Wake in Fright

Bound for Sydney for the Chrissy hols, a teacher gets marooned in a remote mining town... Raw, brutal, and unhinged in its depiction of 1970s Outback drinking culture, Wake in Fright is an uncompromising landmark of Australian cinema from director Ted Kotcheff (First Blood). John Grant (Gary Bond), a bored schoolteacher marooned in the frontier mining town of Bundanyabba, loses his savings in a two-up game on his way home for Christmas. Trapped in a vortex of heat, booze, and toxic camaraderie, he is sucked into the orbit of Doc (Donald Pleasence) and a brotherhood of hard-living locals who threaten to strip away his sanity and civilization. Long lost and saved from destruction after its original negatives were rediscovered in 2004, Australia's National Film and Sound Archive has restored this shattering masterpiece. As Nick Cave put it: 'The best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence.'