David Stratton, the longtime film critic for The Australian and Variety and co-host of the television series “The Movie Show” and “At The Movies,” has died. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Stratton’s family announced his death Thursday, saying that he died in a hospital near his home in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. He was 85.
Stratton was born in Trowbridge, England in 1939 before moving to Hampshire for the duration of the second World War. After the end of the war, he returned to Trowbridge, where his family ran a local grocery business for five generations. He was expected to carry on the family business, but fell in love with cinema from an early age. In 1953, he dropped out of secondary school to fully immerse himself in local film societies.
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Stratton moved to Australia in 1963 and within a year joined the board of the Sydney Film Festival. By 1966, he was the festival director. He maintained the role through 1983, expanding the festival’s scope and vision. Steadfastly against censorship, Stratton made bold programming choices. In 2014, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization had surveilled Stratton in the 1960s for screening Soviet films in the festival.
After stepping down as festival director, Stratton fully committed himself to film criticism. He wrote regular articles for Variety and became a weekly film critic for The Australian. He joined Australia’s Special Broadcast Service as a film consultant in 1980 and introduced films playing on the network. In 1986, he began co-hosting the SBS’s “The Movie Show” with fellow Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz. The two discussed, critiqued and debated the latest film releases on-air for 18 years. The duo left the SBS in 2004 and rebranded the show as “At The Movies,” which ran on the ABC until 2014.
Over the years, Stratton also served as a juror for film festivals around the world, including Berlin, Montreal and Venice. He taught film history as a lecturer at University of Sydney’s Continuing Education program and he published three books: his 2008 biography “I Peed on Fellini,” his 2021 critical reflection “My Favourite Movies,” and his 2024 anthology of reviews for every locally produced Australian feature between 1990 and 2020, “Australia At The Movies.”
Stratton was admired for his deep knowledge of independent film and his championing of innovative productions. His classical, sometimes obscure tastes contrasted with Pomeranz’s appreciation for Hollywood blockbusters, making their debates supremely entertaining as well as enlightening.
In the wake of his death, his family said in a statement, “[we] invite everyone to celebrate David’s remarkable life and legacy by watching their favourite movie, or David’s favourite movie of all time — ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’”
Stratton is survived by his wife, Susie Craig, and two children.
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