SummaryTwo city-bred siblings are stranded in the Australian Outback, where they learn to survive with the aid of an Aboriginal boy on his "walkabout": a ritual separation from his tribe.
Directed By:Nicolas Roeg
Written By:Edward Bond, Donald G. Payne, Nicolas Roeg
Walkabout
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
85
User score
Generally Favorable
8.0
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
89% Positive
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
11% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
With gorgeous Australian outback photography and minimal dialogue co-defining it as "pure" cinema, Nicolas Roeg's masterpiece was once designated by Premiere magazine as its "most wanted" movie on video. [04 Apr 1997, p.3D]
100
It’s a commentary on unresolvable conflicts between races, cultures, generations, sexes; a vision that is at once primal and sophisticated. When the film circles back at the coda, we realize we’ve just traversed a brutal—yet flawless—cinematic landscape.
100
Walkabout is a superb work of storytelling and its material is effortlessly fascinating.
80
Beautifully done, I think, with a completely appropriate and consistent style.
75
Roeg shoots every figure in the film like an instructional visual subject, and it levels the philosophical playing field—whether man, or ant, or echidna, or gnarled tree stump, they’re all fodder for the experimental interplay of light, shadow, and space.
70
The shimmering light and colour, the conflict of cultures, and the emergence of semi-mystic sexual forces in the desert landscape make this as Roeg-ian a film as The Man Who Fell to Earth or Bad Timing.
40
Roeg and his scenarist Edward Bond (BlowUp) aim for the mind and miss wildly. Their preachy, anti-intellectual Natural Mannerisms are neither convincing nor new.
User score
Generally Favorable
94% Positive
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
6% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
Sep 25, 2025
10
This is my single favorite film of all time and I dont know why. Well, I do know why, just the symbolism if being miserable in western style society but eventually alive in the outback, the visuals and the ups and downs of **** portrays complex emotions in such a simple way
Production Company:
- Max L. Raab Productions
- Si Litvinoff Film Production
Release Date:Jul 1, 1971
Duration:1 h 40 m
Tagline:A boy and girl face the challenge of the world's last frontier. Dangers they had never known before... A people they had never seen before...
Awards
Valladolid International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Cannes Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
