After a break of several decades, Mad Max has returned to cinema screens in the incendiary, visceral Fury Road. It’s a surprisingly welcome revival of perhaps the most popular Australian film series of them all - well, if we discount Crocodile Dundee, which we probably should.

However there is much more to Australian cinema than Mad Max - even if it remains a great franchise, as Philip Molloy explained in his review - even if many filmmakers have been just as drawn to the Outback. While it hasn’t always made a major impact on the international stage, there are many treasures to be found in the cinema of Australia. Here’s six to start with...

Wake in Fright

The Mad Max series has always been pleasantly unhinged, but Wake in Fright arguably remains the definitive portrayal of insanity in the outback. It’s an exaggerated but frighteningly raw deconstruction of Australian culture, as well as masculinity. The film never descends into straight up horror - bar the incredibly hard-to-watch and instantly infamous kangaroo cull sequence - but from the off it establishes itself as a disturbing, surreal experience. After a few decades in relative obscurity, Ted Kotcheff’s film received a somewhat belated visibility boost a few years ago with a theatrical re-release, followed by home releases. A film this powerful deserved the attention.

Walkabout

When this ‘Australian New Wave’ classic was released back in 1971, questions were raised about whether it could be considered an Australian film at all (it was from an English director, after all). That aside, few would dispute it remains one of the most captivating, artful takes on the country’s vast areas of wilderness, and one of the most thematically provocative films about Australia. The second feature from acclaimed director Nicolas Roeg, the meditative and mysterious film follows two youngsters’ (including British star Jenny Agutter) often dream-like experiences after they’re abandoned in the desert, including their interactions with an Aboriginal boy. Dark, intelligent and essential cinema.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Peter Weir’s fascinating film remains one of the most acclaimed and controversial Australian films ever made. The film is predominantly set in and around a girls’ boarding school, and focuses on the disappearance of a number of schoolgirls during a picnic, as well as the many repercussions of that disappearance. Not a film for those who want definitive closure, Hanging Rock is a weird, sensual and thematically dense film that consistently sidesteps easy answers, and achieves something richer and much more memorable in the process.

The Dish

Many of Australia’s key films are rather bleak affairs, but plenty of worthy comedies have emerged too - including international hits like Muriel’s Wedding. To counter some of the darker efforts listed here, The Dish is a very good bet. The film from director Rob Sitch (previously responsible for The Castle, another breakout hit) is a playful interpretation of a real-life event, recounting the semi-fictionalised events at the Parkes Observatory during efforts to televise man’s first steps on the moon in 1969. The cast is led by Sam Neill, who has appeared in several other prominent Australian features over the years, despite the fact he’s not actually Australian.

Animal Kingdom

Director David Michôd was responsible for the recently released The Rover - a violent and proudly joyless film undoubtedly influenced by the Outback dystopia of the Mad Max films. His debut feature Animal Kingdom, on the other hand, offered a refreshingly brutal and stylish twist on the typical gangster film. Focused on a crime family in Melbourne, one of Animal Kingdom’s most welcome achievements was finally earning the immensely talented Ben Mendelsohn the international attention he deserved.

The Babadook

If you didn’t catch Jennifer Kent’s superb debut in cinemas last year, it’s well worth rectifying that. One of the most justifiably acclaimed horror films of recent years, The Babadook chooses to avoid cheap scare tactics in favour of something that is altogether more primal and unsettling. On one hand it boasts one of the more imaginative monsters in recent horror cinema, but it’s clear that Kent is just as interested in an intense exploration of the trials and tribulations of parenthood - and that theme becomes more disturbing than the fleeting glimpses of the Babadook itself.