Burke & Wills

Burke & Wills

Burke & Wills

Share

Burke & Wills

"They dared to challenge the unknown. They were the first. They crossed the Australian continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria."

1985

2h 20m

5.1(9 votes)

History

Adventure

Drama

Overview

A story based on true events about two explorers on a doomed journey trying to cross Australia on foot in the 19 century.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson

Robert O'Hara Burke

Nigel Havers

Nigel Havers

William John Wills

Greta Scacchi

Greta Scacchi

Julia Matthews

Matthew Fargher

John King

Ralph Cotterill

Ralph Cotterill

Charley Gray

Drew Forsythe

Drew Forsythe

Brahe

Chris Haywood

Chris Haywood

Tom McDonagh

Monroe Reimers

Monroe Reimers

Dost Mahomet

Ron Blanchard

Bill Patton

Barry Hill

George Landells

Creative team

Directed by: Graeme Clifford
Written by: Michael Thomas
Produced by: Graeme Clifford
John Sexton

Similar Movies

A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It

The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.

Desert Hearts

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

Scarface

Scarface

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Dumas: Black Devil

Thomas Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie Dumas was born a Caribbean slave in 1762 and beat the odds by rising through the ranks to become a revolutionary French general. The son of a nobleman, Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, and an African slave, Marie-Cessette Dumas, he became the first and highest-ranking Black leader in the French military and served under Napoleon Bonaparte. But despite his many exploits, which earned him the nickname of “Black Devil,” his role in the French Revolution was underplayed and he was even denied a full pension and legion of honor by Bonaparte.

Night Detour

Night Detour

In the midst of a snowstorm, a journalist dives back into the memories of her most recent investigation. Following the sudden eclipse of star figure skater Violeta Martínez, the journalist travels to Violeta’s hometown, a tropical village on the West coast of Mexico. There she encounters an intricate labyrinth of clues and wrong paths, surreal tales and enigmatic characters. As the story deviates and plunges into the night. A world fades into another.

Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers

Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.

Breathless

Breathless

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Young hobbit Frodo Baggins, after inheriting a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, must leave his home in order to keep it from falling into the hands of its evil creator. Along the way, a fellowship is formed to protect the ringbearer and make sure that the ring arrives at its final destination: Mt. Doom, the only place where it can be destroyed.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies lie at two towers--Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupt wizard Saruman awaits, and Sauron's fortress at Barad-dur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor. Frodo and Sam are trekking to Mordor to destroy the One Ring of Power while Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn search for the orc-captured Merry and Pippin. All along, nefarious wizard Saruman awaits the Fellowship members at the Orthanc Tower in Isengard.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

As armies mass for a final battle that will decide the fate of the world--and powerful, ancient forces of Light and Dark compete to determine the outcome--one member of the Fellowship of the Ring is revealed as the noble heir to the throne of the Kings of Men. Yet, the sole hope for triumph over evil lies with a brave hobbit, Frodo, who, accompanied by his loyal friend Sam and the hideous, wretched Gollum, ventures deep into the very dark heart of Mordor on his seemingly impossible quest to destroy the Ring of Power.

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

Young Hobbit Frodo Baggins is thrown into an amazing adventure when he's tasked with destroying the One Ring, created by the dark lord Sauron. Frodo must travel in a small fellowship of nine warriors and accomplices. But it won't be an easy journey for the Fellowship of the Ring, on the ultimate quest to rid Middle-earth of evil.

En el camino

En el camino

During the trip back from their vacation, a young couple is stranded in the middle of the road and they lose all forms of communication, including each other.

Ako Ang Lalagot Sa Hininga Mo

Ako Ang Lalagot Sa Hininga Mo

All his life, Ronaldo has led a quiet and comfortable life. The son of a mayor, he hopes to earn his law degree and to one day follow the footsteps of his father. But one night, tragedy strikes when his parents are assassinated. Stricken by both grief and anger, Ronaldo abandons his studies and heads home. After burying his parents, Ronaldo begins to look deeper into his parents’ gruesome killing, and what he discovers is an even more gruesome truth: the man he has trusted all along is the very man who had masterminded the crime.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada

A young woman from the Midwest gets more than she bargained for when she moves to New York to become a writer and ends up as the assistant to the tyrannical, larger-than-life editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine.

Legends of the Fall

Legends of the Fall

In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.

Opera Prima

Opera Prima

Matias meets Violeta, his cousin one morning in Madrid at the Plaza de Opera. He is twenty-five. She is 18. He's a divorced journalist trying to write a thriller. She studies violin. She's a vegetarian. He loves meat. Many things separate them, but he moves into her apartment.

Lions for Lambs

Lions for Lambs

Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.

A Tale of Two Sisters

A Tale of Two Sisters

Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.

Jindabyne

Jindabyne

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

Recommended Movies

Against the Ice

Against the Ice

In 1909, two explorers fight to survive after they're left behind while on a Danish expedition in ice-covered Greenland.

Walkabout

Walkabout

Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.

News of the World

News of the World

A Texan traveling across the wild West bringing the news of the world to local townspeople, agrees to help rescue a young girl who was kidnapped.

Endless Night

Endless Night

Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of her husband, the explorer Robert Peary, who tries to find a route to the North Pole.

Cave Rescue

Cave Rescue

When a youth football team of 12 boys, aged 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach is trapped deep inside a cave in Northern Thailand, thousands of volunteers and soldiers from around the world unite in a race against time to find them.

The Emerald Forest

The Emerald Forest

For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

World Trade Center

World Trade Center

Two police officers struggle to survive when they become trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

Rabbit-Proof Fence

In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.

The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm

In October 1991, a confluence of weather conditions combined to form a killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail.

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes

Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes

A shipping disaster in the 19th Century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. Soon after, a family of apes stumble across the house and in the ensuing panic, both parents are killed. A female ape takes the tiny boy as a replacement for her own dead infant, and raises him as her son. Twenty years later, Captain Phillippe D'Arnot discovers the man who thinks he is an ape. Evidence in the tree house leads him to believe that he is the direct descendant of the Earl of Greystoke, and thus takes it upon himself to return the man to civilization.

Moby Dick

Moby Dick

In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.

Flight of the Phoenix

Flight of the Phoenix

When an oil rig in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia proves unproductive, an aircraft crew are sent to shut the operation down and fly them out. On the flight out over the desert on the way to Beijing, Capt. Frank Towns and co-pilot A.J. are unable to keep their cargo plane, a C-119 Flying Boxcar, in the air when a violent sandstorm strikes. Crash-landing in a remote uncharted part of the desert, the two pilots and their passengers -- a crew of oil workers and a drifter -- must work together to survive by rebuilding the aircraft. Soon, low supplies and a band of merciless smugglers add even greater urgency to their task.

The Mission

The Mission

When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.

Lost on a Mountain in Maine

Lost on a Mountain in Maine

When twelve-year-old Donn Fendler gets tired of waiting for his father and brothers to join him on the summit of Maine's highest peak, he decides to find his own way back to camp. But Donn doesn't count on a fast-moving fog that obscures the path. He doesn't count on falling down an embankment that hides him from sight. And he doesn't count on taking a turn that leaves him alone to wander aimlessly for nearly two weeks in the empty mountain wilderness.

The Edge

The Edge

The plane carrying wealthy Charles Morse crashes down in the Alaskan wilderness. Together with the two other passengers, photographer Robert and assistant Stephen, Charles devises a plan to help them reach civilization. However, his biggest obstacle might not be the elements, or even the Kodiak bear stalking them -- it could be Robert, whom Charles suspects is having an affair with his wife and would not mind seeing him dead.

Into the Wild

Into the Wild

After graduating from Emory University in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity, and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

Gallipoli

Gallipoli

Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

1492: Conquest of Paradise

1492: Conquest of Paradise

1492: Conquest of Paradise depicts Christopher Columbus’ discovery of The New World and his effect on the indigenous people.

The Finest Hours

The Finest Hours

The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.