Phillip Noyce

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Phillip Noyce AO
Noyce in 2010
Born	(1950-04-29) 29 April 1950 (age 74) Griffith, New South Wales, Australia
Alma mater	University of Sydney Australian Film, Television and Radio School
Occupations	Director producer screenwriter
Years active	1969–present
Known for	Rabbit-Proof Fence, Dead Calm, Clear and Present Danger, Roots (2016)

Phillip Roger Noyce AO (born 29 April 1950) is an Australian film and television director. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama (Newsfront, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American); thrillers (Dead Calm, Sliver, The Bone Collector); and action films (Blind Fury, The Saint, Salt). He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.

He has worked at various times with such actors as Val Kilmer, Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Rutger Hauer and three films with Thora Birch over 25 years. He has also directed, written and executive-produced television programmes in both Australia and North America, including The Cowra Breakout, Vietnam, Revenge, Roots, and Netflix's What/If.

Noyce's work has won him several accolades, including AACTA Awards for Best Film, Best Director and a special Longford Lyell lifetime achievement award.

Phillip Roger Noyce^[1] was born on 29 April 1950^[2] in Griffith, New South Wales.^[3]

He attended high school at Barker College in Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18. His first short film, the 15-minute Better to Reign in Hell, was financed by selling roles to his friends.^{[citation needed]}

He graduated from Sydney University, and then attended the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 1973.^{[citation needed]}

In 1969, Noyce ran the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op, a collective of filmmakers. With Jan Chapman, he ran the Filmmaker's Cinema for three years above a bookshop in Sydney, screening the short films of the directors who would go on to form the Australian New Wave: Gillian Armstrong, Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, George Miller and Paul Cox.^{[citation needed]}

Noyce released his first professional film in 1975. Many of his films feature espionage, as Noyce grew up listening to his father's stories of serving with the Australian Commando unit Z Force during World War II.^[4]

After his debut feature, the medium-length Backroads (1977), Noyce achieved huge commercial and critical success with Newsfront (1978), which won Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for Best Film, Director, Actor and Screenplay; it opened the London Film Festival and was the first Australian film to play at the New York Film Festival.^{[citation needed]}

Noyce worked on two miniseries for Australian television with fellow Australian filmmaker George Miller: The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984). Miller also produced the film that brought Noyce to the attention of Hollywood studios – Dead Calm (1988), which also launched the career of Nicole Kidman. After Dead Calm, Noyce went to the US to direct Blind Fury, starring Rutger Hauer, for Tri-Star Pictures.^{[citation needed]}

Moving with his young family to the US in 1991, Noyce directed five films over the following eight years, of which Clear and Present Danger, starring Harrison Ford, was the most successful, critically and commercially, grossing $216 million.^{[citation needed]} After 1999's Bone Collector starring Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington, Noyce decided to return to Australia for the Stolen Generations saga Rabbit-Proof Fence, which won the AFI Award for Best Film in 2002. He has described Rabbit-Proof Fence as "easily" his proudest moment as a director: "Showing that film to various Aboriginal communities around the country and seeing their response, because it gave validity to the experiences of the Stolen Generations."^[5]

Noyce was also lauded for The Quiet American, the 2002 adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, which gave Michael Caine an Academy Award Best Actor nomination and earned best director awards from London Film Critics' Circle and National Board of Review in the US.^{[citation needed]} After the apartheid-set Catch a Fire (2006) in South Africa,^{[citation needed]} Noyce decided to make another big budget studio film with 2010's Salt starring Angelina Jolie, which proved to be his biggest commercial hit to date, making nearly $300 million worldwide.^[4]

In 2011, Noyce directed and executive produced the pilot for the American Broadcasting Company series Revenge and has since directed numerous TV pilots, including Netflix's What/If starring Renée Zellweger and the FOX Network hit The Resident. In 2017, he signed a first look deal with 20th Century Fox Television.^[6]

Above Suspicion, starring Emilia Clarke and Jack Huston, originally to be released in America in 2020 by Roadside Attractions, was delayed until May 2021 due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.^{[citation needed]}

In 2021, Noyce became executive producer on the film Show Me What You Got, written and directed by Svetlana Cvetko.^[7]

The Desperate Hour, starring Naomi Watts, was released in the US by Roadside Attractions in March 2022.^{[citation needed]}

In late 2021, a 17 feature and 10 shorts retrospective of Noyce's work was presented at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

Noyce's next film, Fast Charlie, a darkly comedic thriller starring Pierce Brosnan, Morena Baccarin and James Caan, written by Richard Wenk was released in the US in December 2023, earning Noyce highly positive reviews.^{[citation needed]}

As of 2024^[update] Noyce is an ambassador for SmartFone Flick Fest (SF3), held annually in Sydney.^[8]

In the Australia Day Honours in January 2023, Noyce was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) by the Australian Government.^[1]

Executive producer

• Show Me What You Got (2021)

TV movies

• Fact and Fiction (1980)
• Three Vietnamese Stories (1980)
• Mary and Martha (2013)

TV series

• Simmonds and Newcombe (late 1970s) – about the manhunt for Simmonds and Newcombe^[10]
• King Hit (late 1970s) – about the dismissal of the Whitlam government

• Maltin, Leonard. Phillip Noyce Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia, imdb.com. Retrieved 16 August 2005.
• Brian McFarlane, Geoff Mayer, Ina Bertrand (Ed.) (1999). The Oxford companion to Australian film. Melbourne, Australia ; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553797-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Petzke, Ingo: Backroads To Hollywood – Phillip Noyce. Pan Macmillan (Sydney) 2004
• Petzke, Ingo. Great Directors – Phillip Noyce Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 10 February 2007.
• Contemporary North American Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide By Yoram Allon, Hannah Patterson, Del Cullen. Entry on Phillip Noyce Look inside at Google Book search

• Phillip Noyce at IMDb