Australia

Australia is a 2008 epic adventure drama film directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The screenplay was written by Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan. The film is a character story, set between 1939 and 1942 against a dramatised backdrop of events across northern Australia at the time, such as the bombing of Darwin during World War II. Production took place in Sydney, Darwin, Kununurra and Bowen. The film was released to cinemas on 26 November 2008 in the United States and in Australia on 26 December 2008, with subsequent worldwide release dates throughout late December 2008, and January and February 2009. Australia received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $211 million worldwide. In November 2023, a new extended edit of the film, expanded into a 6-episode mini-series and retitled Faraway Downs, will debut on Disney streaming platforms. Plot In 1939, weeks before the start of World War II, Lady Sarah Ashley of England travels to Australia to force her philandering husband to sell his faltering cattle station, Faraway Downs. The huge station straddles Western Australia and the Northern Territory, reaching north to the Timor Sea. Her husband sends an independent cattle drover, called "The Drover", to transport her to Faraway Downs.