Film critic, writer and educator David Stratton, who appeared on Australian screens alongside Margaret Pomeranz for decades on various movie review shows, has died aged 85.
His family announced his death on Thursday afternoon, saying he died peacefully in hospital near his home in the Blue Mountains.
“David’s passion for film, commitment to Australian cinema, and generous spirit touched countless lives,” his family said.
“He was adored as a husband, father, grand and great grandfather and admired friend.
“David’s family would like to express their heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming support from friends, colleagues, and the public recently and across his lifetime.”
Reactions began to appear on social media soon after the announcement of Stratton’s death, with the ABC’s Phillip Adams speaking fondly of an “old friend and colleague”.
“Vale David Stratton … now reviewing movies for the Almighty,” Adams wrote.
Dendy Cinemas, an independent cinema chain that operates theatres across Queensland, NSW and the ACT, also issued a statement on X, calling Stratton a “legendary” film critic and historian.
“David’s infectious passion for film and deep commitment to Australian cinema were unrivalled in this country,” the statement read.
Stratton’s family has asked for privacy in the wake of his death, but issued a special request to the movie-going public:
“[We] invite everyone to celebrate David’s remarkable life and legacy by watching their favourite movie, or David’s favourite movie of all time — Singin’ In the Rain.”
Details of a public memorial service will be announced in the near future.
Stratton and his on-screen partner, Margaret Pomeranz, hosted film review shows together for 28 years. (Randwick City Council)
A ‘ten-pound Pom’ made good
Born in England in 1939, Stratton was sent to the countryside at a very young age to live with his grandmother, while his father fought in WW II.
It was there that he developed a love of cinema — with his grandmother taking him along to see movies when he was just a toddler.
“When my father came home from the war and we moved away from my grandmother’s house, I was deprived of movie-going very abruptly,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2019.
“I’d been going to the movies from about the age of two or three until I reached about six, and then suddenly [there were] no movies in my life. That was quite a shock.”
His love of cinema never left him, however, and by his late teens he had developed a love of foreign films and founded a film society in his home town.
In 1963, he moved to Australia — a so-called “ten-pound Pom” under the scheme created by the Chifley government as part of Labor’s “populate or perish” drive.
Just three years later he became director of the Sydney Film Festival, a job he landed due to his reputation for fighting film censorship, and held until 1983.
In 2014, it was revealed that, during this time, Stratton was under surveillance by ASIO, due to the festival’s policy of showing films from the USSR and other countries not always on friendly terms with Australia.
From 1984 until 2004, he co-hosted The Movie Show alongside Margaret Pomeranz on SBS, using a similar format to the one popularised by US film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.
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The pair became a beloved part of Australian film culture, and became regular viewing for audiences keen to watch them offer their opinions — even if those same viewers had no intention of watching the films in question.
Not everyone was a fan, however.
After he gave Geoffrey Wright’s Australian neo-Nazi drama Romper Stomper a famously negative review in 1992 — refusing to rate the film, even as Pomeranz gave it four-and-a-half stars — the director accosted him at the Venice Film Festival, throwing a glass of wine at him.
“A critic has to call it as they see it,” he told The Australian in 2023. “We may not be right, always, but that’s our opinion and we’re paid to express our opinion.
“Obviously it’s hurtful to a filmmaker who has poured their heart and soul into a film and then gets a negative response to it … but I thought that particular incident was a little stupid.”
Stratton speaks at the farewell party for At the Movies in 2014. (AAP Image: Nikki Short)
In 2004, Stratton and Pomeranz moved to the ABC, where they hosted At the Movies with Margaret and David until 2014.
In 2023 — having spent 30 years hosting TV programs, 35 years lecturing on world cinema at the University of Sydney, and 33 years writing reviews for The Weekend Australian — Stratton officially retired due to poor health.
“You obviously can’t keep going for ever. I feel relaxed about it,” he told The Guardian.”I’ve done the best I could over a number of years and I feel a sense of satisfaction from that.”
In June this year, he and Pomeranz were honoured with a star on the Australian Film Walk of Fame outside the historic Ritz Cinema in Randwick — the first non-actors to receive the honour.
“It is gratifying to be connected to the Ritz Cinema, which is one of the finest movie places in Australia,” Stratton said at the time.