Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright (1971) is an Australian-British psychological thriller directed by Ted Kotcheff — watch it online on iFILM. A young schoolteacher bound for Sydney makes a one-night stop in a remote outback mining town called Bundanyabba. He never leaves.

Based on Kenneth Cook's 1961 novel, the film follows Gary Bond's teacher as he falls into the orbit of hard-drinking locals, including a ruined doctor played by Donald Pleasence in one of his most unsettling performances. The heat, the relentless hospitality, and the complete absence of escape wear him down in ways no threat could.

The film was thought permanently lost until archive prints surfaced in 2004 — and the restoration confirmed what critics had always said: this is one of the most disturbing portraits of masculine self-destruction ever committed to film. Stream Wake in Fright (1971) on iFILM.