Peter Weir · 1981 · overland

Peter Weir's 1981 film. Two young sprinters from Western Australia enlist together, cross half the world to Egypt, and end up in the trenches above Anzac Cove. The film spends most of its length on the journey and the friendship, so that the last few minutes at the Nek land as what they are - a diversion, ordered by men who knew.

1. 1
   The outback

   Archy Hamilton runs barefoot on a Western Australian station and beats a man on horseback, and at a country athletics carnival meets Frank Dunne, a railway labourer who has bet money he does not have on himself.

2. 2
   Perth

   They set out to enlist, jump a freight that puts them down at the wrong siding, and walk fifty miles across a dry lake bed - and are separated at Perth into the Light Horse and the infantry.

3. 3
   Cairo

   Months later they train in Egypt, camped below the Pyramids, playing Australian Rules in the sand and carving their names into the stone - and Frank contrives a transfer so the two of them go on together.

4. 4
   Anzac Cove

   They land at Anzac Cove into weeks of boredom, flies and shellfire, and the war turns out to be mostly waiting - until Lone Pine goes in and Frank's friends come back dead, mad, or not at all.

5. 5
   The Nek

   On the morning of 7 August the Light Horse are ordered across the Nek to draw fire from a British landing at Suvla - and the fastest runner in Western Australia goes over the parapet at a sprint into the machine guns.