--- title: "Walkabout" year: 1971 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/walkabout" fi1m_score: 85 critics_score: 82 critics_reviews: 16 published: "2026-09-16T10:56:09.382997+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T10:56:21.193174+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Walkabout (1971) Directed by Nicolas Roeg · 1h 35m · MPA PG · Adventure, Drama **Fi1m score: 85** · Critics 82 from 16 reviews *In a sentence:* Even the insects seem better prepared for this journey than the children > Nicolas Roeg’s outback drama is moving, disquieting and worth giving your full attention. Its young cast and desert images hold us, though the contrast between wilderness and civilisation sometimes makes the people too simple. ## Synopsis In the Australian outback, the Girl (Jenny Agutter) and her brother, the White Boy (Luc Roeg), are lost and need help finding their way. An Aboriginal youth, the Black Boy (David Gulpilil), befriends the siblings and becomes their guide through the wilderness. Around them, insects, reptiles and wild animals occupy country far removed from the routines the children know. The three travel together, but finding a way to understand one another presents difficulties of its own. The siblings must depend on someone whose knowledge of this place they do not share. ## Review Nicolas Roeg directs and photographs *Walkabout*, and gives the landscape as much attention as the children trying to cross it. A girl and her brother wander the Australian outback, where an Aboriginal boy becomes their guide. We recommend it warmly for the young actors and the patient attention to a place that never becomes mere scenery. Its weakness is the temptation to make these children represent entire cultures, when their uncertain dealings with one another are already enough. The desert views give us time to look, but the inserts of insects and reptiles keep disturbing any comfortable appreciation of the scenery. Nicolas Roeg gives those small creatures an importance that a more conventional survival story would reserve for its human travellers. We were unsettled by those interruptions: the children are in trouble, and life carries on around them without taking notice. The landscape remains full of activity even when human speech falls away. Jenny Agutter gives the Girl an intelligence that keeps us watching without making her easy to understand. Her reserve matters in a film where people so often struggle to make themselves understood. David Gulpilil brings warmth to the Aboriginal boy, a quality the film needs whenever its larger ideas threaten to take over. Luc Roeg’s White Boy helps keep the company recognisably young, and the three performances make their difficulties communicating feel awkward and immediate. Editors Antony Gibbs and Alan Pattillo make the changes between human routine, open country and animal life do much of the storytelling. Their cutting asks us to compare what people do in different surroundings, rather than simply follow the travellers from one danger to the next. The repeated returns to wildlife can seem excessive, but they also prevent the journey from settling into a reassuring rhythm. We stay alert to what the next image might show, even when little is being said. Brian Eatwell’s production design makes the scenes of civilised routine feel confined beside the open country. That restraint is useful: the film makes the comparison forcefully enough through its cutting. John Barry’s music gives the journey a sadness that the sparse conversations cannot express. We find its tenderness persuasive because the actors leave so much unsaid, especially in the exchanges between the Girl and the Aboriginal boy. The reservation concerns what Nicolas Roeg wants all these comparisons to prove. Edward Bond’s spare writing leaves welcome space for uncertainty between the children, but the opposition between wilderness and civilisation can become too neat. The Aboriginal boy is most affecting as a person trying to communicate, and least convincing when we are encouraged to see him as an answer to everything wrong with modern life. David Gulpilil’s warmth keeps complicating that reading, and we are grateful for it. At 95 minutes, *Walkabout* asks for patience without making a trial of it. It is an unusual adventure film, willing to spend time on a failed exchange or an animal that has no part in the children’s immediate predicament. We value that willingness to linger, especially when the young cast can make silence so uncomfortable. Watch it when the pictures can have your full attention; the quiet passages are worth staying with. *Fi1m score 85, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond warmly to Walkabout, with praise centred on Nicolas Roeg’s images of the Australian outback and his use of editing to connect landscape, memory and cultural unease. The reviews repeatedly describe a dreamlike journey whose sparse dialogue allows the images and performances to carry its emotional weight. Jenny Agutter’s intelligence and complexity draw attention, as does David Gulpilil’s warmth. Critics also find substance in the film’s treatment of lost innocence, failed communication and the distance between industrial society and life in the wilderness. The disagreement concerns how well that visual approach serves the story. The New York Times admires the images and direct performances but finds the elaborate techniques at odds with the simple message. Variety is the lone negative voice, arguing that the wildlife inserts impede an already fragile, forced adaptation. The spread is wide, then, but the reservations sit within a strongly positive consensus. ### Reviews we read (16) - **Time Out**, Joshua Rothkopf (5/5): The review calls Walkabout a 1971 stunner and atmospheric adventure that remains feverish and intimate, a radical film of its decade. It singles out Jenny Agutter’s complex, intelligent performance and the film as Roeg’s emotional arrival. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/walkabout) - **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (A): The critic praises Roeg's use of images and editing to create a hypnotic journey contrasting innocence and civilization, highlighting the film's dream-like quality and inevitable loss of innocence. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/walkabout-1798164977) - **RogerEbert.com**, Walter Chaw (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a masterful, totemic work of profound spiritual and existential power that has lost none of its force. He singles out its raw, awe-inspiring imagery of the outback and its exploration of human nature, innocence, and civilization's corruption. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/criterion-releases-special-edition-of-nicolas-roegs-masterful-walkabout) - **Sight and Sound**, James Bell (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Roeg’s debut solo feature as vividly capturing the Australian outback as an ancient, timeless setting for fable and allegory. It highlights the film’s pure cinema qualities through mesmerising landscape images, subjective viewpoints and editing, plus its coming-of-age and cultural themes. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/5596) - **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 film as a seminal work of the Australian New Wave for its striking atmospheric contrasts between beauty and menace in the outback. They single out David Gulpilil’s warm, affecting performance as the Indigenous man who befriends the lost siblings. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/jul/11/walkabout-rewatched-a-wilderness-of-the-mind-as-much-as-of-the-land) - **The Times**, Will Self (90/100, inferred): The critic recalls first seeing the film as a child and finds it even better on rewatch for its considered lyricism, long sweeping shots of the desert, and passages without dialogue. They single out its embodiment of pure film language in contrast to modern fast-cut editing. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/australasia-travel/australia/human-jungle-s7xcsjhz7sx) - **Slant Magazine** (80/100, inferred): The film explores the tension between industry and nature through the children's journey in the outback, guided by an Aboriginal boy, emphasizing cultural clashes and humanity. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/walkabout/) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (70/100, inferred): Nicolas Roeg's film is a deep but elusive story of cultural clash and survival in the outback, using an elliptical style rather than conventional perils or romance. It contrasts wilderness life with civilised routines through sparse dialogue, footnote scenes and nature footage, while highlighting the non-professional casting and Jenny Agutter's sensual performance. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/walkabout-review/) - **The New Yorker**, Penelope Gilliatt (70/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a violent fable about silence and the tactics of people in unknown conditions, calling it a plain, muscular work that is handsome and shocking to look at. She singles out its link to Romantic feelings for barbarism and savage savants. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/07/10/split-3) - **The New York Times** (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a sincere evocation of nostalgia for an innocence that probably never existed, with sympathies for simple folk and lovely images of the journey. He notes that its fancy techniques undermine the simple message and that the performances are direct while the film itself is elaborate. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/02/archives/reflections-on-an-aborigine-ritual-and-a-rationale-for-revenge.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (**): The critic calls the film a tepid artistic effort about children lost in the Australian wilds who are befriended by an aborigine, noting that pretty pictures alone cannot sustain the fragile and forced adaptation. He singles out the over-reliance on inserts of insects, reptiles, and wild beasts as inhibiting the story. [Read](https://variety.com/1970/film/reviews/walkabout-1200422331/) - **Collider**, James Napoli (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Roeg's meditative, poetic direction and striking visuals in this tale of cultural and natural disconnection. He highlights the film's thematic depth on alienation, communication barriers, and humanity's relationship to the environment, calling it unforgettable and groundbreaking. [Read](https://collider.com/james-napolis-rental-of-the-week-this-week-walkabout-1971/) - **Eye for Film**, Jennie Kermode (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the stunning cinematography that conveys the vastness of the landscape alongside intimate drama, and the superb performances of the young cast in this dialogue-minimal film. She singles out the immersive Outback odyssey as an epic that captures cultural shifts, loss, and a world on the brink of change. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/walkabout-1971-film-review-by-jennie-kermode) - **Paste**, Andy Beta (90/100, inferred): The review hails Walkabout as a masterpiece and perfect cinematic experience, lauding its meditation on cultural clashes, rituals, gender roles, and the gap between modern and ancient worlds. It singles out the wordless relationship between the Aboriginal boy and the girl, along with the film's enigmatic, primal vision and flawless structure. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/nicolas-roeg/walkabout-review) - **The Ringer**, Adam Nayman (90/100, inferred): In this retrospective obituary piece, the critic describes Walkabout as one of Roeg's masterpieces, noting its terrifying prologue, existential dread, and symbolic exploration of cultural/racial tensions and coming-of-age. It praises the feverish, vision-quest intensity of the imagery and its status as a key Australian New Wave film. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2018/11/26/movies/nicolas-roeg-director-dead-obituary-dont-look-now-man-who-fell-to-earth-walkabout) - **The Playlist** (80/100, inferred): The piece highlights Walkabout as an auspicious directorial debut for Nicolas Roeg, noting its status as an art-house classic and the improved Criterion transfer of this poetic outback tale. It emphasizes the film's literary origins and strong transfer quality over previous editions. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/criterion-reviews-stagecoach-walkabou-20100527/) ## Details - **Director:** Nicolas Roeg - **Director:** Nicolas Roeg - **Writer:** Edward Bond - **Story:** Nicolas Roeg - **Novel:** James Vance Marshall - **Cinematography:** Nicolas Roeg - **Editor:** Antony Gibbs, Alan Pattillo - **Music:** John Barry - **Production design:** Brian Eatwell - **Producer:** Si Litvinoff - **Cast:** Jenny Agutter as Girl; Luc Roeg as White Boy; David Gulpilil as Black Boy; John Meillon as Man; Robert McDarra as Man; Peter Carver as No Hoper; John Illingsworth as Young Man; Hilary Bamberger as Woman - **Runtime:** 1h 35m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 1 July 1971 - **Genres:** Adventure, Drama - **Budget:** $1 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdqwbs8uKwQ ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AU, DE, FI, GB, IE, NO, NZ, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Night of the Hunter* (1955): Children face adult violence in landscapes whose beauty offers little protection — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) - *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A child’s curiosity meets adult silence, with fear gathering in ordinary rooms — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md) - *Dersu Uzala* (1975): Another encounter between urban certainty and wilderness knowledge, with more room for friendship - *Rabbit-Proof Fence* (2002): Children cross Australia, with Aboriginal experience given the attention it deserves - *Theeb* (2014): A desert journey measured by a boy’s understanding of danger and obligation --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/walkabout