Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

53 Australia
41 Beverly Hills Chihuahua
57 Body of Lies
68 Bolt
63 Burn After Reading
64 Cadillac Records
58 City of Ember
82 Dark Knight, The
43 Eagle Eye
36 Fly Me to the Moon
41 Four Christmases
28 Haunting of Molly Hartley. The
57 High School Musical 3: Senior Year
35 How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
57 Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
61 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
84 Milk
35 Mirrors
39 Nights in Rodanthe
45 Pride and Glory
30 Punisher: War Zone
58 Quantum of Solace
36 Righteous Kill
59 Role Models
19 Saw V
57 Secret Life of Bees, The
49 Sex Drive
49 Soul Men
51 Transporter 3
56 Twilight
70 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
56 W.
93 WALL-E
56 Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

64 Appaloosa
69 Ashes of Time Redux
68 August Evening
54 Battle in Seattle
76 Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
70 Black Balloon, The
55 Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
51 Breakfast with Scot
63 Changeling
84 Christmas Tale, A
xx Dostana
62 Duchess, The
46 Dukes, The
64 Eden
xx Extreme Movie
69 Fear(s) of the Dark
26 Filth and Wisdom
28 Fireproof
80 Frost/Nixon
43 Gardens of the Night
73 Girl Cut in Two, A
54 Good Dick
30 Guitar, The
84 Happy-Go-Lucky
31 Hounddog
26 House of the Sleeping Beauties
47 How About You
70 Hunger
72 I Served the King of England
70 I.O.U.S. A
40 Igor
78 I've Loved You So Long
64 JCVD
28 Lake City
82 Let the Right One In
32 Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx Local Color
89 Man on Wire
34 My Name Is Bruce
29 Nobel Son
40 Other End of the Line, The
34 Otto; or Up with Dead People
75 Pool, The
77 Pray the Devil Back to Hell
82 Rachel Getting Married
56 Religulous
32 Repo! The Genetic Opera
53 RocknRolla
85 Slumdog Millionaire
57 Special
79 Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67 Synecdoche, New York
82 Tell No One
83 Trouble the Water
43 Tru Loved
83 U2 3D
59 We Are Wizards
55 What Just Happened?

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Australia
20th Century Fox


7.1

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 61 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some violence, a scene of sensuality, and brief strong language

Starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, and Bryan Brown

Australia is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world's most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. (20th Century Fox)

GENRE(S):	Adventure \| Drama \| War \| Western
WRITTEN BY:	Baz Luhrmann Stuart Beattie
DIRECTED BY:	Baz Luhrmann
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: November 14, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	165 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA \| Australia

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

TV Guide Cammila Albertson

Australia goes for the absolute limit in terms of scope. And let's not be coy -- size may not matter, but it still helps.

The Hollywood Reporter Megan Lehmann

Defies all but the most cynical not to get carried away by the force of its grandiose imagery and storytelling.

Time Richard Schickel

There is some elemental human desire -- lately largely denied at the cinema -- to see pretty people in handsome landscapes assuaging our need for epic romance. On that level, Australia delivers with real panache.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A wildly ambitious, luridly indulgent spectacle of romance, action, melodrama and historic revisionism, Australia is windy, overblown, utterly preposterous and insanely entertaining.

Newsweek David Ansen

Australia is a shameless—and shamelessly entertaining--pastiche. It works because Luhrmann, a true believer in movie-movie magic, stamps it all with the force of his own extravagant, generous personality.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is exuberantly old-fashioned, and I mean that as a compliment.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Deliberately anachronistic in its heightened style of romance, villainy and destiny, the epic lays an Aussie accent on colorful motifs drawn from Hollywood Westerns, war films, love stories and socially conscious dramas. Some of it plays, some doesn't, and it is long.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

[Luhrmann's] movie is all over the map. But what a gorgeous map it is. The too-muchness, like the too-longness, befits the Northern Territory's vastness. In its heart of hearts Australia is an old-fashioned Western -- a Northern, if you will -- and all the more enjoyable for it.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

With measured visual flash, Luhrmann highlights the delightful presence of his two stars and realizes an unlikely feelgood film, in spite of its grave matters.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

If you are willing to take the plunge and view things through Luhrmann's prism, "Australia" does deliver the classic dramatic and romantic satisfactions its ambitious advertising campaign promises.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Jackman, who stepped in after a cranky Russell Crowe walked away in a salary dispute, strikes just the right chord as a scruffy romantic hero.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's an epic pretender, not an epic contender.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Luhrmann is working a tricky game: He's trying to come to terms with modern Australia's racist legacy while telling a ripping yarn while also making fun of ripping yarns - but not too much.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Baz Luhrmann's Australia has it all - unfortunately. With four major story lines and more endings than "The Return of the King," this ambitious 165-minute epic is the movie equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

The result is mostly a woodenly derivative melding of '40s maternal melodramas, oaters, and World War II actioners.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Yes, you can enjoy bits and pieces along the way, more than a few, even. At the end of this journey, though, you feel more exhaustion and relief than catharsis or satisfaction.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Luhrmann's squirrelly, five-exclamation-point stylings mercifully subside after the first 20 minutes or so, leaving behind a palatable big-screen confection.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

You know something's amiss when you're in the middle of a picture that runs under three hours and you're tempted to whip out your cellphone and send friends a text message that reads "Send food."

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Epic piffle.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

I left Australia feeling drained and weakened, as if I'd suffered a gradual poisoning at the hands of a mad scientist.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Like the last two "Pirates" movies, Australia is ambitious more than awe-inspiring, grandiose rather than grand, full of spectacle but not spectacular.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It almost goes without saying that the film looks gorgeous, but the filmmaking behind it feels unsure how to work on this grand a scale. Australia is big. But it never fills the screen.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Jackman has musical-theater chops and knows how to sell material this ham-handed; Kidman isn't quite as deft. I've always admired her gumption in working so hard to overcome a certain temperamental tightness--but that tightness has now spread to her skin.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Really should have been made 60 years ago. It would have been timelier, with its tale of life in the remote north of that country during World War II. The juicy overacting, stereotypes and dramatic exaggerations would have been more in keeping with the style of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

At times the film appears on the verge of morphing into a singing-cowboy musical.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Luhrmann wants it all – comedy and tragedy, bombast and wet-eyed sentimentality. When it works, his kid-in-a-candy-store giddiness is infectious. When it doesn't – when he goes from silly to turgid in 60 seconds flat – he punctures Australia's proportions down from epic to simply overwrought.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

If looks were everything, director Baz Luhrmann's epic salute to his native land would be the movie of the year. But, crikey, a padded script bloated with subplots and shameless sentimentality can wear you down.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

All in all, Australia is so damnably eager to please that it feels like being pinned down by a giant overfriendly dingo and having your face licked for about three hours: theoretically endearing but, honestly, kind of gross.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Long before the second hour of Australia (which feels like the fifth), it's clear that Luhrmann hasn't found a satisfactory way to make a movie nearly as ballsy -- or coherent -- as he wants his creation to be.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The film also seems to end at least four times, which is three times too many. Better yet, it never should have started.

Slate Dana Stevens

To marvel at the purity of Australia's corniness isn't to imply that the movie functions as so-bad-it's-good camp, or guilty pleasure, or anything else involving aesthetic enjoyment.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

With Australia, Luhrmann obviously intends to stage a grand romance against the epic backdrop of World War II. But what we get instead is an unwieldy mess that needed another six months in the editing room.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Luhrmann steals good ideas, fair ideas and terrible ideas - anything that once moved him when he was a little boy. He's turned Australia into a more-than-you-can-eat buffet of colorful kitsch.

Premiere Jenni Miller

A self-impressed epic with grandiose vistas, flat characters, and a subplot about Native Australians.

The New Yorker David Denby

It's a shame that Fox entrusted Luhrmann with this project, because audiences were probably ready for a big-boned realistic movie spectacle.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Australia shows all the signs of having been a labor of love for director Baz Luhrmann. One problem: It's his love, and the audience's labor.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 61 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Catherine H. gave it a9:
Glad I didn't fall under the spell of the critics assessment and went to see it. Thoroughly enjoyable.

syzygy gave it a5:
Baz whips together large themes across a classic Hollywood canvas in the tradition of Lean, Ford, and De Mille. The trick is to balance the contradiction between a shallow pop-history narrative and the demands of serious drama. Baz tosses in one convention after another for a risky ride that succeeds as much as it fails.

Mike F gave it an8:
An old-school feel that was ultimately, quite enjoyable...WHYwe go to the movies. Sure there were some occasional moments of cinematic "cheese" but seriously--who doesn't love cheese? It had romance, adventure, comic relief and action. It felt like you could have swapped out John Wayne in the lead and no one would have noticed; Cecil B. DeMille, big screen fun. And as one that JUST watched "Fight Club" on DVD for the first time (a interesting movie but jeez--what a dark story), I can say I like "Australia" even more. Movies are supposed to be fun, eh?

Chris M. gave it a10:
Hugh Jackman is outstanding. The epic scenes (bombing of Darwin, the cattle stampede scene) are breathtaking). That little boy is just amazing. The cinematography, the most gorgeous one I've ever seen. In one word? MASTERPIECE.

Jason M. gave it a2:
One of the most unbearable movies I have seen this year. Formulaic and predictable from start to finish. The acting is pedestrian and painfully campy, not because of a lack of acting talent, but an ATROCIOUSLY written screenplay and sinfully poor directing. Every possible hollywood cliche is found somewhere in this film, from the completely gratuitious Hugh-Jackman-Soaps-Up-His-Muscular-Upper-Body scene, to the ever trite "Let's get outta here" line... I implore you to save your money. The only reason I give this movie a 2 instead of a 1 is because the little kid was cute.

Brad C gave it a9:
Loved it! Thoroughly engaging movie that is well worth the price of admission.

TDKinDallas gave it a9:
Absolutely great time at the movies. Took my Mom and we both thought it was great. Do not pass this up because of the crappy previews ("There was a great sound like whoosh!"). Those original previews were taken out of context and made me not want to go see it. I only went because I thought it would be the kind of movie she would enjoy and I was totally wrong. There were a few things that I would have liked different, but I also think it should have been rated R and had a woman to equal Huge's hotness factor. That would be very different, this is a "family" movie. Check it out.

Australia 20th Century Fox

Australia
20th Century Fox