Reaches a level of anxiety-inducing terror that few other films have achieved.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 24, 2022

Wake in Fright is searing condemnation on masculinity, urban vs rural divides and alcohol abuse that traps its audience in toxic cycles as much as its lead character. The real life animal abuse is unforgivable, though

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 18, 2022

If anything, the film has become more potent, more poignant, even more capable of shocking and disturbing.

| Jun 29, 2021

[Has some] fine photography of the Australian wilds, but also veers into melodrama.

| Mar 19, 2020

[It] will will not please the Australian Tourist Board. It may not even please Australians. But it ranks, along with Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout, as the most impressive piece of special pleading about the country I've seen.

| Mar 19, 2020

It's a remarkable film and I'm not at all happy with it.

| Mar 19, 2020

Perhaps it will be argued that [its intention] is to excite disgust with crudeness, to invite us... to recognise a general tough goodwill which teaches the visitor to know his own weaknesses Maybe. Myself I find that the film excites disgust, period.

| Mar 19, 2020

Captures a dusty, sweaty Australia, equal parts friendly and terrifying.

| Aug 5, 2019

John Grant is absolutely note-perfect as the stiff-upper-lipped Englishman stranded in an environment that he couldn't be any further removed from.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 12, 2018

Wake In Fright gets beneath Australia's skin and stares into a dark heart that was hidden beneath the ochre dust and boozy bonhomie. One of the greatest Aussie films of all time.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 6, 2018

Wake in Fright deserves to occupy a place next to Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness, all of them stories that force us to observe the veil, so thin, that separates civilization from barbarism. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 12, 2018

It's a good film and an important one, but it's no walk in the park despite a fair number of funny lines, all perfectly delivered. Though other actors...circled the part, the lesser known [Gary] Bond turned out to be the perfect man to play the antihero.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 22, 2017

"Wake In Fright" is a masterpiece of energized social satire.

| Original Score: A+ | Apr 8, 2017

This movie gets under your skin.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

Wake in Fright is an absolute must-see for fans of cult, off-kilter cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 12, 2014

Blends staged re-enactments with documentary footage of senseless slaughter to extremely distressing effect.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 9, 2014

Brilliantly directed by Kotcheff, the film has the disorienting and menacing quality of Joseph Losey films such as Accident and The Servant.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2014

It presents a world in which refusing a pint has violent consequences, high spirits quickly curdle, and an unspoken homoerotic undertow gets ever more disturbing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2014

Forms a neatly symmetrical, perfectly Kafkaesque narrative. This way madness lies . . .

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 7, 2014

There is queasy undercurrent of sentimental kindness and indulgence beneath the violence.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 6, 2014