Been going down a rabbit hole this week. Turns out there’s a fair bit of footy on film, more than I thought, and a lot of it is free or close to it. Ten made-up ones and ten docos below, with links and where to find them where I could work it out.
Fair warning on the first list: the scripted stuff is thin and it’s nearly all Victorian or South Australian. There is no WAFL feature film. The West Aussie story lives in the docos.
The films
The Great MacArthy (1975) is John Jarratt’s first ever film, playing a Kyneton kid who gets more or less kidnapped by South Melbourne. Barry Humphries is in it. Odd little movie, very 1975.
Stork (1971) isn’t really a footy film, but Bruce Spence at the MCG for Carlton v Collingwood is one of the earliest bits of real match footage anyone bothered to put in a feature, so it counts.
The Club (1980) is the one everybody names. Beresford directing Williamson, Jack Thompson and Graham Kennedy, shot at Victoria Park. Blokes in a boardroom carving each other up over a recruit who won’t train. Forty five years on it plays less like a comedy and more like a documentary.
Australian Rules (2002) is from Phillip Gwynne’s Deadly Unna?. A footy town on the SA coast, a white kid and his Aboriginal teammate, and it goes somewhere very dark. Not a Sunday arvo watch, but the best film on this list.
Valentine’s Day (2008) is an old ABC telly movie. Bloke gets mistaken for a gun footballer in Rushworth and cops 200 hours community service coaching the local Bears. Rhys Muldoon. Soft as anything and every bush club person will recognise about four people in it.
Joffa: The Movie (2010). Yes, that Joffa, gold jacket and all, half doco half made up, with Father Bob and Kevin Bartlett wandering through. It’s rough. It’s also very funny in spots.
Blinder (2013), Torquay footy club, Jack Thompson again, old teammates dragged back over something that happened ten years earlier. Reviews gave it a hiding but the club and town stuff rings true.
The Warriors (2017) is a series not a film, so pull me up if you like. Eight parts on the ABC, written and directed entirely by Indigenous filmmakers, two young blokes drafted and dumped into a share house in Melbourne. Nothing else here gets near what the draft actually does to an 18 year old.
The Merger (2018) is the most rewatchable of the lot. Dying country club starts recruiting blokes from the refugee resettlement program to fill the seniors. Free with ads on 7plus last I looked, also on Prime.
Bulldog (2023) is a 16 minute short, free on YouTube. Two country footballers, a coach who measures commitment in bruises. Quiet one, worth the quarter hour.
The docos
War Without Weapons (1980). Half an hour inside North Melbourne’s 1979 under Barassi. Pre season running, the team talks, the launch. Basically a time machine. Sits with the NFSA.
Year of the Dogs (1997) is still the best footy doco made in this country and I’ll argue that with anyone. Footscray’s 1996, the year they ran 15th, plus two members named Pat and Jenny who are worth the price on their own. On DocPlay.
Such Is Life: The Troubled Times of Ben Cousins (2010). Cousins narrating his own wreck, most of it shot around Perth. Hard going. Both parts are floating about on YouTube.
The Galahs (2016). In 1967 Barassi, Skilton, Jesaulenko, Nicholls and Hart flew to Ireland to have a crack at the All Ireland champions at Gaelic football. I’d never heard of it either. Tony Wilson made it, it’s on Apple TV.
Fair Game (2017), Tom Zubrycki on Heritier Lumumba and how it all came apart with Collingwood. Malthouse and Maxwell both go on the record.
In a League of Their Own (2017) follows the Tiwi Bombers through their first season in a mainstream AFL affiliated comp after thirty years running their own on the island.
Nyoongar Footy Magic (2018) is the one for the WAFL people. Four half hours, Ernie Dingo presenting, on Polly Farmer, Barry Cable, Nicky Winmar and the Krakouer brothers. Sister Kate’s, Greenbushes, Mt Barker, then East Perth, Perth, South Fremantle and Claremont. If you watch one thing off this whole list, make it this.
The Final Quarter (2019). Ian Darling built it entirely out of archive and the media coverage of the time. No interviews, no voiceover, just the tape. Free to air catch up.
The Australian Dream (2019) is the other Goodes one, Stan Grant writing and narrating, much bigger argument about the country. Won the AACTA. Stan and DocPlay.
Barassi (2022), nearly two hours on the bloke whose name became shorthand for the whole game, with Blight and Aylett among the talkers.
If you get through that lot: Making Their Mark (2021) on the hub season, Fearless: The Inside Story of the AFLW (2022) on Disney+, Take the Steps (2024) on Collingwood’s flag, and The Chosen Few (2014) on what a senior coaching job actually does to a person.
Chuck in anything I’ve missed, especially anything West Australian. I’ll keep adding to it.