Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits

Visitors will be left in awe with the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s (NFSA) new star-studded exhibition.

Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits explores the striking, beautiful portraiture emerging from 100 years of Australian movies. Curators of the show, Penelope Grist, Assistant Curator at the Portrait Gallery, and Jennifer Coombes, Curator at the NFSA had a wealth of items to draw on for the exhibition.

Toni Collette as Muriel, trying on a wedding dress – "Muriel’s Wedding", 1994. Image by by Robert McFarlane.
Toni Collette as Muriel, trying on a wedding dress – "Muriel’s Wedding", 1994. Image by by Robert McFarlane.

It features 275 images, predominantly drawn from the NFSA’s collection, including portraits of Australian actors such as Hugo Weaving, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Toni Collette and Cate Blanchett, and photography from films like Australia, Moulin Rouge!, RED DOG and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Visitors can visit Starstruck.gov.au to preview the exhibition, buy tickets and explore events associated with the exhibition.

Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits will tour to venues in South Australia, regional New South Wales and Queensland.

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July

Sydney: Until 16 August 2026. PIX, Australia’s first pictorial news weekly, is brought to life in this exhibition, showcasing its archived images and stories for the very first time.

February

Melbourne: 28 Nov 2025 – 26 May 2026. The exhibition celebrates the wide-ranging photographic practices of more than eighty women artists working between 1900 and 1975.

Canberra: Until 6 Sept 2026. Trent Parke’s photographic series The Christmas tree bucket 2006–09 is a tender and darkly humorous portrayal of his extended family coming together to celebrate Christmas.

Melbourne: 11 Feb – 25 April 2026. Familial brings together six international artists whose work navigates the emotional and psychological terrain of family.

March

Sydney: Until 7 Feb 2027. From his archive of more than 200,000 images, Close Up celebrates the historic moments and pivotal people he famously captured.

Melbourne: 5 March – 7 August 2026. Between the mid-1970s and early 1990s, artist and social documentary photographer Viva Gibb (1945-2017) documented the suburbs of North and West Melbourne, where she lived.

Melbourne: 7 March – 24 May 2026. Photos of flowers from the NGA collection by prominent photographers drawn such as Robert Mapplethorpe and four groundbreaking Australian photographers.

Melbourne: 10 March – 5 May 2026. TOPshots is an annual celebration of emerging photo-media artists selected from a large pool of entries.

April

Sydney: 15 April – 9 May 2026. An exhibition of fine art photography celebrating the intersection of maritime history and the human form.