Best movies & TV Shows like Against the Wind

In 1879, the British suffer a great loss at the Battle of Isandlwana due to incompetent leadership.

Documentary by John Pilger looks at the awful truth behind white Australia's dysfunctional relationship with Indigenous Australians

The Australian Aborigines (in this film anyway) believe that this is the place where the green ants go to dream, and that if their dreams are disturbed, it will bring down disaster on us all. The Aborigines' belief is not shared by a giant mining company, which wants to tear open the soil and search for uranium.

As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.

An amoral lowlife accidentally stumbles into an acting career that sets him on a trajectory to Hollywood stardom. But everyone on whom he steps on the way to the top remembers when he is nominated for an Oscar and he runs a dirty campaign in an attempt to win.

'Carry On' director Gerald Thomas helms this comedy caper featuring early appearances by James Robertson Justice, Sid James, Leslie Phillips, Kenneth Williams, Liz Fraser and Eric Barker. The film follows the hi-jinks of a group of music students who move into a shared flat in order to cut costs and have somewhere to practice their instruments. Things get tricky when Mervyn Hughes (Phillips) accidentally sells one of his compositions to an advertising agency and risks losing his scholarship. Can he and his friends find a way to raise the money to buy back the song rights?

Fourth adaptation and first made for television of the classic Australian bushranger novel "Robbery Under Arms" by Rolf Boldrewood. Made by the South Australian Film Corporation during the mini-series boom of the 1980s and lensed in the Flinders Ranges, it stars Sam Neill as the infamous Captain Starlight.

An aboriginal girl is brought up by a white family that adopts her. As a young woman, she is mysteriously drawn to go "Walkabout" as people of her tribe have for hundreds of years.

Friends Gary Black (Nathan Phillips) and Dumby Red (Luke Carroll) are on the same football team in their coastal Australian town. But to local racists, they're a world apart: Gary is white and Dumby is an Aborigine. This becomes an issue when one of the team's Aboriginal players becomes involved in a crime. In response, Dumby is demoted even though he's the star player, and Gary is given his place. Will Gary have the courage to speak out before tragedy results?

Rosie, an ageing single mother, is helped by Mother Nature in experiencing love again through Adam, a charming young man. But matters complicate when her young daughter falls in love with a local boy.

In Charenton Asylum, the Marquis de Sade directs a play about Jean Paul Marat's death, using the patients as actors. Based on 'The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss.

Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.

A group of maverick scientists on a remote Australian sheep farm are the globe's only hope for obtaining the epic images of man's first steps on the moon.

In a remote corner of the wild country, a bloody war rages. Travis is a bounty hunter with one last hope of redemption. Gutjuk is a young Indigenous man trying to save the last of his family. Together they embark on a manhunt, which unravels a secret that ultimately pits them against each other.

It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

Parody of historical epics that focuses on real-life Australian explorers William John Wills and Robert O'Hara Burkes, who tragically tried to cross the Australian continent from the south, to the north, a distance of 3,250 km.

In old New South Wales a new bunch of convicts arrives including the little convict, young Toby Nelson. Consigned to a Government farm they are subjected to the cruelty of Sergeant Billy Langdon and Corporal Weazel Wesley. Toby escapes and flees into the Australian bush where he is saved from death by the aboriginal boy, Wahroonga. Together, with another escapee, the highwayman, Jack Doolan, and Wahroonga’s animal friends, they launch a spectacular mission to rescue the blacksmith, Big George, and Toby’s sister, Polly.

Bickering married performers agree to star in a "Mr. and Mrs." TV show.

Imagine what it would be like if black settlers arrived to settle a continent inhabited by white natives? In 1788, the first white settlers arrived in Botany Bay to begin the process of white colonisation of Australia. But in Babakiueria, the roles are reversed in a delightful and light-hearted look at colonisation of a different kind. This satirical examination of black-white relations in Australia first screened on ABC TV in 1986 to widespread acclaim with both critics and audiences alike. This is the story of the fictitious land of Babakiueria, where white people are the minority and must obey black laws. Aboriginal actors Michelle Torres and Bob Maza (Heartland) and supported by a number of familiar faces from the time, including Cecily Polson (E-Street) and Tony Barry, who starred in major ABC-TV hits such as I Can Jump Puddles and his Penguin award-winning Scales of Justice. Babakiueria was awarded the United Nations Media Peace Prize in 1987.

Acting Lieutenant Hornblower attempts to study for his promotion examination, but becomes distracted by the serious supply problems that face his crew.

Eight men escape from the most isolated prison on earth. Only one man survives and the story he recounts shocks the British establishment to the core. This story is the last confession of Alexander Pearce.

Hell Has Harbour Views is a 2005 Australian television movie starring Matt Day and Lisa McCune. It was written and directed by Peter Duncan, based on the novel of the same name by Richard Beasley. It was nominated for "best miniseries or telemovie" at both the AFI Awards and the Logie Awards, losing to The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant at both; and for two additional AFI Awards and an additional Logie Award, all of which it lost to Love My Way.

The trials and tribulations of David O. Selznick as he attempts to find an actress to play the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939).

The Madness of Max is a feature-length documentary on the making of arguably the most influential movie of the past thirty years. With over forty cast-and-crew interviews, hundreds of behind-the-scenes photographs and never-before-seen film footage of the shoot, this is without a doubt the last word on Mad Max (1979).Interviews include: George Miller, Byron Kennedy, Mel Gibson, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Roger Ward, Joanne Samuel, David Eggby, Jon Dowding and many more. From the Producers to the Bike Designers to the Traffic Stoppers, this is the story of how Mad Max was made.

Prisoner is an Australian soap opera that is set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison.

Whiplash is a British/Australian television series made by the Seven Network and ATV and ITC Entertainment. Filmed in 1959-60, the series was first broadcast in September 1960 in the United Kingdom followed by Australia in February 1961 and had opening titles featuring the Australian locale and terrain and a dozen wild kangaroos as a Cobb & Co stage passed pulled by a team of five horses driven by Cobb himself.

Stingers brings to light the life and work of an undercover police unit located in Melbourne. This dangerous work requires complete dedication, one slip can cost an operative their life.

Four Corners is Australia's longest-running investigative journalism/current affairs television program. Broadcast on ABC1 in Australia, it premiered on 19 August 1961 and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2021. Founding producer Robert Raymond and his successor Allan Ashbolt did much to set the ongoing tone of the program. Based on the Panorama concept, the program addresses a single issue in depth each week, showing either a locally produced program or a relevant documentary from overseas. The program has won many awards for investigative journalism, and broken many high-profile stories. A notable early example of this was the show's epoch-making 1962 exposé on the appalling living conditions endured by many Aboriginal Australians living in rural New South Wales.

Supernova is a British comedy series produced by Hartswood Films and jointly commissioned by the BBC in the UK and UKTV in Australia. It follows Dr Paul Hamilton, a Welsh astronomer, who leaves a dull academic post and unloved girlfriend for a new job at the Royal Australian Observatory, deep in the Australian outback. The comedy centres around his difficulties adjusting to life in the outback and his eccentric fellow astronomers. The first series was released in the United Kingdom and Australia in October 2005 and consisted of six 30-minute episodes. The second series began airing on 3 August 2006 in the UK. The exterior scenes were shot at Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia. The observatory itself is a CGI creation, according to the DVD commentary, and only a partial doorway was constructed on site for filming purposes.

Love My Way is a Logie Award winning and critically acclaimed Australian television drama series. It won the AFI award for Best Television Drama Series for each of its three seasons. Love My Way was about a group of thirty-somethings dealing with the ups and downs of life. The series revolves around an extended family unit - Frankie Paige and Charlie Jackson are the separated parents of Lou, and Frankie also lives with Charlie's brother, Tom. As the series began, Charlie's new wife Julia is about to have their first child. Frankie's mother, Di and Charlie's mother Brenda and father Gerry also have a strong presence in the ongoing story, as does Julia's ex-lover Howard, who enters into a relationship with Frankie. Produced by John Edwards and Claudia Karvan, Love My Way starred Karvan, Sam Worthington, Dan Wyllie, Asher Keddie, Brendan Cowell, and Alex Cook. As the program was made for subscription television in Australia, it contained stronger material than most Australian programs: regular swearing, drug use and sexual references. When the series was launched, much was made of the connection between Love My Way and The Secret Life of Us: both sharing a star, as well as significant creative talent. However, the series is not a continuation of Secret Life, although it does share some thematic concerns.

Orphaned after a shipwreck off the Victorian coast of Australia, the spirited Philadelphia Gordon finds both love and adventure aboard a paddle-steamer on the Murray River.

Wilfred is an Australian comedy television series directed by Tony Rogers, produced by Jenny Livingston and starring Jason Gann, Adam Zwar and Cindy Waddingham. Created by Zwar, Gann and Rogers, it was based on their award-winning 2002 short film and later adapted to a series. The story follows the lives of the eponymous dog Wilfred, his owner Sarah, and her boyfriend Adam, who sees Wilfred as a man in a dog suit. Two seasons were broadcast on SBS One – the first in 2007 and the second in 2010. The series won three AFI Awards and was nominated for a Logie. Independent Film Channel acquired the international broadcast rights to the original two seasons of Wilfred in 2010. A U.S. version premiered on the cable channel FX on 23 June 2011.

Lockie Leonard is an Australian children's television series adapted from the Lockie Leonard books that first screened on the Nine Network on 19 June 2007. The series was filmed in Albany, Western Australia. A second series was filmed in 2009 and screened in 2010 in Australia, the UK and Ireland. Lockie Leonard was produced by Goalpost Pictures Australia and is distributed by the Australian Children's Television Foundation. The theme song "Worlds Away" is performed by Jebediah. Lockie Leonard premiered in the UK on Saturday 27 September 2008, as part of the long running children's Saturday morning programme TMi which airs from 09:00 to 10:30 on BBC Two. It ran for the first 12 episodes then continued to air on CBBC Channel. The show won the 2008 TV Week Logie Award for Best Children's Series, and star Sean Keenan was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent. It won the 2007 AFI award for Best Children's Drama Series. The series was also nominated for the 2007 BAFTA Awards for Best International Children's Drama Series.

Bastard Boys is an Australian television miniseries broadcast on the ABC in 2007. It tells the story of the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute. The script, published by Currency Press, won the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best Television Script.

Correlli was an Australian television series first broadcast by ABC TV in 1995. It starred Deborra-Lee Furness as prison psychologist Louisa Correlli. The series also featured her future husband Hugh Jackman in one of his earliest roles. The first episode entitled "The Rat Tamer" has been released on to DVD. The creators and Associate Producers of the show were actress Denise Roberts from the ABC's G.P., and Carol Long. Roberts also played the role of prison warden Helen Buckley in episodes four and five.

Catweazle is a British television series, created and written by Richard Carpenter which was produced and directed by Quentin Lawrence for London Weekend Television under the LWI banner, and screened in the UK on ITV in 1970. A second season in 1971 was directed by David Reid and David Lane. Both series had thirteen episodes each, with Geoffrey Bayldon playing the leading role. The series was broadcast in Ireland, Britain, Gibraltar, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua and Quebec. The first episode is available to view in full at the BFI Screenonline site.

RAN is an Australian television program, filmed entirely on Masig Island in the tropical Torres Strait north of the Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost part of Australia, and the border with Papua New Guinea. This is an important series to Torres Strait Islanders, but also to the predominantly Anglo Australian community as it highlights the difference between Islanders and mainland Indigenous Australians and the interactions between Islander and Anglo culture. Islander actors and extras are extensively used. The series was released on DVD on 20 February 2006.

Wildside is an Australian police procedural television series broadcast on the ABC from 1997 to 1999. The show consisted of a one hour format that followed police interactions in inner Sydney. It starred Rachael Blake, Tony Martin, Richard Carter and Alex Dimitriades. Mary Coustas joined the series in a regular role late in its run, appearing in the last ten episodes. The series was filmed in Sydney. It was characterised by its use of ad lib dialogue and hand held camera work. It won several Logie Awards, including Silver Logies for outstanding work by Rachael Blake and Tony Martin for acting, as well as the Most Outstanding Miniseries Logie in 1998. It was also nominated for several Australian Film Institute Awards. A rerun of the series began in Australia on ABC1 in the early hours of Friday mornings, starting in September 2008.

Rain Shadow is an Australian television drama series which premiered on 7 October 2007 on ABC TV. It aired on Sundays at 8.30 pm. The six-part series was produced by Southern Star. Music from The Audreys features in the soundtrack for the show, including the main theme. Rain Shadow was shot in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and is set in the fictional district of Paringa, a dry land farming area in a rain shadow. It tells the story of two characters who become the means of each other's future. It stars Rachel Ward as district vet Kate McDonald and Victoria Thaine as new veterinary assistant Jill Blake.

Elizabeth I is a two-part 2005 British historical drama television miniseries directed by Tom Hooper, written by Nigel Williams, and starring Helen Mirren as Elizabeth I of England. The miniseries covers approximately the last 24 years of her nearly 45-year reign. Part 1 focuses on the final years of her relationship with the Earl of Leicester, played by Jeremy Irons. Part 2 focuses on her subsequent relationship with the Earl of Essex, played by Hugh Dancy. The series originally was broadcast in the United Kingdom in two two-hour segments on Channel 4. It later aired on HBO in the United States, CBC and TMN in Canada, ATV in Hong Kong, ABC in Australia, and TVNZ Television One in New Zealand. The series went on to win Emmy, Peabody, and Golden Globe Awards. The same year, Helen Mirren starred as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, with which she dominated the award season.

Pioneer Quest: A Year in the Real West was Canadian documentary television series which aired on History Television and the Public Broadcasting Service in 2001. It is the first entry of producer Jamie Brown's "Quest series" which includes Quest for the Bay, Klondike: The Quest for Gold and Quest for the Sea. It was filmed on a site just north of Argyle, Manitoba

Baker Boys is an English-language Welsh television drama series, produced by BBC Wales and broadcast on BBC One Wales. The series was written by Helen Raynor and Gary Owen. Torchwood creator Russell T Davies also had a role as creative consultant, which he fulfilled from Los Angeles. The first episode of the series was broadcast on 23 January 2011. The programme follows the workers of Valley Bara bakery which is the economic centre of Trefynydd, a small fictional village in South Wales. Generations of people had earned a living and formed a life at the bakery but this is thrown into jeopardy when recession bites and the bakery workers find themselves unemployed overnight. Writer Helen Raynor describes it as "a blue collar drama", explaining "we wanted to tell the story of a community, with a workplace at the centre of it, who suddenly fall on hard times".

At its heart, Banished is a story of survival. Though it is set in the stark historical reality of the founding of the penal colony in Australia in 1788 after the arrival of the First Fleet, it is not the story of Australia and how it came to be. Rather, it is a tale of love, faith, justice and morality played out on an epic scale in a confined community where the stakes are literally life and death.

An unmistakable Australian icon - a smoking revolver, two piercing eyes behind a makeshift mask of armour. But beyond the armour, behind the eyes was a man both ruthless and gentle, rugged and kind - the infamous last outlaw, Ned Kelly was his name. Both revered and reviled throughout the ages Ned Kelly was an Irish-Australian battler-cum-bushranger, fiercely independent and pushed into action by the repressive colonial authorities of the time. The Last Outlaw examines the life of Ned Kelly, and expounds the legend from early indiscretions and the formation of his gang through to the violent killings at Stringy Bark Creek, culminating in his explosive last stand and shoot out at Glenrowan. The Last Outlaw is a remarkable four-part miniseries presentation that deflects historical judgement and allows the legend to live on.

This classic saga spans the early days of British settlement in Australia from 1788-1811, depicting the lives of a group of people, convicts and settlers, against the background of the events of the period - Governor Phillip's attempts to understand the Aborigines and his conflicts with the military, the tragic story of Bennelong, Governors King and Bligh, the Rum Rebellion, Macquarie and the crossing of the Blue Mountains.

An Australian educational comedy television series based on the American series (and earlier web series) of the same name. In each episode, an inebriated celebrity struggles to recount a historical event, while actors reconstruct and enact the narrator's anecdotes while lip syncing the dialogue.

Macauley is a swagman on the road in the 1940s looking for work. He's a laid back, laconic sort of bloke but when he gets landed with his daughter after his drunken play-girl wife in Adelaide makes him face up to what she believes are his responsibilities, neither he nor his daughter are ready for each other. But in the beginning he's all she's got, and at the end, she's all he's got.

Following a whirlwind courtship, a single mother from Los Angeles marries an Australian cattle rancher. He returns to Australia ahead of her and her two children but dies before they arrive, leaving his widow to deal with a debt-ridden ranch and land-grabbing neighbors.