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A breezy, star-driven fish-out-of-water comedy with real 1980s charm, scenic Australian location work, and a premise that still plays as a crowd-pleasing culture-clash romp. Its appeal is undercut by thin plotting and jokes that have aged badly, especially around gender and sexuality.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 37m
Director: Peter Faiman
Starring: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Blum
When a New York reporter plucks crocodile hunter Mick Dundee from the Australian Outback for a visit to the Big Apple, it's a clash of cultures and a recipe for good-natured comedy as naïve Dundee negotiates the concrete jungle. He proves that his instincts are quite useful in the city and adeptly handles everything from wily muggers to high-society snoots without breaking a sweat.
Peter Faiman
Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Blum
A breezy, star-driven fish-out-of-water comedy with real 1980s charm, scenic Australian location work, and a premise that still plays as a crowd-pleasing culture-clash romp. Its appeal is undercut by thin plotting and jokes that have aged badly, especially around gender and sexuality.
Crocodile Dundee is the kind of mid-80s hit that feels instantly legible: a charismatic outsider, a city full of status games, and a simple premise built to travel. Paul Hogan’s easy confidence gives the movie its engine, and the Australian wilderness sequences have a relaxed, sunlit appeal that helps the film feel bigger than its jokes sometimes are.
Once the story shifts to New York, it becomes a string of broad set pieces built around Dundee’s blunt practicality and the movie’s desire to contrast “authentic” roughness with urban sophistication. That formula works often enough to explain the film’s enormous popularity, even if the screenplay is more repetitive than inspired.
The problem is that some of the comedy depends on material that now lands as mean-spirited and dated, especially in its treatment of gender and sexuality. If you approach it as a time capsule of 1980s mainstream comedy, there’s still a likable, easygoing watch here; if you want it to feel fresh or especially clever, it probably won’t.
Sally Jane Black (1.5★) · 551 likes
Super transphobic and homophobic joke that I did not recall from my childhood just made me sick to my fucking stomach.
JK (2★) · 477 likes
The fact that this was nominated for an Academy Award for *writing* is basically all you need to know about the 80s.
adambolt (3.5★) · 344 likes
ah NOW i understand where all the stereotypes about Australians come from
Alice Stoehr (1.5★) · 224 likes
The first half of this movie, shot in the Australian wilderness, is laid-back, picturesque, and harmless enough. But once Mick Dundee comes to New York City it turns into a series of lousy fish-out-of-water gags: he doesn't understand sidewalks! or prostitutes! or cocaine! (etc., etc.) When he's not being baffled by American customs, Mick's mostly punching people, drinking heavily, or assaulting and humiliating trans women—the latter a recurring "joke" that really soured me on the movie. Crocodile Dundee is ultra-patriarchal,
Will Sloan · 213 likes
Really bad. Incredible how few jokes a comedy film was expected to have in the '80s. But $328 million in 1986 dollars proves that at the height of the Reagan era, the world was desperate to see a simple transphobe from the Outback teach hoity-toity, coke-sniffing, sexually degenerate New Yorkers what a real man looked like. Paul Hogan is the Steven Seagal of comedy stars, in that he is never even for a second allowed to look foolish. Somehow the best of the three Dundee films.
A hugely popular culture-clash comedy that pairs broad humor with a similarly outsider-driven premise.
An 80s New York comedy about class, ambition, and navigating a status-conscious city with wit.
A warm, mainstream crowd-pleaser built on an innocent outsider moving through adult urban life.
A polished fish-out-of-water comedy that mines culture shock while keeping the lead character charismatic and likable.
For viewers who want a broadly accessible 80s comedy with a stronger joke rate and a similar mainstream appeal.
Adventure-comedy with a charming lead dynamic, light romance, and a glossy, escapist tone.
A big-hearted studio comedy from the same era that leans on personality and easygoing crowd appeal.
Another mainstream hit built around an outsider entering an unfamiliar world and generating gentle comic friction.
If the appeal is specifically the character and his brand of swagger, this sequel continues that formula.
A glossy adventure-comedy with similar 80s energy, location flavor, and romantic banter.
A later fish-out-of-water comedy that plays the premise more cleanly and with less dated baggage.
A mainstream comedy of disguise and social performance that depends on broad appeal and star charisma.
fish-out-of-water comedy, culture clash, Australian outback, New York City, 1980s mainstream entertainment, masculine bravado, tourism and national identity, dated social attitudes
fish-out-of-water, culture clash, road comedy, 1980s, outback, New York City, broad comedy, nostalgia, adventure-comedy, dated humor