Badlands Film Series at the Art Gallery of NSW

What is it about outlaws, rebels and fugitives that’s captivated audiences for centuries? The recently opened Outlaw exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW celebrates the antiheroes of popular culture in visual art, and its Badlands film program extends that celebration to the silver screen every Wednesday and Sunday until April 2. It’s a program that assembles a sprawling and hard-to-pin-down canon, from revisionist westerns and martial arts films to Blaxploitation and New Hollywood.

Speaking of iconic duos, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty hotfoot it across Depression-era America in another 1960s classic, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) on Wednesday February 8, while Magaye Niang and Mareme Niang dream of a new life in Paris in legendary Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki (1973) on Sunday February 12. And on Wednesday March 1, don’t miss the titular film of the series, Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973), which features Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as one of cinema history’s most notorious outlaw couples.

Other program highlights include Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970); wuxia classic Dragon Inn (1967), directed by legend of the genre, King Hu; and the gold-standard of Hong Kong genre cinema, Lau Kar-leung’s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978). Closing the program in the afternoon on Sunday April 2 is Echo 8 (2022), Australia’s first female-led martial arts film.

Browse the full Badlands program and book your tickets via the Art Gallery of NSW website.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with the Art Gallery of NSW.