Ralph Cotterill

Acting

Ralph Cotterill

Born — Died

1932-03-26 — 2023-05-07

Known for

Acting

Credits

47 titles

Ralph Cotterill (March 26, 1932 - May 7, 2023) was a British-born Australian character actor. He arrived in Australia in 1973 while touring with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He went on to have a long a career in Australia, both on stage and screen.

Known for

E Street poster
6.7

An Australian television soap opera, set in a tough fictional inner-city district called Westside. The stories revolve around the local community there. Created by Forrest Redlich and produced by Network Ten from 24 January 1989 to 13 May 1993.

E Street

1989

The Flying Doctors poster
6.6

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.

The Flying Doctors

1986

Rafferty's Rules poster
8.0

Rafferty's Rules was an Australian television drama series which ran from 1987 to 1990 on the Seven Network. Rafferty's Rules was one of the first programs undertaken by the Seven Network's then new in-house drama unit, going into production in May 1985 as "a 15-part courtroom drama". The program had started out as a pilot episode, recorded in early 1984 with the actor Chris Haywood in the lead role. When the pilot episode was remounted later in 1984, Chris Haywood wasn't available and the lead role was re-cast to John Wood. This second recording was eventually broadcast as the program's first episode.

Rafferty's Rules

1987

Halifax f.p. poster
6.2

Halifax f.p. is an Australian television crime series produced by Nine Network from 1994 to 2002. The series stars Rebecca Gibney as Doctor Jane Halifax, a forensic psychiatrist investigating cases involving the mental state of suspects or victims. The series is set in Melbourne. The producers of the film were Beyond Simpson Le Mesurier; Australian Film Finance Corporation and aired on the Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd 21 Episodes of 90 and 102 minutes each were produced, and the series has screened in more than 60 countries. The budget for each episode was an average of $1.3 million. Funding came in part from the Australian Film Finance Corporation and Film Victoria.

Halifax f.p.

1994

December Boys poster
6.0

For many years, four teenage orphans at an Australian outback convent have watched their younger comrades find new parents, and realize that they may never be adopted. The Reverend Mother sends the four boys away on a seaside vacation, where they meet Teresa and Fearless, a couple who would make perfect parents. The youths compete with one another to be the one Teresa and Fearless decide to adopt.

December Boys

2007

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

Film credits

2000s · 2 titles

1990s · 10 titles

Bad Boy Bubby poster
6.9

Bubby has spent thirty years trapped in the same small room, tricked by his mother. One day, he manages to escape and, deranged and naive in equal measures, his adventure into a modern and nihilistic life begins.

Bad Boy Bubby

1993

Ultraman - The Alien Invasion poster
5.0

Jack Shindo and Stanley Haggard are astronauts doing research on the planet Mars. On a routine mission to survey the desolate landscape, they found out that there are other living creatures on the planet! Their biggest threat is Goudis, whose monsters have been ordered to kill all life on earth. Returning from a mission on Mars, the Ultraman has to take on Goudis to save the planet and all the human beings on Earth!

Ultraman - The Alien Invasion

1993

This Won't Hurt a Bit poster
7.0

An incompetent rogue dentist travels from Australia to the UK, where he wreaks havoc on English teeth until the law catches up with him.

This Won't Hurt a Bit

1993

Ultraman Great: The Alien Invasion poster
6.2

The first of two compilation films for Ultraman Great (aka Ultraman: Towards the Future). Jack Shindo is an astronaut doing research on the planet Mars. On a routine mission to survey the desolate landscape, he discovers mankind's greatest threat, Gudis, whose monsters have been ordered to kill all life on Earth. Jack must work with the mysterious colossal alien Ultraman and the Universal Multipurpose Agency to save humanity from extinction!

Ultraman Great: The Alien Invasion

1990

Whipping Boy poster
6.7

A female lawyer heads a government taskforce investigating a suspected paedophile racket in Sydney. Based on the novel by Gabrielle Lord.

Whipping Boy

1996

Down Rusty Down poster
7.5

An anthromorphic tale, humans representing canines, of compulsive traits and raging desires. A gang of neutered men; fat, subdued and lazy, look out for their younger 'pup'- Rusty (Noah Taylor) who is always active and mischievous.

Down Rusty Down

1997

Ultraman Great: The Battle for Earth poster
6.0

The second and final compilation films for Ultraman Great (aka Ultraman: Towards the Future). Jack Shindo is an astronaut doing research on the planet Mars. On a routine mission to survey the desolate landscape, he discovers mankind's greatest threat, Gudis, whose monsters have been ordered to kill all life on Earth. Jack must work with the mysterious colossal alien Ultraman and the Universal Multipurpose Agency to save humanity from extinction!

Ultraman Great: The Battle for Earth

1990

Wind poster
9.0

Australia, 1867. In the bleak high country, a young black tracker and his elderly sergeant follow the trail of a killer, a traditional Indigenous man.

Wind

1999

Resistance poster
6.0

Over the five days after a military coup, army troops arrive to enforce martial law and encounter a growing resistance movement.

Resistance

1992

No artwork available
7.0

A comedy about jazz, poetry and sheep.

The Beat Manifesto

1995

1980s · 21 titles

The Marsupials: The Howling III poster
4.6

A strange race of human-like marsupials appear suddenly in Australia, and a sociologist who studies these creatures falls in love with a female one. Is this a dangerous combination?

The Marsupials: The Howling III

1987

The Chain Reaction poster
5.5

Contaminated by a nuclear-plant spill, an Australian worker hides with a woman and tries to warn the public.

The Chain Reaction

1980

The Lighthorsemen poster
6.1

In 1917 when the British forces are bogged down in front of the Turkish and German lines in Palestine they rely on the Australian light horse regiment to break the deadlock.

The Lighthorsemen

1987

The Blue Lightning poster
6.7

Harry Wingate, a rugged adventurer, is hired by a gem collector to retrieve a priceless opal, known as "The Blue Lightning," from Lester McInally, a super-criminal with an army of killers operating in the Australian outback.

The Blue Lightning

1986

Where the Green Ants Dream poster
6.9

The Australian Aborigines (in this film anyway) believe that this is the place where the green ants go to dream, and that if their dreams are disturbed, it will bring down disaster on us all. The Aborigines' belief is not shared by a giant mining company, which wants to tear open the soil and search for uranium.

Where the Green Ants Dream

1984

Trouble in Paradise poster
4.4

Following her husband Arthur's mysterious death, Rachel Baxley packs up her life as a State Department wife in Hong Kong and boards a freighter along with her husband's casket bound for the U.S. She begins to regret this decision when she meets one of the crew members, a handsome rogue named Jake Fontaine - who has smuggled his liquor aboard in Arthur's coffin! Suddenly, a typhoon hits and the freighter breaks apart. Marooned on a desert island with Jake, they fall in love. Shortly thereafter, Jake comes to suspect that Rachel's "late" husband Arthur might not be dead at all. Rachel is stunned when Arthur arrives on the island with his heroin smuggling partners. In the ensuing chaos, Jake overcomes each of the smugglers and heroically rescues his new love, Rachel.

Trouble in Paradise

1989

The Survivor poster
5.1

When a 747 crashes shortly after take-off, the sole survivor is the pilot. Virtually unhurt, he and the investigators look for the answers to the disaster. Meanwhile mysterious deaths occur in the community and only a psychic, in touch with the supernatural, can help the pilot unravel the mystery surrounding the doomed plane.

The Survivor

1981

Burke & Wills poster
5.1

A story based on true events about two explorers on a doomed journey trying to cross Australia on foot in the 19 century.

Burke & Wills

1985

To Make a Killing poster
6.5

Damon Kennedy (Tamblyn Lord, The River Kings) is an impressionable young man ready to begin university life. On the other side of the tracks live Terry (Craig Pearce, co-author of Strictly Ballroom), Felix (John Godden) and Benny (Kelly Dingwall) — who get their kicks out of robbing houses and chasing girls. But they're broke and all out of cash. During a routine burglary the gang discover an innocent Damon. Brushing off the intrusion and pretending they are looking for some mates, the gang flee the scene but bored Damon follows them and joins their group for the day, hoping to find some fun.When the gang picks up two girls, things become unhinged as a drunk Damon brags about some of his family's many affluent friends. Forced to take them to one of his cash-rich contacts, Damon's nightmare has only just begun. As Terry discovers that the wealthy don't always carry cash, what starts as a burglary soon turns into a killing spree.

To Make a Killing

1988

Going Down poster
4.4

Middle-class Karli, alcoholic Jane, unemployed Jackie, and square Ellen are four friends living together and barely scraping by in suburban Sydney. But when Karli’s father offers her a little money and a one-way ticket to New York, she finally sees a way out of her dead-end life—that is, until the money goes missing, kickstarting a final night out on the town that none of them will ever forget.

Going Down

1983

Lorca and the Outlaws poster
3.8

Jowitt, a mercenary without recluse institutes a totalitarian regime in a small mining city of an arid planet, Ordessa, helped in that by androids incapable of any emotion. The young Lorca and his android professor, Kid, are both in this tended situation. To find the liberty, they must at any costs seize a spaceship, the "Red Star", but they quickly have to face an android killer...

Lorca and the Outlaws

1984

Rikky and Pete poster
4.4

Rikky and her brother Pete struggle to keep their lives from spinning out of control in small town Australia.

Rikky and Pete

1988

The Four Minute Mile poster
7.5

For two brilliant young athletes - Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia - the 1952 Helsinki Olympics present an exciting challenge. But events help set them on the path to something even more memorable than an Olympic gold medal - the race to break the four-minute mile....

The Four Minute Mile

1988

The Right Hand Man poster
4.7

A stagecoach driver goes to work for a dying, one-armed aristocrat in 1860s Australia.

The Right Hand Man

1987

Alison's Birthday poster
5.3

During a Ouija board session with her teenaged friends, 16-year-old Alison gets a message from beyond the grave not to go home for her birthday three years later.

Alison's Birthday

1981

Shark's Paradise poster
8.0

A mad man threatens to lure hundreds of sharks to the beach at Surfers Paradise Australia at the start of the tourist season, his price to hold off the sharks is $2 million. Our heroes do everything from escaping jail to risking death in a chemical factory, to stop him.

Shark's Paradise

1986

Hoodwink poster
4.9

Hoodwink is based on the true story of an Australian con artist who briefly won the hearts of the media (if not the authorities). John Hargreaves stars as a criminal serving time in a New South Wales prison. He's not partial to the physical labor required of the convicts, so he hits upon a labor-saving plan. Hargreaves pretends to be totally blind, thus lightening his work load....and carries off the hoax for years.

Hoodwink

1981

Sons of Steel poster
6.0

The film is set in Australia, where an accidental future time traveler finds himself going back in time to change events to prevent a calamity.

Sons of Steel

1989

I've Come About The Suicide poster
7.0

Australian TV-Movie (Comedy), Also known as Pigs Will Fly

I've Come About The Suicide

1988

My Brother Tom poster
NR

Set in Australia, against the backdrop of World War II, this epic miniseries centers on the religiously divided town of St. Helens and the innocent romance between a pair of star-crossed teenagers that threatens to tear it apart.

My Brother Tom

1986

Nice Coloured Girls poster
8.0

Nice Coloured Girls is a short film classic by Tracey Moffatt, one of Australia's foremost visual artists. Three Aboriginal women cruise through Kings Cross and pick up a 'captain' (a drunken white man). They encourage him to spend his money on them and to drink until incapacitated while they steal his wallet and race off to catch a cab, self-satisfied. Nice Coloured Girls contrasts the relationship between Aboriginal women and white men in the past and present.

Nice Coloured Girls

1987

1970s · 5 titles

Series credits

E Street poster
6.7

An Australian television soap opera, set in a tough fictional inner-city district called Westside. The stories revolve around the local community there. Created by Forrest Redlich and produced by Network Ten from 24 January 1989 to 13 May 1993.

E Street

1989

E Street poster
6.7

An Australian television soap opera, set in a tough fictional inner-city district called Westside. The stories revolve around the local community there. Created by Forrest Redlich and produced by Network Ten from 24 January 1989 to 13 May 1993.

E Street

1989

The Flying Doctors poster
6.6

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.

The Flying Doctors

1986

Rafferty's Rules poster
8.0

Rafferty's Rules was an Australian television drama series which ran from 1987 to 1990 on the Seven Network. Rafferty's Rules was one of the first programs undertaken by the Seven Network's then new in-house drama unit, going into production in May 1985 as "a 15-part courtroom drama". The program had started out as a pilot episode, recorded in early 1984 with the actor Chris Haywood in the lead role. When the pilot episode was remounted later in 1984, Chris Haywood wasn't available and the lead role was re-cast to John Wood. This second recording was eventually broadcast as the program's first episode.

Rafferty's Rules

1987

Halifax f.p. poster
6.2

Halifax f.p. is an Australian television crime series produced by Nine Network from 1994 to 2002. The series stars Rebecca Gibney as Doctor Jane Halifax, a forensic psychiatrist investigating cases involving the mental state of suspects or victims. The series is set in Melbourne. The producers of the film were Beyond Simpson Le Mesurier; Australian Film Finance Corporation and aired on the Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd 21 Episodes of 90 and 102 minutes each were produced, and the series has screened in more than 60 countries. The budget for each episode was an average of $1.3 million. Funding came in part from the Australian Film Finance Corporation and Film Victoria.

Halifax f.p.

1994

Ultraman: Towards the Future poster
7.9

Jack Shindo and Stanley Haggard are members of the first manned expedition to Mars, and on the red planet find a giant slug-like monster, Goudes/Gudis. Shindo is pinned by a rockslide and Haggard tries to escape in their ship but is blown up by Gudis. Suddenly a giant warrior, Ultraman Great, arrives and fights Goudes, but when Ultraman is on the verge of victory Goudes changes into a virus and travels to Earth where it mutates other creatures into monsters and awakens existing ones. Needing a human host to survive on Earth, Ultraman joins with Jack, allowing him to become the mighty alien when all seems lost. He joins UMA in order to help them battle the monsters.

Ultraman: Towards the Future

1990

Water Under the Bridge poster
7.0

Water Under the Bridge is a 1980 mini series based on the 1977 novel by Sumner Locke Elliott.

Water Under the Bridge

1980

The Boy in the Bush poster
10.0

n the 1880s, Jack Grant, a young Englishman, has been sent by his parents to make a new life in the pioneering colony of Western Australia. When he arrives, he is met at the dock by Mr. George, who introduces him to his mother's relatives. Jack's life is to be full of adventures, including taming horses and fighting kangaroos. Jack also competes for the love of two cousins.

The Boy in the Bush

1984