Terminology The definition of what is an Australian Western (i.e. taking its influence from US cinema) and what is simply an Australian historical film set in the era that covers similar themes, is fluid. Cinema about
bushrangers, which some regard as Australian Westerns, goes back to some of the first Australian feature films. Ned Kelly, as subject of a feature film, was first made in 1906, in
The Story of the Kelly Gang. The British company Ealing Studios, made a number of Westerns in Australian in the 1940s and '50s, including
The Overlanders (1946), about a cattle drive, which was marketed in Australia as a drama, but marketed overseas as an "Australian Western". It starred Australian actor
Chips Rafferty and was successful at the box office. Another British film production house, Rank, made
Robbery Under Arms in 1957. One of the prominent post-war productions made in Australia was the technicolour Western,
Kangaroo. This was a big budget (800,000 pounds) film made by 20th Century Fox in 1952, starring imported stars
Maureen O'Hara and
Peter Lawford.
Mad Dog Morgan, was made in the 1970s, carrying Western themes along with
Ozploitation cinema The term "kangaroo Western" is used in an article about
The Man from Snowy River (1982) in that year, and
Stuart Cunningham refers to
Charles Chauvel's
Greenhide (1926) as a "kangaroo Western" in 1989. Grayson Cooke attributes the first use of the term "meat-pie Western" to Eric Reade in his
History and Heartburn (1979), referring to
Russell Hagg's
Raw Deal (1977). Historian Troy Lennon (2018) says that meat pie Westerns have been around for more than a century. Cooke (2014) posits that the Australian Western genre never developed a "classic" or mature phase. He lists the following as broad categories: "the early bushranger and bush adventure films; Westerns shot in Australia by foreign production studios; contemporary re-makes of bushranger films; and contemporary revisionist Westerns, noting that most fall into the bushranger category (with only
The Tracker and
The Proposition falling into the latter category at that time). Other recent films, such as
Ivan Sen's
Mystery Road (2013), a
crime film, also uses some of the Western themes. Director
Stephen Johnson and his team of filmmakers dubbed their creation,
High Ground, set in the
Northern Territory, a "Northern". Johnson said "We really feel it's a film that immerses the audience in a time and place and that perhaps hasn't happened in this way before", and producer
Witiyana Marika called it a "northern action thriller". The feature fiction film is based on many stories of the First Nations people of
Arnhem Land that are not told in the history books. Johnson also said "There's a thriller aspect to it. It's not a Western, it's a Northern".
Films The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) could be said to be the first in the genre (and possibly the world's first feature film with the latter two of these being successful with both critics and
box-office. Also notable were
The Legend of Ben Hall (2017) and
The Tracker (2002).
The Proposition (2005) was a "
revisionist Western" or "anti-Western" film influenced by
Robert Altman and
Sam Peckinpah's work. The 2008 film,
Australia, was an epic Western which included other genres such as adventure, action, drama, war and romance.
Sweet Country, about
Anglo-Celtic Australians' incursions into
Aboriginal Australians' traditional lands, was made in 2017. ==Examples==