John Duigan Filmography

Born:: June 19, 1949 in Hartney-Witney, Hampshire, England
Occupation:: Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Biography:: Director John Duigan first attracted attention with such low-budget films as The Trespassers (1976) and Mouth to Mouth (1978), which he also wrote and directed. These films were centered in Duigan's adopted homeland of Australia, but their theme of youthful alienation and confusion struck a...Read More

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Head in the Clouds

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charlize Theron, Penélope Cruz, Stuart Townsend, Thomas Kretschmann

Synopsis: Australian filmmaker John Duigan directs the romantic war drama Head in the Clouds. Charlize Theron stars as ambitious photographer Gilda Bessé, who lives in France during the 1930s. She shares her stylish luxury apartment in Paris with Cambridge student Guy (Stuart Townsend) from Ireland and Read More

9/17/04
The Parole Officer

Crew: Director

Actors: Steve Coogan, Lena Headey, Stephen Dillane, Om Puri, Steven Waddington

Synopsis: British television comic Steve Coogan made his first bid for a big-screen career in this comedy, in which he plays Simon Garden, a singularly inept parole officer who has not had terribly good luck with his clients -- after many years on the job, only three of the former prisoners he's been Read More

8/10/01
Paranoid

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jessica Alba, James Bannon, Mischa Barton, Gina Bellman, Ewen Bremner, Iain Glen, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Synopsis: A woman looking for a relaxing weekend instead finds her safety at stake in this psychological thriller. Chloe (Jessica Alba) is a famous model who is feeling stressed after a working trip to the U.S. -- where she'd been dogged by a persistent telephone stalker. While Chloe has a beau, she decides Read More

2000
Molly

Crew: Director

Actors: Elisabeth Shue, Aaron Eckhart, Jill Hennessy, Thomas Jane, D.W. Moffett

Synopsis: Elisabeth Shue stars in this drama as Molly McKay, a mentally challenged woman who has suffered from autism since childhood. Institutionalized since the age of three, Molly is released at age 28 into the custody of her brother Buck (Aaron Eckhart), whom she hasn't seen since childhood. While Buck Read More

10/22/99
Lawn Dogs

Crew: Director

Actors: Sam Rockwell, Christopher McDonald, Kathleen Quinlan, Bruce McGill, Mischa Barton

Synopsis: A young girl finds friendship on the wrong side of the career tracks in this drama. Camelot Gardens is a "gated community" where wealthy people can purchase luxurious (if sterile) homes and a security force ensures that riffraff will be kept away from your door after nightfall. The Stockard family Read More

1997
Leading Man

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This light romantic comedy follows the amorous backstage shenanigans of the cast and crew as they prepare to stage "The Hit Man," noted playwright Felix Webb's latest play. The trouble begins when director Humphrey Beal hires Felix's extramarital lover Hilary Rule as his leading lady. Working in Read More

1996
The Journey of August King

Crew: Director

Actors: Jason Patric, Thandie Newton, Larry Drake, Sam Waterston, Nesbitt Blaisdell

Synopsis: This drama chronicles the moral fortitude and courage of a simple North Carolina farmer in 1815. The trouble begins when the widowed farmer August King takes his wagon to a nearby town to get supplies and make the final payment on his land. He arrives to find the townsfolk quite agitated as two Read More

1995
Sirens

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Elle MacPherson, Portia de Rossi

Synopsis: Sex, religion, and morality are the key ingredients in this Australian comedy set in the 1930s. Rev. Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) is a liberal, forward-thinking Anglican priest who is sent on an unusual assignment. Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) is a popular and highly controversial artist whose Read More

1994
Flirting

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Noah Taylor, Thandie Newton, Nicole Kidman, Bartholomew Rose, Felix Nobis, Kiri Paramore

Synopsis: Australian filmmaker John Duigan followed up his captivating The Year My Voice Broke with Flirting. Noah Taylor repeats his "Danny" characterization from the earlier film, while Thandie Newton plays a Ugandan exchange student who attends an Australian girls boarding school. Billeted at a nearby Read More

11/6/92
Wide Sargasso Sea

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Karina Lombard, Nathaniel Parker, Rachel Ward, Michael York, Martine Beswicke

Synopsis: Director John Duigan brings Jean Rhys' difficult 1966 best-selling novel to the screen. It's a story meant to be a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre, surmising what drove the first Mrs. Rochester mad in that novel. In Jamaica in the 1840s, slavery has been recently outlawed. Plantation Read More

1992
Romero

Crew: Director

Actors: Raul Julia, Richard Jordan, Ana Alicia, Tony Plana, Harold Gould

Synopsis: In El Salvador in the late '70s, the wealthy few rule the impoverished many. To maintain the status quo against peasant insurgents and labor organizations, the military regime brutalizes the populace, in particular, rebels who espouse Marxism. Assassinations, executions, and disappearances become Read More

8/25/89
The Year My Voice Broke

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Noah Taylor, Leone Carmen, Ben Mendelsohn, Graeme Blundell, Lynette Curran

Synopsis: The life of a teen in an isolated small town is the subject of Australian writer/director John Duigan's film, set in 1962 in New South Wales. Duigan's coming-of-age story has many familiar elements -- Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) discovers his sexual attraction to a childhood playmate (Leone Carmen Read More

8/25/88
Room to Move

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this drama two teens become quite close when their parents refuse to listen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1985
One Night Stand

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Tyler Coppin, Cassandra Delaney, Jay Hackett, Saskia Post, Midnight Oil

Synopsis: This is one of the more unusual films about a nuclear holocaust, nearly introspective in its focus on a handful of people in Sydney's world-famous opera house, finding ways to pass the time until the morning brings more news. The setting is New Year's Eve (in the middle of summer here), and some Read More

1984
Far East

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Bryan Brown, Helen Morse, John Bell, Henry Duval

Synopsis: When a political reporter disappears in Southeast Asia, it is up to his wife to find him. She enlists the help of a former boyfriend, who is still coping with his unresolved feelings for her. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

1982
The Winter of Our Dreams

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Judy Davis, Bryan Brown

Synopsis: In this Australian film, the married, financially secure Rob (Bryan Brown) meets up with drug-addicted prostitute Lou (Judy Davis) and tries to help her crawl out of the dead-end life she's created for herself. However, when Rob's wife discovers who he's been spending his time with, his marriage Read More

1982
Dimboola

Crew: Director

Actors: Bruce Spence, Natalie Bate, Max Gillies, Bill Garner

Synopsis: A London newspaper correspondent travels to the colorful town of Dimboola, Australia to write a story, and has many delightful experiences with the locals in this charming, exceptionally well-filmed comedy. For him, the fun begins when he sees that a major wedding is about to occur. For a lark, he Read More

1979
Mouth to Mouth

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Kim Krejus, Sonia Peat, Ian Gilmour, Sergio Frazzetto, Walter Pym

Synopsis: Kim Krejus and Sonia Peat star as a couple of disenfranchised Australian teenagers. Unemployed and bored with their listless existence at home, the kids take to the streets. With barely a pause to consider the consequences, Krejus and Peat steal, lie, con and offer themselves sexually in order to Read More

1978
The Trespassers

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: John Derum, Judy Morris, Briony Behets, Peter Carmody

Synopsis: A love triangle provides the basis of this subtle drama that centers upon a man living with one woman and loving another on the side. The trouble begins when the live-in catches him with the other. Though it hurts her at first, she and the other woman soon become close friends, much closer to each Read More

1976
The Firm Man

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Peter Cummins, Eileen Chapman

Synopsis: This seminal effort from Australian filmmaker John Duigan stars Peter Cummins in the title role. Not much is known about the firm for which businessman Gerald Baxter (Cummins) works, but it seems to have a negative effect on everyone involved. The hero begins to experience bizarre visions, while Read More

1975