20 Great Films You Won't Believe Aren't On IMDb's Top 250
2. Picnic At Hanging Rock
Rating: 7.6
Picnic at Hanging Rock is another surprising exclusion from the list given that it's Australia's most beloved film and is one of the very, very best art-house films of all time.
A mystery without a solution and a horror film without scares, Picnic is a very hard film to explain or define but one thing is for certain: it's a masterpiece. Boosted by its haunting story, the perfect visuals and its unforgettable exploration of nature, colonialism, repression and loss, Picnic is one of those movies that will stay with you forever.
While the screenplay is brilliant and the performances are excellent, director Peter Weir is the film's MVP. His direction is truly mesmerizing and the sheer number of emotions this simultaneously haunting and beautiful film evokes, not to mention all the different themes suggested, are testament to the power of cinema.
Whether you interpret it as a film about the loss of innocence, repressed female sexuality, the conflict between man and nature or the chasm between the Australian landscape and its foreign colonists, this hallucinatory, dream-like vision won't fail to touch every single viewer.
Where It Should Be: #50-1