The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

1994
R
1h 44m

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

57K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer1:01

Dark Comedy Road Trip Comedy Music

Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

57K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

4,348

1,689

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 1 Oscar
- 11 wins & 19 nominations total

Trivia
As of 2024, this is still the most recent contemporary-set film (i.e. non-period, non-fantasy, non-sci-fi) to win the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Goofs
When they are in the bar in Broken Hill, Old Shirl comes over and slaps her right hand down on Bernadette's. Then, in the next camera shot, it's her left hand.

Quotes
Bernadette: [to Shirley] Now listen here, you mullet. Why don't you just light your tampon, and blow your box apart? Because it's the only bang you're ever gonna get, sweetheart!

Crazy credits
A scene after the credits finish shows an Asian garden where a blow up doll (released earlier in the movie in Australia) lands on a man, who looks quite puzzled.

Alternate versions
The film was "Shown in Dragarama" at select theatres at the time of release. This involved some theatres using a mirror-ball and colored lighting during the "Finally" dance number.

Connections
Edited into Picnic at Wolf Creek (2006)

Soundtracks
I've Never Been To Me
Written by Ken Hirsch and Ronald Miller
Performed by Charlene
Published by Stone Diamond Music Corp. / Jobete Music
Courtesy Motown Record Company LP

User reviews180

Review

Featured review

9/10

finally ...

Two drag queens (Guy Pearce as bitchy Felicia, and Hugo Weaving as Mitzi) and a transsexual (Terence Stamp, marvellous as the widowed Bernadette) make a trip to Alice Springs in a pink bus called Priscilla.

Cue a soundtrack of mostly Abba songs (plus an off-the-cuff 'I Will Survive', and C E Peniston's 'Finally' - a great set-piece) and three towering performances. From the initial hilarious premise we follow the trio through the Australian desert and meet the various inhabitants of places they pass through. It remains fast-paced and touching within the comedy. Wonderful.