58 Australian screenwriters

Chris Bearde was a British-born comedy writer, producer and director best known for his work as a writer on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and for co-writing and producing television specials for Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Sonny & Cher, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Andy Williams, The Jackson 5, The Osmonds, Dinah Shore, Diana Ross, and Lucille Ball. He also created the format for the original Gong Show and a number of network and pay-cable comedy series including That's My Mama and Sherman Oaks.

Stuart Beattie is an Australian screenwriter and film director. His screenplay for Collateral (2004) earned him nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, Satellite Award for Best Original Screenplay and Saturn Award for Best Writing.

Richard Bradley is an Australian film producer and publicist working through his company Richard Bradley Productions which was established in 1981.

Robert Braiden is an Australian film director and writer. Born in Sydney he grew up in Moorebank, Liverpool, New South Wales and now currently lives in Brisbane, Queensland.

Michael Hamish Budd is an Australian film actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Esmael, alongside Henry Cavill and Sigourney Weaver in The Cold Light of Day. The film also starred Bruce Willis.

Charles Edward Chauvel OBE was an Australian filmmaker, producer and screenwriter and nephew of Australian army General Sir Harry Chauvel. He is noted for making the films Forty Thousand Horsemen in 1940 and Jedda in 1955.

Santo Luigi Cilauro is an Australian comedian, television and feature film producer, screenwriter, actor, author and cameraman who is also a co-founder of The D-Generation. Known as the weatherman in Frontline, he is also an author and former radio presenter on the Triple M Network, and achieved worldwide fame with the viral video Elektronik Supersonik.

Brendan Cowell is an Australian actor, screenwriter, comedian and director. Cowell was born in Sydney. He discovered acting by accident while waiting for his sister to come out of a rehearsal; he was then cast in a commercial at age 8. He attended Charles Sturt University in Bathurst to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre/Media, originally considering journalism as a career option.

Kieran Darcy-Smith is an Australian actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for starring in the films The Cave, The Square, Animal Kingdom, and The Reef. He made his feature film directing debut with 2012 film Wish You Were Here, and his second directorial project The Duel was released in June 2016.

Martin Dingle-Wall is an Australian actor, producer and screenwriter. He originated the role of Flynn Saunders on the Australian soap opera Home and Away in 2001. He departed the show in 2002. Dingle-Wall has appeared in Satisfaction, Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities and Cops: L.A.C.

Joel Edgerton is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He has appeared in the films Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) as a young Owen Lars, King Arthur (2004) as Gawain, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), The Great Gatsby (2013), Black Mass (2015), Loving (2016), Bright (2017), Red Sparrow (2018), and The King (2019).

Stephan Elliott is an Australian film director and screenwriter. His best-known film internationally is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).

John Anthony Flanagan is an Australian fantasy author best known for his medieval fantasy series, the Ranger's Apprentice, and its sister series, the Brotherband Chronicles. Some of his other works include his Storm Peak duology, as well as the adult novel The Grey Raider.

Greg Flynn is an Australian novelist whose debut book The Berlin Cross received positive reviews nationally when released in December 2005.

Jason Gannis an Australian actor, writer, comedian and producer. He is best known for his role as the title character in the Australian comedy series Wilfred, directed by Tony Rogers, and the U.S. reboot of the same name.

Marieke Josephine Hardy is an Australian writer, radio and television presenter, television producer and screenwriter and former television actress.

Frank Harvey was a British-born actor, producer and writer best known for his work in Australia.

Simon Higgins is an Australian screenwriter and author of books for young adults, born in 1958 in England. He arrived in Australia in 1963 after first living in Nigeria, Africa.

John Hillcoat is an Australian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, and music video director.

Paul John "P. J." Hogan is an AACTA Award winning Australian film director and writer.

Lachy Hulme is an Australian actor and screenwriter. He has written several films and has appeared in a number of successful Australian and US film and television productions.

Sheridan Jobbins is an Australian journalist, television presenter and screenwriter.

Justin Dallas Kurzel is an Australian film director and screenwriter.

Raymond Longford was a prolific Australian film director, writer, producer and actor during the silent era. Longford was a major director of the silent film era of the Australian cinema. He formed a production team with Lottie Lyell. His contributions to Australian cinema with his ongoing collaborations with Lyell, including The Sentimental Bloke (1919) and The Blue Mountains Mystery (1921), prompted the Australian Film Institute's AFI Raymond Longford Award, inducted in 1968, named in his honour.

Bazmark "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian director, writer, and producer with projects spanning film, television, opera, theatre, music, and recording industries. He is regarded by many as a contemporary example of an auteur for his style and deep involvement in the writing, directing, design, and musical components of all his work. He is the most commercially successful Australian director, with four of his films in the top ten highest worldwide grossing Australian films of all time.

Lottie Lyell, born Charlotte Edith Cox, was an Australian actress, screenwriter, editor and filmmaker. She is regarded as Australia's first film star, and also contributed to the local industry during the silent era through her collaborations with director and writer Raymond Longford.

John Paterson McGowan was a pioneering Hollywood actor and director and occasionally a screenwriter and producer. McGowan remains the only Australian to have been made a life member of the Screen Directors Guild.

Greg McLean is an Australian film director, producer and writer. He rose to fame in 2005 with his debut feature film, Wolf Creek, creating one of Australia's most memorable and horrific characters, Mick Taylor. The long-awaited sequel to his first feature, Wolf Creek 2 was released February 2013. Mclean also wrote, directed and produced Rogue (2007) and was executive producer of Red Hill (2010) and Crawlspace (2012). He is also the co-author of two novels about the fictional character Mick Taylor; Wolf Creek: Origin and Wolf Creek: Desolation Game and the four-part comic book series Dark Axis: Secret Battles of WW2 and the graphic novel Sebastian Hawks – Creature Hunter. In 2016, his film, The Darkness, was released to theaters, and a Wolf Creek TV series was released on Australian streaming service Stan.

David Michôd is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He is best known for directing the critically acclaimed crime drama Animal Kingdom (2010) and dystopian drama The Rover (2014). He also co-wrote Hesher (2010).

George Mikell was a Lithuanian-Australian actor and writer best known for his performances as Schutzstaffel (SS) officers in The Guns of Navarone (1961) and The Great Escape (1963). Mikell appeared in over 30 British and American feature films and had numerous leading roles in theatre.

George Miller is an Australian film director, producer, screenwriter, and physician. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, whose second installment, Mad Max 2, and fourth, Fury Road, have been hailed as amongst the greatest action films of all time. Miller is very diverse in genre and style as he also directed the biographical medical drama Lorenzo's Oil, the dark fantasy The Witches of Eastwick, the Academy-Award winning animated film Happy Feet, produced the family friendly fantasy adventure Babe and directed the sequel Babe: Pig in the City.

Anthony David Morphett, known under the professional pen name Tony Morphett, was an Australian screenwriter, who created or co-created many Australian television series, including Dynasty, Certain Women, Sky Trackers, Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Above the Law and Rain Shadow. Morphett wrote or co-wrote seven feature films, ten telemovies, twelve mini-series, and hundreds of episodes of television drama, as well as devising or co-devising seven TV series. He won 14 industry awards for TV screenwriting.

Joanna Murray-Smith is a Melbourne based Australian playwright, screenwriter, novelist, librettist and newspaper columnist.

Matthew Nable is an Australian film and television actor, writer, sports commentator and former professional rugby league footballer. After playing in the Winfield Cup Premiership during the 1990s for the Manly-Warringah and South Sydney clubs, he wrote and starred in the rugby league-centred drama The Final Winter in 2007. Nable went on to act in films such as Killer Elite and Riddick. He appeared on The CW's Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow as Ra's al Ghul.

Chris Noonan is an Australian filmmaker and actor. He is best known for the family film Babe (1995), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Phillip Noyce is an Australian director, producer, and screenwriter of film and television. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama, thrillers, and action films. He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994) and the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.

Judith Anne Nunn (AM), , is an Australian fiction author, former theatre and television actress and radio and television screenwriter. Nunn was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2015 Australia Day Honours for her service to the performing arts as a scriptwriter and actor of stage and screen, and to literature as an author.

Morgan O'Neill is an Australian writer, director, actor and producer. He is also an accomplished professional musician. Having earned an honors degree in Literature from the University of Sydney, he subsequently graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) with a BA in Performing Arts (Acting) in 1998. Since then he has worked extensively in the entertainment industry, both in Australia and the US, with television roles including Home and Away, All Saints, Water rats and Sea Patrol. O'Neill also appeared in Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Joanne Lees: Murder in the Outback, Supernova, Little Oberon and the 2012 Netflix movie, The Factory, which he also directed.

Michael Pate was an Australian actor, writer, director, who also worked in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Craig Pearce is an Australian screenwriter and actor.

Rachel Perkins is an Australian film and television director, producer, and screenwriter. She is known for her films Radiance (1998), One Night the Moon (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2010), and Jasper Jones (2017). Perkins is an Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins and his wife Eileen.

Alexander Proyas is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer. Proyas is best known for directing the films The Crow (1994), Dark City (1998), I, Robot (2004), Knowing (2009), and Gods of Egypt (2016).

Samantha Rebillet was an Australian film director, actress, screenwriter, producer, singer and songwriter. She has had guest roles in various Australian television series and roles in several films. Rebillet has written, directed and produced several films and documentaries including the 2004 documentary Butterfly Man which won a Silver Cub Award at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

Gina Riley is an Australian actress, writer, singer and comedian.

Kenneth Graham Ross is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, and lyricist best known for writing the 1978 stage play Breaker Morant, that was based on the life of Australian soldier Harry "Breaker" Morant.

Benedict Samuel is an Australian actor, writer and director best known for playing Jervis Tetch / Mad Hatter in the Fox crime series Gotham.

Mark Savage is a US-based Australian film and television director, screenwriter, and film producer specializing in thrillers, horror, crime, cult, action and exploitation-themed films. He is influenced by European and Asian genre cinema, and has written critical reviews and articles for the Herald Sun, Asian Cult Cinema', Filmnet and Fatal Visions.

Frederic Alan Schepisi is an Australian film director, producer and screenwriter. His credits include The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Plenty, Roxanne, A Cry in the Dark, Mr. Baseball, Six Degrees of Separation, and Last Orders.

Cate Shortland is an Australian film and television writer and director. She is best known for her films Somersault, Lore and Berlin Syndrome.

Robert Ian Sitch is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter, actor and comedian.

Kriv Stenders is an Australian writer, producer and director best known for the film Red Dog and the thriller film Kill Me Three Times.

Dion Titheradge was an Australian-born actor and writer of revues, plays and screenplays.

Brian Medwin Trenchard-Smith is an English-Australian filmmaker and author, known for his idiosyncratic and satirical approach to low-budget genre films. His filmography covers action, science fiction, martial arts, dystopian fiction, comedy, war, family, thriller, romance and erotica, and his works tend to be cross-genre pieces.

Shanrah Wakefield is an Australia born actress and writer. She was one of the stars of the 2009 web series, OzGirl, and is currently a cast member on the Australian sketch comedy series, Kinne. Her first screenplay, Wrong Swipe, which she wrote with her partner, Sophie Tilson, is scheduled to be released February 13 on Lifetime.

Rachel Claire Ward, is an English-born Australian actress, film director, television director, and screenwriter.

Leigh Whannell is an Australian screenwriter, actor, film producer, and film director. He is best known for writing films directed by his friend James Wan, including Saw (2004), Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2010), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Whannell made his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), and has since directed two more films, Upgrade (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020).

Charles Williams is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his 2018 film All These Creatures (2018), which won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

David Keith Williamson, AO is an Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.