Who directed the 1981 Australian war film Gallipoli?

Peter Weir directed the 1981 Australian war film Gallipoli.

The film follows two young Australian runners, played by Mark Lee and Mel Gibson, who enlist during the First World War and eventually serve in the Gallipoli campaign. The story emphasizes friendship, training, sporting rivalry, and the growing realization that military leadership can send ordinary soldiers into disastrous attacks.

Gallipoli culminates in the Battle of the Nek, a real attack by Australian troops on August 7, 1915. The attack formed part of the broader Allied campaign to capture the Gallipoli peninsula and open a route toward Constantinople, but the campaign ended in evacuation after heavy losses.

The film was written by David Williamson and produced by Patricia Lovell and Rupert Murdoch. Its final image, accompanied by Jean Sibelius’s music, is one of Australian cinema’s most recognized endings. Gallipoli helped establish Weir and Gibson internationally, although the film compresses and rearranges some historical details for dramatic effect.