David Stratton, the revered Australian film critic and beloved co-host of television programs The Movie Show and At The Movies with fellow critic Margaret Pomeranz, has died aged 85. Stratton died in hospital near his home in the Blue Mountains, his family confirmed in a statement to the ABC.
Born in the English town of Trowbridge in 1939, Stratton was sent to live with his grandmother in Hampshire during the second world war. An avid filmgoer, she took him to the cinema almost every day, which changed his life. In the 2017 documentary David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, he said he watched at least one film he had not seen every day, and had seen more than 25,000 films in his life.
Stratton moved to Australia in 1963 and became director of the Sydney film festival from 1966 until 1983. The role sealed his decision to stay in Australia; he later spoke of feeling very guilty about the decision, as it meant ending his family's tradition of passing down the family's grocery store in England from father to son since the 1820s. He became an Australian citizen in the 1980s.
From the 1970s onwards, Stratton wrote reviews for The Australian and Variety magazine. In 1980, he joined SBS as a film consultant, where he met Margaret Pomeranz. In 1986, they began presenting the long-running SBS program The Movie Show. Their tastes were diverse and often amusingly contrasted; in 1992, Pomeranz rated Romper Stomper five stars, while Stratton refused to give it a rating because he disliked it so.
Stratton and Pomeranz left SBS in 2004 and took the concept to the ABC, with the show renamed At the Movies. The much-loved show ended in 2014 after almost three decades. Sydney film festival paid tribute to its former director, saying the festival and the very culture of cinema in Australia would not exist as it does today without his passion and devotion. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese wrote on X that Stratton shared his love of film with the country with dry humour and sharp insight.
