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Mel Gibson, Mark Lee, Harold Hopkins, RONNY GRAHAM, Stan Green ... see more see more... , Robert Grubb , Heath Harris , Graham Dow , David Argue , Bill Hunter , Bill Kerr , Jenny Lovell , Tim McKenzie (II) , John Morris , Gerda Nicolson , Paul Sonkkila , Max Wearing , Charles Yunupingu , Harold Baigent , Don Barker , Steve Dodd , Reg Evans , Peter Ford , Jack Giddy , Moshe Kedem , Paul Linkson , Geoff Parry , Dane Peterson , Phyllis Burford , Brian Anderson , John Murphy

The first of two consecutive films to see director Peter Weir team with Mel Gibson (the other being The Year of Living Dangerously), Gallipoli follows two idealistic young friends, Frank (Gibson) and ... read more read more...Archy (Mark Lee), who join the Australian army during World War I and fight the doomed Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. The first half of the film documents the lives of the young men in Australia, detailing their personalities and beliefs. The second half of the movie chronicles the ill-fated and ill-planned battle, where the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps is hopelessly outmatched by the enemy forces. Gallipoli was the recipient of eight prizes at the 1981 Australian Film Institute Awards. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

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77% liked it

22,020 ratings

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88% liked it

24 critics

PG, 1 hr. 50 min.

Directed by: Peter Weir

Release Date: August 7, 1981

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DVD Release Date: June 29, 1999

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Stats: 913 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (913)

  • deano
    April 5, 2011
    deano
    Fantastic Australian story of two champion runners who volunteer as soldiers in 1915 to see the worlds.
    The result is thrilling and amusing, thanks to the script from playwright David Williamson. Themes of mateship, sports and class warfare cleverly thread the glorious landscape ... read moreshots.
    Really sad for losing one of soldiers through the shoot-out war at the ending.
  • TomBowler
    August 21, 2010
    TomBowler
    One of the greatest Australian films ever made. Full review later.
  • SirPant
    March 29, 2010
    SirPant
    Peter Weir made some wonderful films between the mid 70's and the mid 80's, this is one of his best. The perfect anti-war film, it highlights the stupidity of war and the ultimate waste and pointlessness of it all. It's superb and should be on school curriculum's! I also love the... read more soundtrack (The brilliant Jean-Michel Jarre), although it does seem a little odd having electric music playing over a film set during the first world war.
  • garyX
    February 9, 2010
    garyX
    A small town Australian runner decides to join up for WWI and fight for King and country in the company of streetwise competitor Mel Gibson, but they inevitably find that war is not all glory and derring do. Directed by the largely under-rated Peter Weir, Gallipoli is not your ty... read morepical war film. The fact that the combatants are the pragmatic and down to earth Aussies who seem never to lose their sense of humour makes for a different spin in itself, and the fact that the fateful battle is so absurdly-and tragically-shortlived means that much of the film is male bonding and fun and games, set to some beautifully photographed backdrops, from the vast expanses of the outback, to the pyramids of Egypt through to the beaches of Turkey. How ill prepared these boys were is summed up by the amusingly farcical "military exercise" they undertake, the humour counterpointing the horrifying waste of life that the real engagement entailed. Not the film for those looking for gruelling and gritty scenes of warfare, this is more a snapshot of war from a very personal viewpoint made with much warmth and humanity. In other words the antithesis of the bloated, self-aggrandizing gung ho abortion We Were Soldiers that Gibson spewed forth 20 years later.
  • LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    December 17, 2009
    LorenzoVonMatterhorn
    "From a place you've never heard of, comes a story you'll never forget."

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

    RE
    ... read moreVIEW
    Peter Weir has long been one of my favorite directors, and he has had a career consumed by subtle, quiet, lingering films. He can make the most banal concept seem thrilling and suspenseful; a perfect example is the Harrison Ford film "Witness." It could have easily become a stupid, insulting, exploitative "thriller." The ending is, in retrospect, quite ridiculous. But Weir has a strange ability to make anything seem realistic. "Gallipoli" is one of his older films, from 1981, and it stars a huge cast of names - most famous today, of course, Mel Gibson...whose name is now splattered across the front of the DVD case. The story is a true one and follows a group of young Australian men who join the ANZACs in World War I. They are sent to Gallipoli, and amidst personal and emotional turmoil they must learn to band together and fight the Turkish Army. "Gallipoli" is a great film - slow, subtle, low-key. It's a bit like an Australian version of "All Quiet on the Western Front." I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys slower films and can appreciate character-driven dramas.
  • smith44
    November 9, 2008
    smith44
    Australian Classic, by great director Peter Weir. Portraying a moumentus moment in Australian history, the tragic event of Gapllipoli and the change in feeling toward Britian. A must see imporant film. Winner of my Top Australian Films.
  • kenstachnik
    October 6, 2008
    kenstachnik
    A tragic homoerotic Australian "Paths of Glory" with a wonderfully haunting final shot.
  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    September 16, 2007
    YLOWBSTARDreturns
    Outstanding war film from Peter Weir.
  • puffchunk
    January 26, 2007
    puffchunk
    Pretty crazy movie about how Aussies were cannon fodder. Good loyalty movie
  • Tecnoandre
    June 20, 2010
    Tecnoandre
    Gallipoli is a 1981 Australian film, directed by Peter Weir and starring a young Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, about several young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during the First World War. They are sent to Turkey, where they take part in the Gallip... read moreoli Campaign. During the course of the movie, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. The climax of the movie occurs on the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli and depicts the futile attack at the Battle of the Nek on 7 August 1915.

    Gallipoli provides a faithful portrayal of life in Australia in the 1910s ? reminiscent of Weir's 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock set in 1900 ? and captures the ideals and character of the Australians who joined up to fight, and the conditions they endured on the battlefield. It does, however, modify events for dramatic purposes and contains a number of significant historical inaccuracies. In particular, the officers responsible for Entente command of the attack are depicted in the film as being British, when in fact, most historians agree that the blame for the failure falls at the feet of the two Australian Commanding Officers.
    Explendorous cinematography and music, make this movie a inusitate masterpiece.

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Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel
January 18, 2010
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

Well acted and, within its limited terms, well made, Gallipoli represents a failure of nerve as well as design. Full Review

Janet Maslin
May 20, 2003
Janet Maslin, New York Times

Weir's work has a delicacy, gentleness, even wispiness that would seem not well suited to the subject. And yet his film has an uncommon beauty, warmth, and immediacy, and a touch of the mysterious, too. Full Review

Emanuel Levy
December 19, 2010
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Set in 1915, Weir's excellent anti-war film centers on the disastrous battle of Gallipoli, featuring an excellent performance by Mel Gibson as a young fleet-footed soldier Full Review

Sean Axmaker
November 18, 2010
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online

... deflated the romantic notions of glory under fire to show the reality of Gallipoli and mourn the men who gave up their lives for a war they had no stake in. Full Review

Matthew Pejkovic
July 7, 2010
Matthew Pejkovic, Matt's Movie Reviews

Gallipoli is Australia's quintessential war movie that works as a stirring tribute to the ANZAC's and a condemnation of the travesty which is war. Full Review

January 18, 2010
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Both a fitting testimony to the courage of the thousands of Australians and New Zealanders who died fighting for their country and one of the most powerful cinematic examinations of the futility and t... Full Review

January 18, 2010
Film4

The friendship between town and country boys Lee and Gibson is real and personal, and the final shot transcends cliche. Full Review

Tom Milne
June 24, 2006
Tom Milne, Time Out

The central section devoted to training in Egypt sags badly through its crass buddy antics and its crude caricatures of wogs and pommies. Full Review

Clint Morris
March 3, 2006
Clint Morris, Mediasharx

One of the best war films ever made....a triumph for the AFI

Christopher Null
October 11, 2005
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

Weir goes so far in humanizing Archy and Frank before they head off to the dehumanizing crucible of combat that he commits the greatest sin of all... he's boring Full Review

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Gallipoli Trivia

  • Frank Dunne was a charachter by Mel Gibson In ...  Answer »
  • Which director links the movies "Gallipoli", "Witness", "Dead Poets Society", "The Last Wave" and "Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World"?  Answer »
  • Wolf Creek, Mad Max, The Man From Snowy River and Gallipoli were all filmed in __   Answer »
  • In the 1981 film Gallipoli, most of the musical is classical. But which unlikely piece of music came from the charts?  Answer »
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