21 Films & TV Shows Set In Australia During The 1980s
-
The Dirt
California Washington New South Wales The 1980s The 1990s The 1970s The 1960sTheir Music Made Them Famous, Their Lives Made Them Infamous — The story of Mötley Crüe and their rise from the Sunset Strip club scene of the early 1980s to superstardom.
-
Now You See Me 2
🇨🇳 China England New York New Jersey 🇲🇴 Macao Tokyo Prefecture New South Wales The 2010s The 1980sYou haven't seen anything yet. — One year after outwitting the FBI and winning the public’s adulation with their mind-bending spectacles, the Four Horsemen resurface only to find themselves face to face with a new enemy who enlists them to pull off their most dangerous heist yet.
-
Lion
🇮🇳 India Victoria Tasmania The 1980s The 2000s The 2010sThe search begins — 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.
-
Holding the Man
Victoria The 1970s The 1980s The 1990sA love story for everyone — Tim and John fell in love while teenagers at their all-boys high school. John was captain of the rugby team, Tim an aspiring actor playing a minor part in Romeo and Juliet. Their romance endured for 15 years in the face of everything life threw at it - the separations, the discrimination, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses - until the only problem that love can't solve tried to destroy them.
-
The Mule
🇹🇭 Thailand Victoria The 1980sIt's what's inside that counts. — 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.
-
The Great Mint Swindle
Western Australia The 1980sIt's the beginning of the 1980s boom in Western Australia. Larrikin brothers Ray, Brian and Peter Mickelberg spend their days abalone fishing...
-
Mabo
Queensland The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 1960s The 1950sThe true story of one man's epic fight to change a nation. — Mabo tells the story of one of Australia's national heroes - Eddie Koiki Mabo, the Torres Strait Islander who left school at age 15, yet spearheaded the High Court challenge that overthrew the fiction of terra nullius.
-
Killer Elite
🇲🇽 Mexico England 🇫🇷 France 🇴🇲 Oman 🇦🇺 Australia The 1980sMay the best man live. — Based on a shocking true story, Killer Elite pits two of the world’s most elite operatives—Danny, an ex-special ops agent and Hunter, his longtime mentor—against the cunning leader of a secret military society. Covering the globe from Australia to Paris, London and the Middle East, Danny and Hunter are plunged into a highly dangerous game of cat and mouse—where the predators become the prey.
-
Mary and Max
New York Victoria The 1970s The 1980s The 1990sSometimes perfect strangers make the best friends. — A tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary, a lonely, eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely obese man living in New York. In the mid-1970s, a homely, friendless Australian girl of 8 picks a name out of a Manhattan phone book and writes to him; she includes a chocolate bar. He writes back, with chocolate. Thus begins a 20-year correspondence. Will the two ever meet face to face?
-
The Final Winter
🇦🇺 Australia The 1980sa drama with balls that's unafraid to show heart and soul — Rugby league is arguably the toughest form of football on the planet played by men that play the game hard & lived even harder. Set in Sydney in the 1980s the movie is a drama about the effects upon the players, supporters and the game itself as the sport grows from being the semi-pro suburban game it's been for nearly 100 years into a fully professional international sport. Superbly written and acted by Matt Nable, a former football player along with other former players mixed in with some internationally recognised actors, the story is a realistic snapshot into the lives of people for whom the game is a weekend escape from their otherwise ordinary lives. That's all about to change as big business realises the potential the game holds leaving those clinging to the old ways in their wake.
-
Kangaroo Jack
New York South Australia Northern Territory The 1980s The 2000sHe Stole The Money... And He's Not Giving It Back. — Two childhood friends — a New York hairstylist and a wanna-be musician — get mixed-up with the mob and are forced to deliver $50,000 to Australia, but things go all wrong when the money is lost to a wild kangaroo.
-
Chopper
Victoria The 1980s The 1990sNever let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. — The true and infamous story of Australia's notorious criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read and his years of crime, interest in violence, drugs and prositutes.
-
Shine
England Western Australia The 1970s The 1980s The 1960s The 1950sA true story of the mystery of music and the miracle of love — 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.
-
Crocodile Dundee II
Northern Territory New York 🇨🇴 Colombia The 1980sThe world's favourite adventurer is back for more! much more! — Australian outback expert protects his New York love from gangsters who've followed her down under.
-
Evil Angels
Northern Territory The 1980sA family torn apart. A public filled with outrage. A woman accused of murder. — Based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain who, during a family camping trip to Ayers Rock in central Australia, claimed she witnessed a dingo take her baby daughter, Azaria, from their tent. Azaria's body was never found and, after investigations and two public inquests, she is charged with murder.
-
Australian Made: The Movie
🇦🇺 Australia The 1980sAustralian Made: The Movie is a 1987 live concert film of the Australian Made tour from December 1986 to January 1987. The tour featured internationally performing Australian acts, INXS, Divinyls, Models, The Triffids, The Saints, I'm Talking, and Jimmy Barnes. Concert segments were linked by Troy Davies interviewing audience members and musicians.
-
Crocodile Dundee
Northern Territory New York The 1980sThere's a little of him in all of us. — When a New York reporter plucks crocodile hunter Dundee from the Australian Outback for a visit to the Big Apple, it's a clash of cultures and a recipe for good-natured comedy as naïve Dundee negotiates the concrete jungle. Dundee proves that his instincts are quite useful in the city and adeptly handles everything from wily muggers to high-society snoots without breaking a sweat.
-
Playing Beatie Bow
New South Wales The 1980s The 1870sAbigail Kirk was an ordinary enough sixteen year old growing up in todays Sydney. An intriguing chain of events finds Abigail, through some eerie time shift, transported back one hundred years after watching some children playing a scary game called Beatie Bow.
-
The Slim Dusty Movie
Queensland Northern Territory New South Wales The 1980sJimmy Sharman Sr was a legend in Australia. He took his travelling show and boxing tent around Australia and young blokes all over Australia would try to take on his people. It was a nice touch to include Jim Sr in The Slim Dusty Movie, a film that doesn't just showcase Slim Dusty's travelling shows, but gives an authentic look at country Australia.
-
Hostage
🇩🇪 Germany New South Wales The 1980sA living nightmare — Set in 1980's Australia, this is the true story of a woman whose husband eventually reveals to her that he is an active member of the Nazi party. A real nightmare begins for her.
-
Mad Max
🇦🇺 Australia The 1980sThe Maximum Force Of The Future. — In a dystopian world, a vengeful Australian policeman named Max sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang.
