197 Films & TV Shows Set In Oceania During The 20th Century
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Boy
🇳🇿 New Zealand The 1980sSummer, Girls, Gangs, Drugs ... its not easy being eleven. — It's 1984, and Michael Jackson is king - even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy's father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version-an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before.
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Beneath Hill 60
🇧🇪 Belgium Queensland The 1910sAfter Gallipoli there was still a war to be won. — The true story of Australia's cat-and-mouse underground mine warfare—one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and mystifying conflicts of WW I. It was secret struggle BENEATH the Western Front that combined daring engineering, technology and science. Few on the surface knew of the brave, claustrophobic and sometimes barbaric work of these tunnellers.
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A Turtle's Tale: Sammy's Adventures
🇲🇽 Mexico California 🇦🇶 Antarctica 🇳🇨 New Caledonia The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 1960s The 2000sHe's Turtly Amazing — A sea turtle who was hatched in 1959 spends the next 50 years traveling the world while it is being changed by global warming. Born on a Baja, California beach in 1959, new hatchling Sammy must do what his fellow newborn sea turtles are doing: race across the beach to the ocean before they are captured by a seagull or crab. Thus begins Sammy's incredible fifty-year ocean journey. Along the way he meets his best friend, a fellow turtle named Ray, and overcomes obstacles both natural and man-made while trying to fulfill his dream of travelling around the world. Throughout his voyage, Sammy never forgets about Shelly - the turtle he saved on his first day and loves passionately from afar. Based on the actual trajectory of a sea turtle's life, the film illustrates the dangers humans pose to the species' survival. The film combines entertainment with an important environmental message.
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Tracker
🇳🇿 New Zealand The 1900sNever Stop Running! — An ex-Boer war guerrilla in New Zealand is sent out to bring back a Maori accused of killing a British soldier. Gradually they grow to know and respect one another but a posse, led by the British Commanding officer is close behind and his sole intention is to see the Maori hang. Written by Filmfinders 1903. A guerilla fighter from the South African Boer war called Arjan (Winstone) takes on a manhunt for Maori seaman Kereama (Morrison), who is accused of murdering a British soldier. What follows is a cat and mouse pursuit through the varied landscape of NZ with both hunter and huntee testing their bushcraft and wits against that of the other. Written by Anonymous
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Predicament
🇳🇿 New Zealand The 1930sThree Misfits And A Murder — Naïve teenager Cedric Williamson, conspires with two misfits to photograph and blackmail adulterous couples. When the scam goes wrong they end up with blood on their hands.
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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?
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3 Acts of Murder
Western Australia The 1920sIn 1928 Arthur Upfield, Australia’s premier crime writer, plotted the perfect murder for his novel The Sands of Windee. Meanwhile, one of his friends, stockman Snowy Rowles, put the scheme into deadly effect, even before the book was published. This true story resulted in one of Australia’s most sensational murder trials of the 1930’s and catapulted Upfield’s name onto the world stage.
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Balibo
🇹🇱 Timor-Leste Northern Territory The 1970sOne Man Searches For The Truth. One Man Fights For Justice. — As Indonesia prepares to invade the tiny nation of East Timor, five Australian based journalists go missing. Four weeks later, veteran foreign correspondent Roger East is lured to East Timor by the young and charismatic José Ramos-Horta to tell the story of his country and investigate the fate of the missing men. As East's determination to uncover the truth grows, the threat of invasion intensifie
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Bran Nue Dae
Western Australia The 1960sGoing home never felt so good. — In the Summer of 1965 a young man is filled with the life of the idyllic old pearling port Broome - fishing, hanging out with his mates and his girl. However his mother returns him to the religious mission for further schooling. After being punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away from the mission on a journey that ultimately leads him back home.
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Contact
Western Australia The 1960s The 2000sIn 1964, Yuwali was 17 when her first contact with white men was filmed. Her group of twenty women and children were the last aboriginal mob living traditionally, without any knowledge of modern Australia, in the Great Sandy Desert. Now 62 she tells the story behind this extraordinary footage.
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Australia
Northern Territory The 1940s The 1930sWelcome to Australia! — Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.
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The Black Balloon
New South Wales The 1990sSometimes it's hard to be the odd one in. — Thomas is turning 16. His dad's in the army and they've just moved to a town in New South Wales; his mom is pregnant; his older brother, Charlie, who's autistic, has his own adolescent sexual issues. Thomas finds Charlie an embarrassment in public, so when Thomas is attracted to Jackie, a girl in his swim class, Charlie presents any number of obstacles when she drops by their house, when the three of them go for a walk, and during a family birthday dinner. Can Thomas find a way to enter the world of teen romance and still be his brother's keeper, or is Charlie's disability going to prove more than Thomas can handle?
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Frost/Nixon
California District of Columbia New South Wales The 1970s The 1960s The 1930s The 1920s400 million people were waiting for the truth. — For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost's team harboured doubts about their boss's ability to hold his own. But as the cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted.
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The Tender Hook
Queensland New South Wales The 1920sThe story is about Iris' rise to the apex of a love/power triangle that includes her roguish English lover, McHeath and Art, an earnest young boxer. Within the flawed moral landscape, each character struggles to establish their sovereignty.
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December Boys
South Australia The 1960s The 2000sAfter that summer nothing would be the same. — For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.
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Romulus, My Father
Victoria The 1960sThe story of Romulus, his beautiful wife, Christina, and their struggle in the face of great adversity to bring up their son, Raimond. It is a story of impossible love that ultimately celebrates the unbreakable bond between father and son.
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Lucky Miles
Western Australia The 1990sIt's 1990 and an Indonesian fishing boat abandons Iraqi and Cambodian refugees in a remote part of the Western Australia. Although most are quickly caught by officials, three men with nothing in common but their misfortune and determination to escape arrest, begin an epic journey into the heart of Australia.
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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.
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Curtin
Western Australia Australian Capital Territory The 1940sHe stood up in wartime and paid the price — 1941. A country in crisis. A new man in power. Leadership demands and personal demons are set to collide. The story of John Curtin as he faces his first six months as Prime Minister, confronting in quick succession, the tragedy of Pearl Harbour, the fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin and a furious battle with Churchill over the deployment of Australian troops. This is a raw and intimate story of a driven and inspirational leader - a man who struggles to battle his own personal demons while serving and protecting a country at war.
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Eight Below
British Columbia 🇳🇴 Norway 🇬🇱 Greenland 🇳🇿 New Zealand 🇦🇶 Antarctica The 1990sThe Most Amazing Story Of Survival, Friendship, And Adventure Ever Told. — In the Antarctic, after an expedition with Dr. Davis McClaren, the sled dog trainer Jerry Shepherd has to leave the polar base with his colleagues due to the proximity of a heavy snow storm. He ties his dogs to be rescued after, but the mission is called-off and the dogs are left alone at their own fortune. For six months, Jerry tries to find a sponsor for a rescue mission.
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Kokoda
🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea The 1940sA bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II.
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Children of Glory
🇭🇺 Hungary Victoria The 1950sChildren of Glory will commemorate Hungary's heroic Revolution of 1956, and takes place in Budapest and at the Melbourne Olympic Games in October and November of that year. While Soviet tanks were destroying Hungary, the Hungarian water polo team was winning over the Soviets in the Olympic pool in Melbourne, in what has been described as the bloodiest water polo match in history.
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Freedom's Fury
Victoria The 1950sA documentary on the 1956 Olympic semifinal water polo match between Hungary and Russia. Held in Australia, the match occurred as Russian forces were in Budapest, stomping out a popular revolt.
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Wolf Creek
Western Australia The 1990sThe thrill is in the hunt. — Stranded backpackers in remote Australia fall prey to a murderous bushman, who offers to fix their car, then takes them captive.
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The World's Fastest Indian
Utah California 🇳🇿 New Zealand The 1960sThe life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.
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