Australian feature film
production activity

Number produced, total production budgets and average budget per film (current* and 2018 dollars), 1970/71–2017/18

Over the past four decades Australia has built a solid feature production industry. The average number of Australian features produced annually has grown from 14 films per year in the 1970s to 31 in the 2000s and 38 in the first eight years of the 2010s.

Converted to 2018 dollars, total production budgets for Australian feature films averaged around $26 million annually in the 1970s, increasing to over $180 million during the 1980s and 1990s, and increasing further to $274 million in the 2000s. 

The total budgets for Australian features can fluctuate annually, due largely to the impact of a small number of foreign-financed, usually high-budget, features. In 2012/13, the total production budgets figure was the highest on record ($515 million in 2018 dollars), principally because of the high-budget title Mad Max: Fury Road.

In 2016/17, total production budgets (in 2018 dollars) increased by 59 per cent over the previous year, due largely to the high-budget films Peter Rabbit, Hotel Mumbai and Winchester. The number of titles produced increased by 29 per cent over the previous year.

The average budget for Australian features has risen in each decade since the 1970s. In the 1970s it was $1.71 million (in 2018 dollars), which more than tripled to $6.00 million during the 1980s, and grew to $6.99 million in the 1990s and $9.03 million in the first decade of the 2000s. The average budget in the first eight years of the 2010s was $8.57 million (in 2018 dollars).