Australian Westerns To Watch This Week

They go by many names — meat pie westerns (a play on Italy’s “spaghetti Western”), kangaroo Westerns, and bushranger films — but the Australian Western film genre has produced a number of solid films over the last 100 years.

From C&I cover star Tom Selleck’s beloved Quigley Down Under (1990) to 2008's Australia starring C&I cover star Hugh Jackman, western films made “down under” share many similarities with American westerns —traditional character archetypes and western motifs, the juxtaposition of European outsiders to the Indigenous peoples, and even familiar desert and wilderness settings.

On the eve of Netflix's new western-down-under series Territory, starring Longmire and C&I cover star Robert Taylor, we take a look at the history of "kangaroo westerns" and list five you should watch this week.

The History of Australian Westerns

A contingent of Queensland Police Trackers were sent to Victoria to help in the hunt for the Kelly Gang in 1879. Credit: Queensland Police Museum

Along with being quite possibly the world’s first feature films, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) is often viewed as the first Australian western. It’s good guys, bad guys plot with gunfights and chases on horseback make it distinctly western.

After The Story of the Kelly Gang, however, the Australian western went on hiatus after the Australian government banned all depictions of bushrangers in film for the next three decades — officials were worried about the influence of the bushranger genre on the population.

Although the genre somewhat recovered with Rangle River in 1936 (based on a Zane Grey novel), and then The Overlanders in 1946, the Australian western wouldn’t return to prominence until Ned Kelly in 1970 and The Man from Snowy River in 1982, which marketed the Outback to the worldwide audience.

Meatpie westerns also have their own collection of “revisionists” films like The Proposition and Sweet Country, which seek to re-examine the treatment of Aboriginal Australians and focus on racism and sexism throughout Australian history.

No prominent films have been made since 2020 that are set in the Australian “West.” Robert Taylor’s new Netflix series Territory, however, will change that when it hits streaming on October 24.

Described as "the Aussie version of America's most popular series, Yellowstone,” Territory follows the Lawson family and their generational business, Marianne Station, the world's largest cattle station. Conflict ensues when Marianne Station becomes a prize to be sought after by rival cattle farmers, various gangsters, Indigenous elders, and mining magnates after the Lawsons engage in a succession battle for ownership of the property.

To get you pumped for Territory, here are four Australian westerns to watch this week:

1. The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)

Directed by: Charles Tait

Starring: John Tait (brother of Charles) and Elizabeth Tait (wife of Charles)

Summary: This early 20th century silent films follows bushranger/outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang of outlaws. Filmed in Melbourne, the original cut ran for just over one hour with a film length of about 1,200 metres (4,000 feet for westerners), making it the longest narrative film in the world at the time. The Story of the Kelly Gang proved to be both a commercial and critical success, and spawned a number of other Kelly-centric films.

Where to Watch: National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

Fun Fact: The film was considered lost until 1976, when five short segments totaling a few seconds of running time were found. In 1978, more pieces of film were discovered in a former film exhibitor’s collection and, in 1980, more footage was found at a rubbish dump. The longest surviving single sequence, the scene at Younghusband's station, was found in the UK in 2006. In November 2006, the National Film and Sound Archive released a new digital restoration which included the new material and recreated some scenes based on surviving photographs.

2. The Man From Snowy River (1982)

Directed by: George T. Miller

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jack Thompson, Tom Burlinson, Sigrid Thornton, and Lorraine Bayly

Summary: Based on a poem of the same name from Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson, The Man From Snowy River follows proud young Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson), who sets out to become his own man after his father dies. After accepting a job with horse rancher Harrison (Kirk Douglas), Craig is treated poorly by the more experienced cowboys, but wins the heart of the rancher's daughter, Jessica (Sigrid Thornton), when he helps her break a high-strung colt and later saves her life. When he's unfairly blamed for the loss of an expensive horse, Craig fights to restore his honor and prove that he's worthy of Jessica's hand.

Where to Watch: Apple TV

Fun Fact: Tom Burlinson had only ridden a horse a couple of times before being cast in the film. He was taught to ride by Charlie Lovick, a mountain cattleman who owned the buckskin horse Burlinson rode in the film. Gerald Egan was Burlinson's riding double for several shots, including the jump into the "terrible descent." Nevertheless, Burlinson, only 26 years old at the time of filming, did much more of the action riding in the film than an actor normally would, including all the profile shots of the downhill ride.

3. Quigley Down Under (1990)

Directed by: Simon Wincer

Starring: C&I cover star Tom Selleck, Laura San Giacomo, and Alan Rickman

Summary: Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck) is an American sharpshooter who travels to the Australian outback to answer a help wanted ad. When he meets his employer, Elliot Marston (Alan Rickman), he's appalled to discover the job involves killing Aboriginal Australians. The two men fight, and when Quigley is knocked out, Marston leaves him and a local crazy woman (Laura San Giacomo) to die in a remote part of the Outback. They're rescued, however, and plot their revenge.

Where to Watch: Fubo

Fun Fact: Quigley's rifle a custom-made 1874 Sharps Rifle, with a 34-inch (860 mm) barrel and weighing over 13 pounds.The rifle Selleck used in the film was a replica manufactured for the film by the Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company of Big Timber, Montana. In 2002, Selleck donated the rifle, along with six other firearms from his other films, to the "Real Guns of Reel Heroes" exhibit at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.

4. The Proposition (2005)

Directed by: John Hillcoat

Starring: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, and John Hurt.

Summary: In 1880s Australia, a lawman (Ray Winstone) offers renegade Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) a proposition: to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother (Danny Huston), who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a moral dilemma that can end only in violence.

Where to Watch: Amazon

Fun Fact: As noted in the films DVD behind-the-scenes features, The Proposition is regarded as uncommonly accurate in depicting Aboriginal Australian culture of the late 1800s. The cultural respect was intended: the cast and crew took great pains to follow the advice of indigenous consultants on set.

5. Australia (2008)

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann

Starring: C&I cover star Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, and Bryan Brown

Summary: With the world heading straight for World War II, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from Britain to Australia to inspect her late father's cattle ranch. She reluctantly joins forces with Drover (Hugh Jackman), a rugged local horseman, and they sets out on a cattle drive across hundreds of miles of harsh terrain to save the ranch. When they finally reach their destination, they must contend with the same Japanese bombers who attacked Pearl Harbor.

Where to Watch: Amazon

Photography: W. Ben Glass

Fun Fact: The production was hell for cast and crew (and horses). Filming in Australia was a grueling experience for the cast and crew with temperatures soaring to 109 °F which caused Kidman to faint while on horseback. Kidman worked upwards of 15-hour days while dealing with morning sickness, as well. While shooting in a remote area of Western Australia, the shoot was rescheduled after the main homesite set was reduced to mud from torrential rain – the first in the region in 50 years. Also during filming, Australia's horses were in lock down over an equine flu outbreak.

Header photo: Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in 2008's Australia (Courtesy 20th Century Fox/Photofest)