halloween 1977, in which a supposedly possessed girl becomes the centre of the show, unleashing (or not?) various demonic events.

David Dastmalchian is commandingly goofy in the lead as ratings-hungry host Jack Delroy, and the supporting cast provide some nice character touches.

The production design is first rate, with everything we love about 1970s horror cinema – and television culture – recreated in vivid strokes.

Starved of unpretentious and non-didactic cinema, one is tempted to declaim the brilliance of this enjoyable romp. But, at the end of the day – and despite Stephen King’s comment it’s “absolutely brilliant” – it’s just a good horror film, sure to please fans of well-made cinema with a retro bent.

2. Christmess

Though released at select cinemas at the end of 2023, I’m including the well-made (and low budget) Christmess on the list, as it secured a mainstream release in 2024.

The film follows a trio of recovering addicts in a halfway house during the holiday period, centred around once-famous actor Chris (beautifully played by Steve Le Marquand) as he successfully – and unsuccessfully – deals with his demons.

Christmess is sentimental without being overly schmaltzy, the characters are rendered with nuance while still containing a recognisably mythical dimension, and it feels hopeful while still making sense.

Writer-director-producer Heath Davis does exactly what is needed for a low budget film. It is economically but effectively shot in the Sydney suburbs, the writing is razor sharp, and the performances are (mostly) excellent. Films like Christmess give hope independent Australian cinema has life yet.

3. Force of Nature: The Dry 2

Now we’re getting into trickier territory for a top five list. Force of Nature is the sequel to The Dry from 2020, and treads similar ground, with Eric Bana returning as federal police detective Aaron Falk.

This time it’s a mystery surrounding a hiking trip and a disappearing informant.

As with the first film, Force of Nature is an engaging genre film with some arresting moments and effectively handled elements (the cinematography, music, performances are all fine). But it’s also totally forgettable and uninspired, pale in comparison to some of the great variations on the cop-mystery theme of the past.

4. Birdeater

Popular at SXSW, Birdeater makes the list by virtue of its style alone.

What begins as an intriguing look at the horrors of group dynamics when a bunch of youngsters leave the city for a buck’s party quickly fizzles into nothing, the early gestures towards Ted Kotcheff’s masterful Wake in Fright proving little more than hot air.

But it looks and sounds amazing, one of the most stunningly shot Australian films I’ve seen – actually warranting that haphazardly thrown about adjective “cinematic” – and is worth watching for this dimension alone.

5. The Moogai

Some may think writer-director Jon Bell’s The Moogai is an impressive horror film, cleverly integrating a critique of Australian colonisation into a possession story about motherhood and the anxieties of the parent-child relationship.

I found its treatment of a potentially engaging story humdrum and forgettable, the critique of colonisation obvious and uninteresting, and the performances strained.

Unlike Jennifer Kent’s excellent The Babadook, which anchors its allegorical dissection of parenthood to specific and weird horrific moments, The Moogai depends too much on the abstract, on the viewer’s knowledge of events and the world outside the film, and suffers as a work of art for this.

The best of the rest (perhaps)

Before you attack my evident myopia, there were a handful of Australian films released in 2024 I haven’t seen and that look like they might be worthwhile. Don’t blame me, blame the marketers!

Sting, directed by Aussie genre maestro Kiah Roache-Turner, looks like a rousingly trashy monster film (there hasn’t been a good giant spider film for years).

The Rooster, written and directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter, looks like a potentially solid character mystery (and has received great reviews).

In the Room Where He Waits – which looks like a disturbing Repulsion-like thriller about a queer actor losing his marbles in a hotel room – has also received excellent reviews.

And this isn’t to discount the potential mirth of a film like Runt, a sweet-looking kids’ film about a ten-year-old girl and her friendship with a dog.

The biggest Australian film of the year was George Miller’s latest Mad Max endeavour, Furiosa. While some swear by Fury Road, as a long-time fan of the Mad Max films I found it shrill and incomprehensible, a senseless assault on the viewer with little payoff and no dynamism. Well, Furiosa is this, but a little worse.

How can Screen Australia ensure 2025 (well, 2026 now) has a more robust offering of Australian films? Less money invested in American productions, more on Australian films with lower budgets – and more spent on marketing! Läs mer…

Christmas films appear in many guises. There is the witty (Christmas in Connecticut, Scrooged). The comedic (It Happened on 5th Avenue, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation). The wonderfully sentimental (The Shop Around the Corner, Miracle on 34th Street).

There are the canonical ones everyone’s seen at least once (It’s a Wonderful Life, The Muppet Christmas Carol) and whacky masterpieces (A Christmas Story, the Hulk Hogan-starring Santa with Muscles). Not to mention all the Hallmark Christmas films and, now, all those made for streaming (usually of the “so bad it’s good” variety).

But about those who are sick of all the tinsel and baubles? What can they watch to kibosh the kitsch while still feeling part of Christmas?

They need the Christmas-adjacent film: films set during Christmas, that aren’t really about Christmas.

For those who like action

If you feel like watching an action thriller, the obvious is Die Hard (1988), even though Christmas is so deeply integrated into the structure and story of the film it’s hard to argue it isn’t a Christmas film.

Richard Donner’s masterpiece Lethal Weapon (1987) opens with a dazzling sequence in which Jingle Bell Rock accompanies a helicopter shot over Los Angeles before a young woman jumps from a building in a drug-induced stupor. Our introduction to Martin Riggs, Mel Gibson’s quintessential mad dog detective, takes place during a drug deal in a Christmas tree lot.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) – like Lethal Weapon, written by Shane Black – is set during Christmas and ends in a dazzling explosive sequence at Niagara Falls on New Year’s Eve. The holiday underpins the narrative of amnesiac Martha Stewart-like suburban mum Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) as her past comes back to haunt her. She realises she’s actually an assassin who worked for the CIA, and now must protect her family.

For fans of grimmer action fare, Christmas decorations abound in the background of George P. Cosmatos’ Cobra (1986). Eccentric lone wolf Marion Cobretti (Sylvester Stallone) almost single-handedly battles a gang of axe-wielding serial killers, while protecting witness/model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen).

I can guarantee Penguin biting off someone’s nose doesn’t happen in any Christmas film other than Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992). This is the best of the two Burton Batmans – maybe the best Batman film, period – in its bleak, nihilistic combination of grotesque humour and violence.

For something darker

Paul Verhoeven’s brilliant psycho-drama Elle (2016) stars Isabelle Huppert in the role of her career as a sexual assault victim who turns the screw on her assailant. Much of the film takes place over Christmas.

In Thomas Vinterberg’s Danish stunner The Hunt (2012), kindergarten teacher Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is hounded by his small community when he is accused of abuse by five-year-old Klara (Annika Wedderkopp). Though the film takes place across a year, many of its key dramatic moments occur around Christmas, including an intense confrontation in a church on Christmas Eve.

Note the creepy effects of Christmas lights around some of the scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s monumental Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – although orgies are not usual features in Christmas films.

For something lighter

Key moments in John Landis’ irreverent Trading Places (1983) occur over Christmas. It’s hard to forget the image of Dan Aykroyd in a filthy Santa suit hiding food in his beard.

In Ted Demme’s smarmy but stylish The Ref (1994), a burglar finds himself virtual marriage counsellor to a savagely bickering husband and wife (brilliantly played by Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey) when he takes them hostage on Christmas Eve.

In a similar vein, Harold Ramis’ black crime comedy The Ice Harvest (2005), though uneven, has some memorable moments, as mob lawyer Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) steals money from his boss on Christmas Eve.

For some horror

There are too many amazing Christmas horror films to mention (including some solid Australian ones like 2016’s Better Watch Out), but the following serve as a good introduction to this much-maligned subgenre.

Bob Clark – the Canadian auteur behind the crowd-pleaser A Christmas Story (1983) – made the Christmas horror masterpiece in the much-imitated (and twice remade) but never-bettered Black Christmas (1974).

The story is not particularly original (though you’ll never forget the ending). Set across a day or so in a sorority house, we follow various characters as they receive obscene phone calls and are then knocked off one by one. But the set-pieces are so brilliantly handled – unnerving, beautifully composed, and savage without an overemphasis on gore – and the sound design and score by Carl Zittrer so striking, with a cloud of sublime weirdness permeating the whole thing, it should make lists of top films of all time.

The other stand-out Christmas horror film was one of the controversial ones of the 1980s; “Banned in Queensland” was plastered like a banner of pride across the VHS cover. Yet Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), in which an axe-wielding Santa terrorises a community, is surprisingly tender in its study of the effects of trauma on children.

It is, of course, superbly hokey at the same time and pretty grisly, but anchored by a genuine warmth and touching performances.

Silent Night, Bloody Night (yes, a different film, this one from 1972) is an eerie slasher film featuring a (relatively) star-studded cast, involving a group of murders after a city lawyer inherits a small town home that used to be an insane asylum.

In Christmas Evil (1980), a rather deranged man decides to play Santa by keeping a “naughty and nice” list of the children in his neighbourhood. He delivers toys where they are unwanted and punishes people when it’s not exactly warranted. It is a hoot – a horror film that’s borderline comedy, featuring one of the best endings in the history of American film.

Is this enough Christmas-adjacent popcorn to keep even the most cynical of us stuffed until the big day itself? Läs mer…