{"id":378121,"date":"2025-12-30T22:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T22:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378121\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T22:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T22:29:07","slug":"tasmanian-zombies-russell-crowe-and-crowded-house-10-australian-films-to-watch-out-for-in-2026-australian-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378121\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasmanian zombies, Russell Crowe and Crowded House: 10 Australian films to watch out for in 2026 | Australian film"},"content":{"rendered":"

As usual, the Australian film<\/a> industry will deliver plenty of tasty cinematic treats in 2026, spanning a wide variety of genres and styles. Here\u2019s 10 films to look out for.<\/p>\n

1. The Deb<\/p>\n

Release date: in cinemas 15 January<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rebel Wilson makes her directorial debut and co-stars in this adaptation of Hannah Reilly and Megan Washington\u2019s 2022 stage musical, praised by the Guardian\u2019s Cassie Tongue<\/a> as \u201ca women-centred, lovingly local story with big laughs and big pop choruses\u201d. The story centres on two characters: a big-hearted farm girl (Natalie Abbott) who pins all her hopes on shining during her school Deb (which makes me wonder whether she\u2019s seen Carrie<\/a> \u2026) and her more pessimistic cousin (Charlotte MacInnes). The Deb premiered at the 2024 Toronto International film festival but has been delayed by legal dramas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. We Bury the Dead<\/p>\n

Release date: in cinemas 5 February<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the latest from horror maestro Zak Hilditch \u2013 whose oeuvre includes the awesome These Final Hours<\/a> \u2013 America has accidentally deployed a weapon of mass destruction off the coast of Australia (oops!) and it\u2019s turned a large swathe of the population into zombies. Led by Daisy Ridley as an American woman who travels to Tasmania in search of her missing husband, and whose job is to collect corpses, the film has been generating good buzz since premiering at the 2025 South by Southwest festival. IndieWire\u2019s Katie Rife<\/a>, for instance, called it a \u201ctop-notch\u201d work \u201cwith compelling performances, urgent pacing, and gorgeous cinematography\u201d.<\/p>\n

3. Jimpa<\/p>\n

Release date: in cinemas 19 February<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The latest drama from Adelaide-based auteur Sophie Hyde is her biggest production yet, with two excellent actors in the lead role: John Lithgow as Jim, a longtime gay rights activist, and Olivia Colman<\/a> as his film-maker daughter, Hannah. But it\u2019s still clearly a personal project, inspired by the death of Hyde\u2019s father and starring her non-binary teenager (Aud Mason-Hyde) as Hannah\u2019s non-binary teenager Frances. The story involves Hannah travelling with Frances from Adelaide to Amsterdam to reconnect with her father.<\/p>\n

4. Tenzing<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n

Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing Norgay. Tom Hiddleston plays Edmund Hillary and multi-Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe stars as expedition leader Colonel John Hunt. Photograph: Kirsty Griffin\/Apple<\/p>\n

Jennifer Peedom has built a reputation on big-spirited, visually sumptuous documentaries that chart the majesty of the natural world and the intrepid souls who venture into it \u2013 Mountain<\/a>, River<\/a> and Sherpa<\/a> among them. The latter touches on the story of Tenzing Norgay, who along with Edmund Hillary became the first person known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. Norgay\u2019s now the subject of Peedom\u2019s first narrative feature: a biopic starring Genden Phuntsok in the titular role and Tom Hiddleston as Hillary.<\/p>\n

5. Death of an Undertaker<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Actor turned director Christian Byers\u2019 feature debut is a darkly comic hybrid documentary set in a Sydney funeral parlor, where he shot the film piecemeal over eight years. Byers plays a fictionalised version of himself, Sparrow, a steadily unravelling employee tasked with the funeral trade\u2019s rather esoteric duties, including the occasional exhumation. The film\u2019s aesthetic is warped as all get-out, with a scratchy, surreal, banged-up visual palette that reminded me of the grimy VHS-esque look of Harmony Korine\u2019s Trash Humpers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. Crowded House<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n

Nick Seymour, Neil Finn and Paul Hester of Crowded House at the Montreux festival. Photograph: Ilpo Musto\/REX Shutterstock<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t a huge fan of Richard Lowenstein\u2019s previous documentary, Mystify: Michael Hutchence<\/a>, but I\u2019ll watch anything from the veteran film-maker who has helmed many fine films including Ecco Homo<\/a>, He Died with a Felafel in his Hand<\/a> and the stone-cold classic Dogs in Space<\/a>. No prizes for guessing which beloved rock band is the subject of his next doco.<\/p>\n

7. Bear Country<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n

Old mate Russell Crowe has not one, two, three but eight upcoming titles listed on his IMDb page. Among them is this US\/Australia co-production (adapted from Thomas Perry\u2019s 2010 novel, Strip) in which he plays a strip club owner who, after being robbed several times, reacts like many protagonists in grindhouse revenge movies, writing the thieves a sternly worded letter. Kidding: he of course takes matters into his own hands. Rusty and director Derrick Borte previously collaborated on Unhinged, which isn\u2019t great but does feature a scarily good performance<\/a> from Crowe.<\/p>\n

8. Mockbuster<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

How do you launch a career as a \u201clegit\u201d film-maker by working for The Asylum<\/a>, a production company known for pumping out dreadful bargain basement genre knockoffs? By making a film about the entire doomed experience! Adelaide director Andrew Firth captures the process in this amiably low-key and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny documentary, some of the jokes coming from The Asylum\u2019s disarmingly self-aware staff. Says one: \u201cWe make shitty movies \u2026 we\u2019re barely above porn.\u201d<\/p>\n

9. The Fox<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n

Jai Courtney plays a hunter who does a deal with a talking fox. Photograph: Madman<\/p>\n

The feature debut from Dario Russo, creator of the cult TV animation Danger 5<\/a>, is a curious sounding comedy starring Jai Courtney as a hunter who takes relationship advice from a talking fox \u2013 as you do \u2013 after his fianc\u00e9e cheats on him. The synopsis from the Adelaide film festival, where it premiered in October, tells us to expect \u201ctalking magpies, magic holes, and lots of yapping Jack Russells\u201d.<\/p>\n

10. The Debt<\/p>\n

Release date: TBC<\/p>\n

Indigenous Australian horror movies are still in very short supply, 2024\u2019s The Moogai<\/a> and Tracey Moffatt\u2019s pioneering 1993 film Bedevil<\/a> being among the genre\u2019s only entrants. So this scary movie, led by South Australian First Nations film-makers<\/a>, is particularly welcome. At this point not much is known about the plot; the official synopsis tells us that \u201cAnna and her 10-year-old ward become trapped in a terrifying ordeal\u201d in which she must \u201cmake a choice: end her life or the life of the child\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As usual, the Australian film industry will deliver plenty of tasty cinematic treats in 2026, spanning a wide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-378121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}