Image, AFI Award Winners: Andrew Denton, Julia Zemiro, David Wenham, Shane Jacobson

Past AFI Award Winners

Each year hundreds of productions enter the AFI Awards, and every year audiences and filmmakers alike anticipate who is going to take one home.

This page is dedicated to the winners of AFI Awards, from 1958 through to 2010. Below, you can download PDFs of past winners from a variety of award categories.

Looking back at past winners of AFI Awards, it is easy to see why Australia has a reputation for being a hotbed of cinema and television talent.

The AFI Awards have celebrated actors like Cate Blanchett, Mel Gibson, Toni Collette, Hugo Weaving, Russell Crowe, Geoffrey Rush and Eric Bana.

Directors such as Fred Schepisi, George Miller, Peter Weir, Gillian Armstrong and Phillip Noyce.

Classic films including Gallipoli, Newsfront, Flirting, Strictly Ballroom, The Devil's Playground, Lantana and Rabbit Proof Fence.

And groundbreaking television series like Brides of Christ, Come In Spinner, Wildside, My Brother Jack, Frontline, Seachange and Love My Way.

Bill Hunter & Mel Gibson

Bill Hunter

& Mel Gibson,1981

The inaugural AFI Awards were held in 1958, when local production was at one of its lowest ebbs. In these first AFI Awards, 30 entries were received across six categories. The following year the number doubled, and continued to steadily grow. By the 1960s it had become clear that the AFI Awards were raising the standards of the Australian film industry by providing an incentive for filmmakers to achieve excellence and a means for them to receive public recognition.

In 1976, a special award for Best Film was created, and won by Fred Schepisi for The Devil’s Playground. This also marked the first year that the AFI Awards were televised to a national audience. In 1986, television categories were included in the AFI Awards for the first time. The Television section has continued to expand and become an important feature of the Awards, with categories across drama, comedy and light entertainment.

By 2008, hundreds of entries were received across 45 award categories, a sign not only that the AFI has grown, but that the Australian film and television industry continues to flourish.

David Gulpilil, 2006