Australian TV productions are generally rubbish with crap acting and dimwitted scriptwriting for idiots but Blue Murder was awesome. Based on the Sydney gangland wars of the 1980s it was banned from screening in New South Wales until the last of the trials were finished (as the material concerned was considered to be prejudicial to the fair conduct of the trials). First tim eI ever saw it was on a bootleg VHS tape that someone brought in from interstate.


GREAT OZ DRAMA:

Blue Murder
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112538/

Janus
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108819/

Phoenix
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103511/

(^ note that all of these shows were produced before local funding dried up with the election of the bastard Liberals in 1996)



Also see:

Vietnam
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140770/

The Bangkok Hilton
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096540/

Brides of Christ
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101053/

ANZACs
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088479/


^ just don't expect too much - some of the writing is a little bit dodgy and the acting is not first rate but you can see from the spirit of the scriptwriting that these were produced at a time when Oz was (briefly) a progressive, forward-looking country.



Movies:

Careful He Might Hear You
Gallipoli
Walkabout
Breaker Morant
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Bliss
Picnic at Hanging Rock
My Brilliant Career
Kangaroo
Sunday Too Far Away
(^ these titles are regarded as a sort of Golden Age of Australian cinema)

The Nostradamus Kid
Rabbit Proof Fence
The Year of Living Dangerously
Hotel Sorrento
The Year My Voice Broke
Proof
The Sum of Us
Lantana

The Oyster Farmer (2006)
Jindabyne (2006)



(avoid: anything starring Hugo Weaving or David Wenham) J/K