Picnic at Hanging Rock poster

Picnic at Hanging Rock(1975)

dir. Peter Weir

The girls who vanished, and the silence that followed.

Where to watch: Streaming on Criterion ChannelLetterboxd ↗

On a Valentine's Day outing in 1900, several students and a teacher from a strict Australian girls' boarding school vanish while exploring Hanging Rock, and the disappearance is never explained. Adapted from Joan Lindsay's novel.

Why it’s here

Punk in refusing to resolve its own mystery — the film trusts you to sit with not-knowing rather than handing you a tidy explanation. Pedagogical in how repressive Victorian propriety and an indifferent landscape both, in their own ways, work to erase these girls.

Where This Film Lives

Setting
Australia