Cameron Cairnes & Colin Cairnes horror sensation Late Night with the Devil has taken home the award for Best Australian Film at the 2024 Auscritic – Australian Film Critics Association awards, which were held on 22 March 2025 at The Backlot Melbourne. Late Night with the Devil took home two additional awards, including Best Actor for David Dastmalchian and Best Screenplay for Cameron and Colin.

David Dastmalchian shared his thanks for the award, saying “I’m so honoured, I’m so grateful, I’m so thrilled that Late Night with the Devil has been getting the recognition that the film has been getting which is so deserving for Colin and Cameron, the entire crew, the entire cast, and the fact that you thought to honour me with this award is so humbling. I’m so grateful.”

Cameron & Colin shared their thanks for the recognition the film received, with Cameron saying “Thank you for thinking of us. You really do like us,” and Colin chiming in to say “Finally.” The brothers shouted out the work and support of Joel Anderson, the cast and crew, and the producers Mat Govoni and Adam White.

Late Night with the Devil lead the nominations ahead of the ceremony, with eight nods across all possible categories.

Adam Elliot took home the Best Director award for his work on Memoir of a Snail, with the director saying: “It’s very rare that I win a Best Director award, particularly when I’m usually in competition against live action films. It’s a really sad fact that poor old animation never really gets the recognition it deserves for direction because it’s just as difficult, just as time consuming, and it’s something you really have to dedicate a lot of time and brainpower to. I’m really chuffed to be acknowledged for this award.”

Jack Clark & Jim Weir’s independent film Birdeater went into the night with six nominations, with lead actress Shabana Azeez taking home the award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Irene. Shabana shared her thanks for the award, thanking Jack and Jim, the cast and crew, and team at Breathless Films. Shabana said, “I hope that everybody who sees this film is able to have more empathy for people like Irene and who are going through what Irene is going through. I think we have a really skewed understanding of people who are experiencing coercive control. Coercive control is relentless and it’s happening all around Australia and all around the world. I really hope that as we go about our lives and we see the Irene’s in our lives that we can see them a bit more clearly and we have a bit more empathy for what they’re going through.”

Australian screen legends Hugo Weaving and Greta Scacchi each took home awards for their supporting performances in Mark Leonard Winter’s The Rooster and David Vincent Smith’s He Ain’t Heavy.

Hugo shared a message of appreciation for the award and for writer-director Mark Leonard Winter. Hugo said the experience of filming The Rooster was one he thoroughly enjoyed. Hugo thank Auscritic, saying “Thank you to all of you critically minded film loving journalists. Thank for this award, it really means a lot to me. It means a lot to me because I know you don’t celebrate celebrity, you don’t celebrate commerce; you celebrate, you prosecute, you defend, you criticise our film culture. Thank you for doing all of that and for defending our culture and for above all celebrating our culture.”

David Vincent Smith recognised the work of Greta Scacchi on He Ain’t Heavy sharing the following message: “The He Ain’t Heavy team is proud to accept this award on behalf of Greta. We are incredibly grateful for her contribution to our film. A brilliant collaborator with exceptional cinematic sensibility and emotional intelligence, Greta worked hard to unearth the heart and truth of every scene. These are qualities every director dreams of in an actor. Her choices were always deeply connected to our vision while remaining vivid and authentic. I believe this award not only recognises Greta’s work on our film but also her broader contribution to the Australian pursuit of great cinematic art.”

Brendan Bellomo & Slava Leontyev’s collaborative documentary Porcelain War took home the award for Best Australian Documentary, while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga lenser Simon Duggan received the Best Cinematography Award.

On the International Film front, Basel Adra & Yuval Abaham’s No Other Land was recognised in the Best International Documentary category, while Justine Triet’s courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall took home the award for Best International Film Not in the English Language. Luca Guadagnino’s tense tennis romance flick Challengers won the award for Best International Film.

The Auscritic awards also recognise the work of its film critic membership base with five awards for the excellence in criticism. For the 2024 awards, Auscritic was proud to introduce a new award, honouring film historian Lee Gambin.

The inaugural recipient of The Lee Gambin Award for Repertory Film Criticism: Cultural Coverage of a Film Made Prior to 1995 was Jamie Tram for her piece on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This award was presented in collaboration with Cinemaniacs who acted at the jury for the award.

Stephen A Russell received the award for Best Review of an Individual Australian Film for his piece on Charles Williams Inside, while Virat Nehru received the award for Best Review of an Individual Non-Australian Film for his review of Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light.

Tansy Gardam received the Jim Murphy Broadcast Award for her episode on the Going Rogue podcast on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, while Adrian Danks received the Ivan Hutchinson Award for Best Long-Form Writing on an Australian Film.

Judges for the written awards were David Heslin, Cerise Howard, and Gabrielle O’Brien, while the judges for the Broadcast Award were Chery Gladman & Andrew F Peirce.

With thanks from Auscritic member Terry Frost, the ceremony is available to view here:

The full list of the winners is below:

FILM AWARDS

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Photos from the Awards Night