Recommended by David Stratton
Louise van Rooyen - Beamafilm
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18/08/2025
This week, we've been celebrating the life of David Stratton, AM – the legendary film critic, writer, and tireless champion of great International and Australian cinema. More than a critic, David was a passionate advocate for the art of storytelling on screen. His knowledge, generosity, and dedication have inspired countless audiences, critics, and filmmakers alike.
David's immense contribution to the local screen industry is revealed in the documentary David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, as told by Margaret Pomeranz, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, and many more. It is a moving portrait of a man whose life was inseparable from the movies.
As David reminded us throughout his life: ‘Watch more great films.’
We therefore encourage you to dive into the films David loved most, as this collection comprises some of David's favourite films.
👉 Celebrate David's immense legacy by streaming from the 'Recommended by David Stratton' watchlist below.
Watch for FREE with a participating library card or on a 30-day trial. Also, you can rent a film for 72 hours.
A father and son search for the stolen bicycle that will deliver them from poverty.
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Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. One day, Anne has an attack. The couple's bond of love is severely tested.
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George Smiley is recalled from retirement to hunt for a suspected mole in British intelligence.
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Narrowly avoiding jail, new dad Robbie vows to turn over a new leaf. A visit to a whisky distillery inspires him and his mates to seek a way out of their hopeless lives in this Ken Loach classic.
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Con artist Frederick Bourdin convinces a family he is their long-missing son.
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Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to...
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Down-on-his-luck Carl Fitzgerald meets Sophie, a beautiful Greek girl. He gets a job as a cook, but accidentally kills a fellow worker. He turns to his unscrupulous best friend for help and they attempt to dispose of the body.
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A 19th-century French aristocrat, notorious for his scathing memoirs about life in Russia, travels through the Russian State Hermitage Museum and encounters historical figures from the last 200 plus years.
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A young schoolteacher descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia.
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A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal men in a ritualized taboo murder and learns disturbing things about himself in this Peter Weir classic starring Richard Chamberlain and David Gulpilil.
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An aspiring theatre director finds himself directing an opera at a psychiatric hospital.
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When their father commits suicide, the two city-bred children must contend with the harsh Australian wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy.
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A fight on Everest? It seemed incredible. But in 2013 news channels around the world reported an ugly brawl at 21,000ft as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas.
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The crowning achievement of the German silent cinema. In a futuristic city a beautiful utopia exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers.
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The real impact of Australia’s offshore detention policies.
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Bubby has spent thirty years trapped in the same small room, tricked by his mother. One day, he manages to escape and, deranged and naive in equal measures, his adventure into a modern and nihilistic life begins.
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The shocking Australian classic of racism and revenge.
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A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl’s benefactor and suitor.
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Jack Thompson is Foley, the best shearer on every station for miles around. "Sunday Too Far Away" is a story of sweat-soaked days and rum-soaked nights, and of scab labour brought in during the shearer's strike of '58.
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Strange events happen in a small village in the north of Germany during the years before World War I, which seem to be ritual punishment. Who is responsible?
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David Helfgott, a gifted pianist, struggles through childhood as his dysfunctional father abuses him and his siblings. Years later, he suffers a mental breakdown but manages to return as a legend.
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The Australian outback, 1922.... four men relentlessly track a fugitive, an aboriginal man accused of murdering a white woman.
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The Abberton brothers in Maroubra, Australia, belong to their community's surfing subculture, a group with a well-known reputation for partying, hard living and rough justice.
A documentary about the life of the Australian costume designer and three time Oscar winner Orry-Kelly.
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Mike, a.k.a. Storm Boy, lives with his recluse father on South Australia's lonely and beautiful coast. Here his spirit roams with his pet pelican, Mr. Percival.
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Johnnie loves his train and Annabelle Lee. When the Civil War begins spies capture The General with Annabelle on board. Johnnie must rescue both his loves.
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Gem, a spirited 8-year-old girl, deals with the grief of her mother's death by forging a bond with a wild emu.
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How did an obscure ’60s artist become a music phenomenon? And what happened to him? Two South African fans set out to find out what really happened to their hero and this Oscar winning documentary is stranger than...
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Our addiction to oil has deadly consequences.
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In the late 1930s, Alma Brooks and Rupert Kathner began a movie-making spree.
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An eco-thriller about saving Indonesia's forests.
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A young couple buy a house but their neighbor is a drug dealer who originates many troubles so they create a plan to move him out.
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In Australia's Northern Territory, a man tells us a story of his people and his land. It's about an older man, Minygululu, who has three wives and realizes that his younger brother Dayindi may try to steal away the youngest wife.
Unwitting 7-year-old Maisie is caught in the middle of a custody battle between her mother Suzanna, an aging rock star, and her father, Beale, a major art dealer.
It's a perfect summer...until the outbreak of nuclear war.
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Griff, a superhero who spends his days fighting bullish coworkers and his nights fighting evil, has his worlds turned upside when he meets Melody, a beautiful scientist who shares his passion for the impossible.
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Director Warwick Thornton assembles a collection of poignant, sad, funny and absurd ghost tales from across Australia and brings them to life with some of Australia’s most iconic actors as the storytellers.
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At a home for retired musicians, the annual concert to celebrate Composer Giuseppe Verdi's birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents.
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Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss Professor, abandons his lectures and buttoned-down life to embark on a thrilling adventure that will take him on a journey to the very heart of himself.
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After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex...
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Equal parts love story, film noir and demented fairy tale, "Tabloid" is a delirious meditation on hysteria – both public and personal – from a filmmaker who continues to blow open the documentary genre.
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As Allied forces sweep across Germany, five children embark on a journey that challenges their notions of family, love and friendship.
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Eric, a POW during the World War II, is tortured by a Japanese officer. Years later, Eric is pushed to confront his oppressor when he learns that the Japanese officer is alive.
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The story of King George VI, his impromptu ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.
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An exploration of Australian cinema from the perspective of world renowned film critic, David Stratton.
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