Australian Cinema Is Big, Weird & Ambitious at Sydney Film Fest 2026 

Every year when Sydney Film Festival drops its line-up, there’s always at least one Australian film that makes me go: “Woah… nobody does cinema quite like us.”

And that’s the joy of Australian filmmaking. Right now we’re making critical documentaries about cultural reckonings, horror films about desire and shame, deeply unserious films about trying not to completely lose your mind while making art, and Aussie gothic dark oddball comedies.

But most of all: we’re making stellarly specific stories that could only come from here. 

The 73rd edition of Sydney Film Festival takes over the State Theatre and cinemas across the city, showing a whopping 248 films from 81 countries. But among the Cannes heavy-hitters and international award darlings, the line-up of Australian films is once again proving why local filmmaking and Australian stories deserve to be seen on the biggest screens possible.

“Art and cinema help us make sense of the world, take us into the lives of people far away from us, and remind us to remain vigilant about our own rights and freedoms,” said Festival Director Nashen Moodley. “And we can’t forget, they’re also an enormous source of joy.”

And Australian cinema is delivering plenty of all of the above this year. 

Leading the local charge is Leviticus, Adrian Chiarella’s buzzy Sundance breakout, following two teenage boys confronting an evil force that takes the form of the person they desire most — each other. It’s already shaping up as one of the festival’s most talked-about titles, continuing Australia’s increasingly impressive streak of queer horror.

“Sydney is my hometown and this is the festival I grew up going to. It introduced me to all kinds of films from around the world. I wouldn’t be the filmmaker I am without that kind of exposure,” Chiarella tells City Hub.

“And to screen in official competition, alongside some of my filmmaking heroes, is a real dream come true.”

SFF’s opening night features Silenced, Selina Miles’ documentary following international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson as she fights the weaponisation of defamation law against survivors and journalists. The documentary traces cases involving Amber Heard, journalist Catalina Ruiz-Navarro, and brave Aussie survivor Brittany Higgins, whose allegations of sexual assault in Parliament House created a media firestorm from 2021 onward. 

“We are proud to open the Festival with Silenced,” Moodley said. “Selina Miles has made a clear-eyed and urgent work that challenges audiences to question the systems that decide whose voices are heard and whose are suppressed.”

Miles added that screening the film on Opening Night at the State Theatre was “a dream come true, and a testament to the power of storytelling to elevate voices that might otherwise go unheard.”

Then there’s The Fox. Director Dario Russo’s darkly comic, rural gothic folktale stars Jai Courtney as a foxhunter manipulated by a talking fox (Olivia Colman) into transforming his fiancée into “the perfect woman”. Russo describes it as “a modern fable about supernatural Australian foxes” exploring “our conflicted relationship with the natural world”.

The Piano Tuner follows a Tasmanian piano tuner trying to save an endangered craft; and French Girls showcases the surreal and unsettling world of Sydney’s modelling industry.

For genre fans, The Killings At Parrish Station dives headfirst into desert noir with a sprawling story spanning decades of ritual murders, while Mockbuster documents Adelaide filmmaker Anthony Frith attempting to survive the haywire world of the studio that made Sharknado.

If you’ve ever been guilty of thinking that Australian cinema is boring, Sydney Film Festival is about to prove you spectacularly wrong — so go sit in a dark room with strangers, and let local filmmakers completely blow your mind.

Sydney Film Festival 2026 is on from June 3 – 14.

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Sponsored by Star Observer and City Hub, Leviticus stole the show at Sundance.

This Australian queer horror film tells the tale of two teenage boys who contend with an evil force that takes on the form of the person they desire most: each other.

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