Down Under War Movies .........any classics ?

[Glen]

Greetings
I was wondering are their any War Movies that depict Australia during WW 2 ? often wondered if their were any on the RAAF (I hope that is correct) or the Navy?
As Always in advance thank you to all that respond.

[Steve Nelson]

It didn't take place in Oz, but there was a movie back in the '90s called "Prisoners Of The Sun," which focused on the war crimes trials of some Japanese officers who tortured and killed Australlian POWs on Ambon Island. Not a bad flick.

SN

[Dave Homewood]

Australia has made some excellent war movies and mini-series over the years. Some examples...

Boer War:
Breaker Morant

WWI:
The Lighthorsemen
Gallipoli
A Fortunate Life (TV mini-series)
The ANZACS (TV mini-series)

WWII
A Town Like Alice (Bryan Brown TV mini-series)
The Sullivans (TV serial set in WWII)
Kokoda
The Last Bullet
The Heroes (TV mini-series)
The Heroes II (TV mini-series)

Also a number of "Hollywood" films have been made there such as The Thin Red Line and the upcoming series The Pacific. I don't know of any RAAF films as such but perhaps there were in the early days? There was some RAAF content in A Thousand Skies - a mini-series about Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

New Zealanders have had a lot of input into those Australian films too, but we've made very few war films of our own. Off the top of my head I can think of:

WWI:
Chunuk Bair (about NZ's worst battle in the Gallipoli campaign)

WWII:
AWOL (about a kiwi soldier who goes awol to be with his wife, true story, and involes a Harvard crash)

The Last Tattoo (an excellent film about the US forces covering up murders in Wellington, NZ)

Bad Blood (not specifically about the war but true story in wartime of a mass murderer hunted by the army and police, great film)

Also supposedly in production now are Mark of the Lion about Charles Upham VC and Bar, and a film on the life of Sir Ed Hillary so may include his time in the war in RNZAF Catalinas