John Jarratt

Acting

John Jarratt

Born 1951-08-05 · Wongawilli, New South Wales, Australia

Jarratt was born and grew up in Wongawilli, a small rural town near Wollongong, New South Wales and later in the Snowy Mountains area. Jarratt’s father was a coal miner and later a concreter, who worked on the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme. His 5x great-grandfather, George Jarratt, born 1833, came from Croxton in Cambridgeshire, England; his son, John, married a Mary Kelly from Ireland. While in high school, Jarratt directed and acted in a school play which was a great success and led to his school principal recommending him for an acting career. Jarratt graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1973. His screen debut was in The Great Macarthy. He also appeared in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock in 1975 and Summer City in 1977 with Mel Gibson. Jarratt had the lead role in the mini series The Last Outlaw playing Ned Kelly in 1979. He played a major supporting role as a young Australian soldier in Vietnam war movie The Odd Angry Shot, 1980. In the late 1980s, Jarratt recognised he had a problem with binge drinking and related violence and joined Alcoholics Anonymous, an organisation in which he continues to be active. In the 1990s, he was a presenter on the lifestyle show Better Homes and Gardens with then-wife Noni Hazlehurst. He had guest roles in Inspector Morse, Police Rescue, Blue Murder, Water Rats and Blue Heelers in the 1990s and 2000s. He joined the cast of McLeod’s Daughters in 2001, and left the show in 2006. In 2010, Jarratt appeared in a commercial for Husqvarna. In May 2013, Jarratt filmed a guest star role in the third instalment of the ABC telemovie series, Jack Irish: Dead Point. In 2005, he had a major role in the Australian film Wolf Creek, playing the villain Mick Taylor.[5] In 2007, he appeared in two films, Rogue and The Final Winter. Jarratt also had a small role in the 2008 film, Australia, as a soldier. In 2008, Jarratt launched his own film production company, Winnah Films. Winnah’s first feature film, Savages Crossing (originally carrying the working title Flood) went into principal photography outside Ipswich, Queensland in February. In 2009, he appears as the father of a teenage girl via phone in Telstra’s “Next G” commercials. In 2010, Jarratt starred in the ensemble exploitation extravaganza, Bad Behaviour, written and directed by Joseph Sims. In the same year, Jarratt also had a role in the supernatural horror movie Needle. He made a cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012, appearing as an employee of the Le Quint Dickie Mining Company alongside Tarantino himself, both appearing with Australian accents. In February 2013, Jarratt reprised his role as Mick Taylor, filming the Wolf Creek sequel, Wolf Creek 2, with Matt Hearn producing and Greg McLean directing. The film was released on 20 February 2014. In January 2014, a new thriller called StalkHer began filming on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The film is co-directed by Jarratt, who also stars in the production. The producer of the film is ‘OZPIX’, a production company partly owned by Jarratt. Filming was completed in February 2014, and will screen later in the year.

Acting credits

Django Unchained poster
8.2

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Django Unchained

2012

Australia poster
6.6

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.

Australia

2008

Rogue poster
6.3

When a group of tourists stumble into the remote Australian river territory of an enormous crocodile, the deadly creature traps them on a tiny mud island with the tide quickly rising and darkness descending. As the hungry predator closes in, they must fight for survival against all odds.

Rogue

2007

Wolf Creek poster
6.2

Three backpackers stranded in the Australian outback are plunged inside a hellish nightmare of insufferable torture by a sadistic psychopathic local.

Wolf Creek

2005

Boar poster
5.3

In the harsh, yet beautiful Australian outback lives a beast, an animal of staggering size, with a ruthless, driving need for blood and destruction. It cares for none, defends its territory with brutal force, and kills with a raw, animalistic savagery unlike any have seen before.

Boar

2018

Wolf Creek 2 poster
6.4

Lured by the promise of an Australian holiday, backpackers Rutger, Katarina and Paul visit the notorious Wolf Creek Crater. Their dream Outback adventure soon becomes a horrific reality when they encounter the site's most infamous local, the last man any traveller to the region ever wants to meet—Mick Taylor. As the backpackers flee, Mick pursues them on an epic white knuckled rampage across hostile wasteland.

Wolf Creek 2

2013

Picnic at Hanging Rock poster
7.2

In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1975

The Possessed poster
6.3

A man with the ability to exorcise demons fights to protect his loved ones after a sudden surge in demonic possessions. After discovering his nephew's girlfriend has the same supernatural gift, they join forces for the ultimate confrontation. Inspired by actual events.

The Possessed

2021

Wolf Creek: Legacy poster
NR

A family of American tourists wander innocently into Taylor's hunting grounds. When the parents sacrifice themselves to save their children, the kids find themselves alone, lost and hunted in the vast Australian wilderness.

Wolf Creek: Legacy

2027

Needle poster
5.0

College student Ben inherits a curious old mechanical box that churns out voodoo dolls. When a shadowy figure starts using the box to murder Ben's friends, he must find the killer.

Needle

2010

Not Quite Hollywood poster
6.7

As Australian cinema broke through to international audiences in the 1970s through respected art house films like Peter Weir's "Picnic At Hanging Rock," a new underground of low-budget exploitation filmmakers were turning out considerably less highbrow fare. Documentary filmmaker Mark Hartley explores this unbridled era of sex and violence, complete with clips from some of the scene's most outrageous flicks and interviews with the renegade filmmakers themselves.

Not Quite Hollywood

2008

Red Dog: True Blue poster
6.6

When eleven-year-old Mick is shipped off to his grandfather's cattle station in Western Australia, he befriends a scrappy, one-of-a-kind dog that will change his life forever.

Red Dog: True Blue

2016

Jack Irish: Dead Point poster
6.6

Jack Irish is thrown into a world of club owners, drug dealers and killers when he is hired by a judge to find a mysterious red book.

Jack Irish: Dead Point

2014

Shiver poster
4.2

Wendy Alden, a young secretary in Portland lacking in self- confidence becomes victim of a savage killer who has claimed the lives of a number of other women. Somehow Wendy finds the resources of courage to fight back and escape.

Shiver

2012

Zombie Plane poster
9.0

A secret government agency has recruited celebrities to be undercover agents and the celebs must save humanity from an imminent attack from the undead.

Zombie Plane

Love You Like That poster
6.6

Cupids arrow has hit the coastal town of Seafront Sands. A lonely soul will discover a secret about the love we all share for the first time.

Love You Like That

2021

The Odd Angry Shot poster
6.1

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

The Odd Angry Shot

1979

Next of Kin poster
6.3

After Linda inherits a retirement home, she witnesses a series of strange events which seem connected to a dark and unspeakable evil.

Next of Kin

1982

Talk poster
10.0

A day in the life of two women, writers of adult comics, whose intimate conversation is overheard by a total stranger

Talk

1994

Summer City poster
5.0

Four friends take a road trip to kick back, hit the pubs, and go surfing. Tension builds among the group between Sandy, a quiet young man who is angered by the obnoxious, womanizing Boo who seduces a teenaged girl while on their trip in one of his usual one night stands. Meanwhile, the girl's psychotic dad is also looking for Boo out of revenge for what he did to his daughter. Boo is in for a major wake up call.

Summer City

1977

The Ninth Order poster
NR

Jada's estranged father is murdered. His father's death draws her to an ancient Sect, led by Jada's grandfather. Jada and her friends are used as pawns. Jada's only hope is Finn, possible soulmate and her father's killer.

The Ninth Order

100 Bloody Acres poster
5.8

Reg and Lindsay run an organic fertiliser business. They need a fresh supply of their "secret ingredient" to process through the meat grinder. Reg comes across two guys and a girl with a broken-down vehicle on their way to a music festival.

100 Bloody Acres

2012

Observance poster
5.0

In the grip of grief following the death of his young son, his marriage on the rocks and nearing bankruptcy, Parker reluctantly returns to work as a private investigator. Embarking on an unusual assignment to observe a woman from an abandoned apartment, Parker witnesses bizarre happenings surrounding her, unaware that the derelict building that he surveys her from has birthed a dark presence which slowly threatens to consume him.

Observance

2016

Dark Age poster
5.7

In the Australian outback, a park ranger and two local guides set out to track down a giant crocodile that has been killing and eating the local populace..

Dark Age

1987

Behind the camera

What About Sal? poster
6.0

With his mother dying of lung cancer, Sal, in his 30's and with Down Syndrome, embarks on a journey to find his father - a rock band singer that his mother had a one-night stand with - 30 years ago.

What About Sal?

2024

What About Sal? poster
6.0

With his mother dying of lung cancer, Sal, in his 30's and with Down Syndrome, embarks on a journey to find his father - a rock band singer that his mother had a one-night stand with - 30 years ago.

What About Sal?

2024

What About Sal? poster
6.0

With his mother dying of lung cancer, Sal, in his 30's and with Down Syndrome, embarks on a journey to find his father - a rock band singer that his mother had a one-night stand with - 30 years ago.

What About Sal?

2024

Savages Crossing poster
3.3

When a sudden flood traps a group of strangers in an outback roadhouse it becomes clear that the threat from within the group is far greater than from raging torrent outside.

Savages Crossing

2011

Savages Crossing poster
3.3

When a sudden flood traps a group of strangers in an outback roadhouse it becomes clear that the threat from within the group is far greater than from raging torrent outside.

Savages Crossing

2011

StalkHer poster
3.9

An obsessive prowler Jack (Jarratt) breaks into the home of his victim Emily (Fairfax). Finding himself wounded then tied to a chair, Jack soon realises he underestimated his intended prey as the two engage in a night long tête-à-tête.

StalkHer

2015

StalkHer poster
3.9

An obsessive prowler Jack (Jarratt) breaks into the home of his victim Emily (Fairfax). Finding himself wounded then tied to a chair, Jack soon realises he underestimated his intended prey as the two engage in a night long tête-à-tête.

StalkHer

2015