Stir
Tensions between guards and inmates at an Australian prison reach boiling point, culminating in a bloody riot.
Nominated for 11 AFI awards (including Best Film and Best Actor) Stir is the brutal, unflinching story of the bloodiest riot in Australian prison history. Unwillingly finding themselves at the centre of this violent event are China Jackson (Bryan Brown), a semi-habitual minor crim wanting to keep his nose clean, and Norton (Max Phipps), a complex warder deeply ashamed of his former treatment of prisoners and now seeking redemption.
Stir shows how both men are ultimately driven to desperate violence when tensions inside the gaol build to an explosive finale where the prisoners are caged, jeered, gassed and then made to run the gauntlet of armoured revenge-seeking warders.
Harsh, uncompromising and as violent and unrestrained as the system and men it depicts, Stir is one of the most harrowing and controversial movies ever made in this country.