David Gulpilil

Acting

David Gulpilil

Born 1953-07-01 · Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia

David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu AM, known professionally as David Gulpilil and posthumously for cultural reasons as David Dalaithngu for three days, was an Aboriginal Australian (Yolŋu) actor and dancer, known for the films Walkabout, Storm Boy, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and The Tracker.

Acting credits

Crocodile Dundee poster
6.4

When a New York reporter plucks crocodile hunter Mick Dundee from the Australian Outback for a visit to the Big Apple, it's a clash of cultures and a recipe for good-natured comedy as naïve Dundee negotiates the concrete jungle. He proves that his instincts are quite useful in the city and adeptly handles everything from wily muggers to high-society snoots without breaking a sweat.

Crocodile Dundee

1986

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

The Right Stuff poster
7.4

At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.

The Right Stuff

1983

Rabbit-Proof Fence poster
7.0

In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

2002

The Proposition poster
7.0

In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.

The Proposition

2005

Cargo poster
6.4

After being infected in the wake of a violent pandemic and with only 48 hours to live, a father struggles to find a new home for his baby daughter.

Cargo

2017

Walkabout poster
7.3

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.

Walkabout

1971

Until the End of the World poster
6.7

In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.

Until the End of the World

1991

Storm Boy poster
7.1

Storm Boy lives a lonely life with his reclusive father on a desolate coastline, but when he forms a close bond with a pelican, Mr. Percival, his life takes a new and unexpected turn.

Storm Boy

2019

Goldstone poster
6.0

Indigenous Detective Jay Swan arrives in the frontier town of Goldstone on a missing persons inquiry. What seems like a simple investigation unearths an intricate web of crime, corruption, human trafficking, and coordinated exploitation of indigenous people’s land. Jay must bury his differences with young local cop Josh, so together they can bring justice to Goldstone.

Goldstone

2016

The Last Wave poster
6.7

A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal people in a ritualised taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing truths about himself and premonitions.

The Last Wave

1977

Mad Dog Morgan poster
5.9

The true story of Irish outlaw Daniel Morgan, who is wanted, dead or alive, in Australia during the 1850s.

Mad Dog Morgan

1976

Ten Canoes poster
6.7

A story within a story within a story. In Australia's Northern Territory, an Aboriginal narrator tells a story about his ancestors on a goose hunt. A youngster on the hunt is being tempted to adultery with his elder brother's wife, so an elder tells him a story from the mythical past about how evil can slip in and cause havoc unless prevented by virtue according to customary tribal law.

Ten Canoes

2006

Journey Home, David Gulpilil poster
NR

A powerful record of grief, community and ceremony in which the renowned Indigenous actor is laid to rest on his Homeland of Gupulul in Arnhem Land, NT.

Journey Home, David Gulpilil

2025

Storm Boy poster
7.0

Mike is a lonely Australian boy living in a coastal wilderness with his reclusive father. In search of friendship he encounters an Aboriginal native loner and the two form a bond in the care of orphaned pelicans.

Storm Boy

1977

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

Charlie's Country poster
7.0

Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

Charlie's Country

2013

Another Country poster
6.0

In this documentary companion to CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, Australian actor David Gulpilil tells the story of when his people's way of life was derailed by ours.

Another Country

2015

My Name Is Gulpilil poster
6.4

Diagnosed with lung cancer, legendary Australian actor David Gulpilil boldly explains the journey that is his extraordinary, culture-clashing life.

My Name Is Gulpilil

2021

Crocodile Dreaming poster
NR

Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.

Crocodile Dreaming

2006

Dead Heart poster
5.8

Ray Lorkin, chief lawman in the tiny rural settlement of Wala Wala, Australia, fears that long-simmering tensions between the area's aborigine natives and white settlers are on the verge of erupting. When it's discovered that Kate, the white wife of local schoolteacher Les, has despoiled a sacred site by secretly meeting her aborigine lover, Tony, there, a shocking murder threatens to rip the small town apart.

Dead Heart

1996

Love of an Icon: The Legend of Crocodile Dundee poster
7.8

Nearly 40 years on, Crocodile Dundee remains Australia’s biggest film—what made it a cultural icon, and why does it still mean so much today?

Love of an Icon: The Legend of Crocodile Dundee

2025

No artwork available
NR

Annihilation of the Aborigines of Tasmania.

No Bag Limit

1973

No artwork available
8.0

This documentary follows Phillip Noyce as he tries to find three aboriginal girls able to act in his film Rabbit Proof Fence. The film sees a cast of 100's whittled down to the eventual three girls and follows them through workshops and into the difficult shoot.

Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence

2003

Behind the camera

Charlie's Country poster
7.0

Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.

Charlie's Country

2013

Another Country poster
6.0

In this documentary companion to CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, Australian actor David Gulpilil tells the story of when his people's way of life was derailed by ours.

Another Country

2015

My Name Is Gulpilil poster
6.4

Diagnosed with lung cancer, legendary Australian actor David Gulpilil boldly explains the journey that is his extraordinary, culture-clashing life.

My Name Is Gulpilil

2021

No artwork available
NR

In 1973, fresh from his performance in Walkabout, a film that brought outback landscapes to urban audiences, Gulpilil returned the favour by paying a visit to Melbourne with camera in hand, shooting a wry fly-on-the-wall documentary that compares the sights and sounds of the city to those of his home in Arnhem Land.

Showing Melbourne to Maningrida

1973

No artwork available
NR

In 1973, fresh from his performance in Walkabout, a film that brought outback landscapes to urban audiences, Gulpilil returned the favour by paying a visit to Melbourne with camera in hand, shooting a wry fly-on-the-wall documentary that compares the sights and sounds of the city to those of his home in Arnhem Land.

Showing Melbourne to Maningrida

1973