Rose Byrne’s favourite Australian movies: “So haunting and stunning”
Rose Byrne might be known best for her roles in American comedies like Bridesmaids and horrors like Insidious, but if you’ve seen enough of her movies, you might notice she’s actually Australian.
Unshockingly, this means she got her start in Australian cinema.
While Australian cinema hasn’t always gotten the attention it deserves, the country has produced some of the most influential films of all time. The most famous of these is undoubtedly Mad Max, which was so successful that it is credited with opening the global market to Australian New Wave cinema.
It also birthed a whole new genre called Ozpolitation, Australia’s answer to the controversial, violent flicks of 1970s America. This, along with other world-famous, commercial hits like Crocodile Dundee and Moulin Rouge! put the country on the film map.
While it’s not exactly Hollywood, the Australian film industry still has a unique landscape with films that would make many people’s top 10 lists, and Byrne makes her top picks from that landscape while speaking to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, starting off with her memories of the classics.
“The Year My Voice Broke was a profound movie I remember seeing at a really young age. And, you know, having a profound crush on Ben Mendelsohn,” she recounted. Considered one of the best Australian coming-of-age films of all time, The Year My Voice Broke was a small independent film that ended up winning five AFI awards and got picked up for theatrical distribution. It also featured a few now-famous actors that you also might not have noticed were Australian, like Ben Mendelsohn and Noah Taylor.
Her next choice is much more niche, to the point that it barely found an audience in Australia at the time of its release, let alone securing US distribution. Now a cult classic, The Cars That Ate Paris was an Australian New Wave horror comedy about a small Australian town where people appear to be profiting off car crashes. Despite its bizarre name and premise, Byrne explained that she thought it was “beautiful”, which isn’t surprising given its director, Peter Weir.
Weir is one of the biggest names in Australian New Wave, directing films like Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously and Picnic at Hanging Rock, which just so happens to be last on Byrne’s list of favourite Australian movies. She claims it “was also so haunting and stunning”.
Arguably one of the most iconic films from the movement, the 1975 film follows a group of schoolgirls who go missing while on a picnic on Valentine’s Day in 1990. An adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name, it’s visually stunning, intriguing and manages to unnerve audiences without resorting to hackneyed horror tropes.
As Byrne says, her choices are ultimately enduring classics of Australian New Wave cinema, which, despite their success, still deserve more attention. In general, the Australian New Wave, including Ozpolitation, deserves to be included in the industry oeuvre and conversation far more than it is, as many of its films are just as beautiful, philosophical and culturally relevant as New Wave films from around the world.
Rose Byrne’s favourite Australian movies:
- The Year My Voice Broke (John Duigan, 1987)
- The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975)
