'On the Beach' has a great premise to work with - a town ignoring the impending radioactive doom creeping and strolling slowly with the winds of the ocean towards it, and a navy team with a submarine that does not want to suspend the cloak of importance of their duties. The scenes of tranquil and playfulness are especially well-made and has the bittersweet comfort of ignorance in helplessness. The exploration of the vacant landscapes of American shores and harbours is unnerving. I did enjoy the reactions of most of the people to their eventual demise. What really disturbs the story is the ill-paced romance aspects. If they had spent more time with people coping (or not coping) in these strange circumstances instead of the romance plots, this could have been a classic. It was evident that the movie was not about the nuclear catastrophe itself, but how the Australian town reacts to it. But it takes a while to pick up. The party scene at the beginning of the film, for example, is extremely boring and not essential.

I saw this movie when it 1st came out. I was like no other I had ever seen. The cinema was full. We all left in absolute SILENCE! Much better than later versions.

I love the book. It is simply told yet deeply moving, and the characters feel like real people we all could know.But the movie, in spite of its skilled cast falls far short. Each of the characters has a unique way of dealing with the crises at hand, which forces their emotions into the background, but only just below the surface. But only the two female leads, Moira and Mary, bring this out in their performances. The male leads are all too uptight, with the emotion which should be boiling just below the surface held too much in check. As the actors themselves are terrific in other roles, I blame the director...But the real failure in this movie is the musical score. It relies nearly entirely on "Waltzing Matilda" and fails miserably to convey any drama or sense of emotion relating to the individual scenes. Worse, it becomes downright annoying by the end.This is a great story, and I hope it gets remade someday because this version was a huge letdown.

This has got to be one of the most depressing and sad movies I've ever seen.There is a sense of impending doom throughout.The worldwide fallout will eventually kill every human on the planet.Everyone is basically fatalistic and/or suicidal.There is no sense of hope for any kind of future... the people just seek out pleasures and human love.No one imagines that there might be a place to go to escape from the radioactivity... Antarctica, maybe?There is no mention of faith in God (except for some Christians, and even they give up in the end).It gives Australia a bad name. The people there would've certainly done better, if this had actually happened.