Breaker Morant

Australian New Wave cinema pioneer and future DRIVING MISS DAISY (1989) director Bruce Beresford earned breakthrough global acclaim with this flinty, high-stakes courtroom drama about a controversial true story of British colonial war crimes. Edward Woodward gives a riveting performance as Harry “Breaker” Morant, an arrogant lieutenant during the Second Anglo-Boer War, who was sentenced to death for murdering enemy prisoners and unarmed noncombatants. Deemed a scapegoat of the British empire by some Australians, Morant enjoys folk hero status today. But Beresford’s timeless history lesson never disputes his guilt, only the murky ethics of guerilla warfare and the wider complicity of military commanders.