6. Wake In Fright
Filmmaker Ted Kotcheff released Australia's answer to Straw Dogs with 1971's classic Wake in Fright. Audiences and critics alike responded enthusiastically to the tale of an effete school teacher's Heart of Darkness-like journey into the Australian Outback, which earned Kotcheff a nomination for the prestigious Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Although it enjoyed critical success, Wake in Fright failed to connect with North American audiences. Despite the critics' endorsement, and the film's successful run in France, almost all copies of Wake in Fright became lost except for one print whose quality was too poor to be transferred to video or DVD. With its absence from cinemas, television and home video, Wake in Fright became known as Australia's great lost film. In 1994, Wake in Fright's editor, Anthony Buckley, decided that the film was too good to be doomed to obscurity and began a decade long search for a high quality print of the film. Buckley's quest ended in 2004 in Pittsburgh where he discovered the lost negatives of Wake in Fright in a shipping container marked "For Destruction". Buckley's hard work had paid off and in 2009, following a painstaking restoration, the Cannes film festival screened Wake in Fright a second time to resounding critical acclaim. Movie buffs can now enjoy Wake in Fright in a pristine Blu-ray and DVD home release.