Streaming columnist NICK OVERALL comes home to discover there’s a lot of Australian movies waiting to be watched. 

AUSTRALIA’S sunburnt country has many a time played a stunning role in movies, but with “The Dry”, streaming on Amazon Prime from this week (September 30), it’s captured in some of its most haunting detail to date.

In this taut crime drama, federal police officer Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken home town to attend the funeral of his childhood friend who is alleged to have murdered his family before turning the gun on himself.

Falk quickly gets swept into the mystery when locals bring out accusations of his own involvement.

Eric Bana is front and centre here and does a great job playing, well, Eric Bana. 

Not that that’s a bad thing, as long as it has nothing to do with the incredible “Hulk”, which is on Netflix, regrettably.

“The Dry” got me in the mood for what other Australian movies are on offer and luckily, there’s heaps of great home-grown films to be streamed.

Perhaps one of the most haunting “Wake in Fright”, can be found on Stan.

Here, a preppy primary school teacher from Sydney is thrown into limbo when he becomes stranded in an Australia desert town known as “The Yabba”.

Losing his money on a gambling spree, the teacher tries all he can to escape but only becomes more entangled in the culture of the drinking, fighting and kangaroo-hunting locals.

The words of master director Martin Scorsese after seeing the film at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival say it all: “It is a deeply, and I mean deeply, unsettling and disturbing movie. It left me speechless.”

Australia’s impressive roster of crime drama doesn’t stop there though.

For those wanting more it’s impossible to go past “Animal Kingdom” on Stan, which tells the story of a crime family and its menacing matriarch played brilliantly by Jacki Weaver, and might as well be “The Sopranos” in downtown Melbourne. 

There’s also “Jindabyne”, a hidden gem about a group of friends whose lives become fractured after they delay reporting the body of a girl found on a fishing trip.

The Australian icon “Mad Max” is also on Stan, but for those looking for the hugely popular, modern take on the franchise, “Mad Max: Fury Road”, they’ll have to find it on Foxtel’s streaming platform Binge, or at least use its two-week free trial.

What about a lighter affair though? Well where better to start than Aussie directing icon Baz Luhrmann.

His classic theatre rom-com “Strictly Ballroom” can be streamed for free on ABC iView and his take on the iconic French cabaret “Moulin Rouge!” and modern Shakespearean spin “Romeo + Juliet” is on Disney Plus.

Netflix also has a line up of a few Aussie classics, old and new, up its sleeve.

One, “The Dish”, tells the sorta true tale of the responsibility thrust upon a ragtag group of scientists on a sheep farm who became the world’s only hope for successfully transmitting images of the 1969 moon landing.

It all plays out at the Parkes Observatory (but, of course, Canberrans know Honeysuckle Creek Observatory was the real hero).

Netflix also has the quintessential Australian classic “Walkabout”, which tells the story of a teenage girl and her young brother stranded in the Australian desert.

Soon their lives are not only saved but changed forever by an indigenous boy who comes to their rescue.

There’s heaps more I could cover in detail, such as “Muriel’s Wedding” (on Amazon Prime) or “The Babadook” (Netflix), but when it comes to Aussie classics, it would be a sin not to mention the Kerrigan family.

They’re of course the hilarious brood from “The Castle”, a film shot entirely in 10 days yet remains a staple Australian satire and has a home on Stan.

There’s so much to be said about the film, but the words of Dennis Denuto, the Kerrigans’ hopeless yet lovable lawyer, in one of the funniest courtroom scenes of all time probably says a lot more in a lot less: “It’s just the vibe… of the thing.”