Sam Neill died in Sydney on 13 July, at 78, a long way up the road from his Central Otago vineyard, and Australia felt it like losing one of its own. This is a tribute to a great screen life, with six Sam Neill movies and shows streaming in Australia tonight. We claimed him decades ago, the way Australia claims every good New Zealander, fully and without asking, and for once the Kiwis let it slide. He worked here too often and too well for anyone to argue.
Australia's favourite adopted Kiwi
Born in Omagh in 1947 and raised in Christchurch, he became a leading man on this side of the Tasman: My Brilliant Career in 1979, opposite Judy Davis, is the film that sent him to the world. Australian cinema kept calling him back. Evil Angels won him an AACTA for playing Michael Chamberlain, Dead Calm put him on a yacht with a very bad houseguest, Death in Brunswick let him be funny in a Melbourne kitchen, and The Dish gave him one of the warmest roles Australian film has produced. Television here loved him longer: multiple Logies over the decades, the most recent just last year, and three seasons of The Twelve as defence silk Brett Colby.
The last chapter was Australian too. He revealed a rare blood cancer in 2023, beat it through a clinical trial here, and announced in April he was cancer-free. The pneumonia that took him arrived barely three months later, in Sydney, with his family around him, as reported by the Otago Daily Times. Steven Spielberg described him as exceptionally collaborative and said he adored making every Jurassic film with him. No arguments here. The man made over 150 screen credits look easy and never once acted like a big deal about it.
The honours tell you how thoroughly Australia adopted him: an AACTA for Evil Angels, Silver Logies in 2005 and 2023, and another Logie just last year for best lead actor in a drama. He kept turning up in the culture here for five straight decades, from Sirens in the nineties through Sweet Country, free on iview and worth your time, to voicing Mr McGregor in Peter Rabbit for the kids. Somewhere along the way, the question of whether he was theirs or ours stopped mattering. Both countries simply got the best of him.
Six Sam Neill movies and shows streaming in Australia
The good news for a cold night in: Australia streams his career better than anywhere else on earth, and half of this list is sitting on free services. Netflix and Stan carry the rest. No excuses, then: pick one, get the heater going, and give the man his due.
Jurassic Park
The film that made him globally famous, and he plays it with the calm of a man who has seen plenty of wildlife before, just smaller. The sequels get a nod below; only the original earns a spot on the list.
My Brilliant Career
Where it all properly started, and it is free on iview. Judy Davis gets the title role and the fireworks; Neill does the quieter thing that became his trademark for the next fifty years. Essential Australian cinema, no ironic distance required.
Dead Calm
Three people, one yacht, open water, and escalating regret about the passenger list. A lean Australian thriller that still plays brilliantly, also free on iview. Watch it before the remake conversation starts up again.
The Dish
Parkes, a radio telescope, the moon landing, and Neill at his warmest as the man holding a small town's big moment together. If the household cannot agree tonight, this is the one nobody will argue with.
The Twelve
Three seasons of courtroom drama with Neill as the silk you would want in your corner. Late-career Australian television gave him some of his best material, and this is the proof.
Death in Brunswick
Honourable mention
A cult Melbourne comedy with Neill as a hopeless cook in over his head. The honourable mention because it is the deepest cut here, and the one to save for when you want to show off your taste.
One Jurassic Park is enough
He returned for Jurassic Park III in 2001 and Jurassic World Dominion in 2022, and was comfortably the best thing in both, but only the 1993 original makes the cut here. His final series, Untamed, is on Netflix if you want the very last work, and his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?, written during treatment, is the book to follow the films with. Fair warning: it is funnier than a memoir written in a chemo chair has any right to be.
Where to start tonight
It is cold, the couch is there, and working through the best Sam Neill movies and shows is a better Friday than another forty-minute scroll. For the wider field, the what to watch tonight guide has you covered, and the best shows on Stan rounds out the local end. Available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the United States.