Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.
"A boy and girl face the challenge of the world's last frontier."
Top Billed Cast
Jenny Agutter
Girl
Luc Roeg
White Boy
David Gulpilil
Black Boy
John Meillon
Man
Robert McDarra
Man
Peter Carver
No Hoper
John Illingsworth
Young Man
Hilary Bamberger
Woman
Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews
W WuchakVerified TMDB Critic
2021-10-24
_**Arty flick about survival in the Outback and coming-of-age**_
A teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother get stuck in the Outback, but receive assistance by an aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) on a ‘walkabout,’ a rite of passage into manhood.
Directed by Nicolas Roeg, “Walkabout” (1971) is an arty cult flick that plays like a Terrence Malick film and no doubt influenced his style (since it came out two years before Malick’s feature film debut with “Badlands”). Agutter was only 16 during shooting while her character is 14, according to Roeg.
The themes about ...
B badelfVerified TMDB Critic
2026-07-13
"We are all one blood. No matter where we are from, we are all one blood, the same."
—David Gulpilil
Summary: 7/10: Uneven direction cannot diminish the landmark debut of David Gulpilil, whose grace and intelligence anchor a film that's really about the colonial destruction of wilderness and the particular genius of what was lost.
Walkabout marks the screen debut of one of the most luminous talents cinema has known. David Gulpilil was sixteen years old when British director Nicolas Roeg discovered him in Arnhem Land, a Yolngu boy who could barely speak English but was already an accom...
