13 Movies Directed by Peter Weir

The Cars That Eat People

The Cars That Eat People

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1976-06-01

Languages:

English

Countries:

Australia

Runtime:

91 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

5.6 (2437 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Peter Weir (screenplay)

Peter Weir (story)

Keith Gow (story)

Piers Davies (story)

Fullplot:

A small town in rural Australia (Paris) makes its living by causing car accidents and salvaging any valuables from the wrecks. Into this town come brothers Arthur and George. George is killed when the Parisians cause their car to crash, but Arthur survives and is brought into the community as an orderly at the hospital. But Paris is not problem free. Not only do the Parisians have to be careful of outsiders (such as insurance investigators), but they also have to cope with the young people of the town who are dissatisfied with the status quo.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1979-02-02

Languages:

English, French

Countries:

Australia

Runtime:

115 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

7.6 (23277 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Genres:

DramaMystery

Cast:

Writer:

Joan Lindsay (novel)

Cliff Green (screenplay)

Fullplot:

Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, on Valentine's Day, 1900. Widely (and incorrectly) regarded as being based on a true story, the movie follows those that disappeared, and those that stayed behind, but it delights in the asking of questions, not the answering of them.

The Last Wave

The Last Wave

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1979-01-01

Languages:

English, Italian, Aboriginal

Countries:

Australia

Runtime:

106 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

7.2 (5829 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Peter Weir (screenplay)

Tony Morphett (screenplay)

Petru Popescu (screenplay)

Fullplot:

A Sydney lawyer has more to worry about than higher-than-average rainfall when he is called upon to defend five Aboriginals in court. Determined to break their silence and discover the truth behind the hidden society he suspects lives in his city, the Lawyer is drawn further, and more intimately, into a prophesy that threatens a new Armageddon, wherein all the continent shall drown.

Gallipoli

Gallipoli

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1981-08-28

Languages:

English

Countries:

Australia

Runtime:

110 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

7.5 (28364 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Peter Weir (story)

David Williamson (screenplay)

Fullplot:

The story of a group of young Australian men who leave their various backgrounds behind and sign up to join the ANZACs in World War I. They are sent to Gallipoli, where they encounter the resolute Turkish army whose ally Germany had organized the defenses along the peninsula, Kemal Ataturk comes to the fore during this campaign.

The Year of Living Dangerously

The Year of Living Dangerously

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1983-01-21

Languages:

English, Tagalog, Filipino, Indonesian

Countries:

Australia, USA

Runtime:

115 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

7.2 (14624 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

C.J. Koch (novel)

C.J. Koch (screenplay)

Peter Weir (screenplay)

David Williamson (screenplay)

Fullplot:

Guy Hamilton is a journalist on his first job as a foreign correspondent. His apparently humdrum assignment to Indonesia soon turns hot as President Sukarno electrifies the populace and frightens foreign powers. Guy soon is the hottest reporter on the story with the help of his photographer, half- Chinese dwarf Billy Kwan, who has gone native. Guy's affair with diplomat Jill Bryant also helps. Eventually Guy must face some major moral choices and the relationship between Billy and him reaches a crisis at the same time the politics of Indonesia does.

Witness

Witness

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1985-02-08

Languages:

English, German

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

112 min

Rated:

R

IMDB Ratings:

7.5 (61806 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

William Kelley (story)

Pamela Wallace (story)

Earl W. Wallace (story)

Earl W. Wallace (screenplay)

William Kelley (screenplay)

Fullplot:

Samuel Lap is a young Amish boy who witnesses a murder in Philadelphia while traveling with his mother Rachel. A good cop named John Book must go with them into hiding when the killers come after them. All three retreat to Amish country and Book has to adjust to the new life style, and his feelings for the boy's mother. Of course the killers are still on their trail.

The Mosquito Coast

The Mosquito Coast

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1986-11-26

Languages:

English, Spanish

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

117 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

6.6 (20621 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Paul Theroux (novel)

Paul Schrader (screenplay)

Fullplot:

An eccentric and dogmatic inventor sells his house and takes his family to Central America to build a utopia in the middle of the jungle. Conflicts with his family, a local preacher and with nature are only small obstacles to his obsession. Based upon a Paul Theroux novel.

Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1989-06-09

Languages:

English

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

128 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

(254082 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Genres:

Drama

Fullplot:

Painfully shy Todd Anderson has been sent to the school where his popular older brother was valedictorian. His room-mate, Neil, although exceedingly bright and popular, is very much under the thumb of his overbearing father. The two, along with their other friends, meet Professor Keating, their new English teacher, who tells them of the Dead Poets Society, and encourages them to go against the status quo. Each, in their own way, does this, and are changed for life.

Green Card

Green Card

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1991-02-01

Languages:

English, French, Spanish

Countries:

France, Australia, USA

Runtime:

103 min

Rated:

PG-13

IMDB Ratings:

6.2 (17665 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Fullplot:

George Faure is a Frenchman who has been offered a job in the U.S. But in order to get the job he must obtain a work permit - green card, and the easiest way is to marry an American. Bronte Parrish is a New Yorker who is a keen horticulturist and just found the perfect flat with its own greenhouse. Unfortunately the flat is for married couples only. A marriage of convenience seems the ideal solution to both problems. To convince the immigration officers they are married for love, they must move in with each other. As the mismatched couple attempt to cope with life together, they start to fall in love.

Fearless

Fearless

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1993-10-15

Languages:

English

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

122 min

Rated:

R

IMDB Ratings:

7.2 (16587 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Rafael Yglesias (novel)

Rafael Yglesias (screenplay)

Fullplot:

After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person. Unable to connect to his former life or to wife Laura, he feels godlike and invulnerable. When psychologist Bill Perlman is unable to help Max, he has Max meet another survivor, Carla Rodrigo, who is racked with grief and guilt since her baby died in the crash which she and Max survived.

The Truman Show

The Truman Show

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1998-06-05

Languages:

English

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

103 min

Rated:

PG

IMDB Ratings:

8.1 (592268 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Genres:

Drama

Fullplot:

In this movie, Truman is a man whose life is a fake one... The place he lives is in fact a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles in the most popular TV-series in the world: The Truman Show. Truman thinks that he is an ordinary man with an ordinary life and has no idea about how he is exploited. Until one day... he finds out everything. Will he react?

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2003-11-14

Languages:

English, French, Portuguese

Countries:

USA

Runtime:

138 min

Rated:

PG-13

IMDB Ratings:

7.4 (158866 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Patrick O'Brian (novels)

Peter Weir (screenplay)

John Collee (screenplay)

Fullplot:

In April 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, the H.M.S. Surprise, a British frigate, is under the command of Captain Jack Aubrey. Aubrey and the Surprise's current orders are to track and capture or destroy a French privateer named Acheron. The Acheron is currently in the Atlantic off South America headed toward the Pacific in order to extend Napoleon's reach of the wars. This task will be a difficult one as Aubrey quickly learns in an initial battle with the Acheron that it is a bigger and faster ship than the Surprise, which puts the Surprise at a disadvantage. Aubrey's single-mindedness in this seemingly impossible pursuit puts him at odds with the Surprise's doctor and naturalist, Stephen Maturin, who is also Aubrey's most trusted advisor on board and closest friend. Facing other internal obstacles which have resulted in what they consider a string of bad luck, Aubrey ultimately uses Maturin's scientific exploits to figure out a way to achieve his and the ship's seemingly impossible goal.

The Way Back

The Way Back

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2011-01-21

Languages:

English, Russian, Polish

Countries:

USA, United Arab Emirates, Poland

Runtime:

133 min

Rated:

PG-13

IMDB Ratings:

7.3 (81379 Reviews)

Director:

Peter Weir

Cast:

Writer:

Keith R. Clarke (screenplay)

Slavomir Rawicz (novel)

Peter Weir (screenplay)

Fullplot:

In 1941, three men reach India from Tibet, having walked 4000 miles after escaping a Siberian gulag. The film tells their story and that of four others who escaped with them and a teenage girl who joins them in flight. The group's natural leader is Janusz, a Pole condemned by accusations secured by torturing his wife; he knows how to live in the wilds. They escape under cover of a snowstorm: a cynical American, a Russian thug, a comic accountant, a pastry chef who draws, a priest, and a Pole with night blindness. They face freezing nights, lack of food and water, mosquitoes, an endless desert, the Himalayas, and moral questions of when to leave someone behind.

Become a Movie Insider

Join our mailing list and get access to expert analysis, trivia, and recommendations that will elevate your movie-watching experience.

View our privacy policy.