The Man From Snowy River is an Aussie film that has cemented itself as a beloved classic decades later.
Shot in the Victorian High Country, and nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes, the movie was the big break for the stars it featured.
See what the cast is up to now below.
Sigrid Thornton
Sigrid starred as Jessica, Jim Craig’s love interest and the daughter of landowner Harrison.
Although she had been working for several years –including a stint on Prisoner – the SeaChange star said the film marked a “definitive turning point” in her career.
Of course, there is no Jessica in Banjo Paterson’s original poem. Sigrid said this made things tricky when it came to researching the character, as she had nothing to go off. Luckily, she and Tom had an “immediate rapport”.
“From the audition process onwards, we just got on like a house on fire,” she has previously told the Daily Telegraph.
After the movie and its sequel, Sigrid won a Logie for SeaChange, a Western Heritage Cowboy Hall of Fame award in 1999, and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2002.
The 65-year-old was also named as one of the top 100 Aussie entertainers of the century by the Variety Club in 2003.
Since then, she has cemented herself as a seasoned actress starring in dramas such as Wentworth, Amazing Grace, Paradise, and the SeaChange reboot, which she also joined as an executive producer.
A jack of all trades, she has also starred in a plethora of films, and musicals, and has been a voiceover artist. Her legacy in the performing arts was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2019.
Then in 2025, she made a surprise return to Aussie screens when she was cast on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
Tom Burlinson
Tom, who played the film’s hero Jim Craig, is actually Canadian. He grew up in both Canada and the United States before his family made Australia their home. The Man From Snowy River was Tom’s first movie role.
Although he was a novice rider, Tom performed many of his own stunts, including the famous gallop downhill when Jim took his horse, Denny, over the cliff to go after the brumbies.
Tom was asked many times if he wanted to do the scene and he didn’t think twice!
Following his big break, he starred in Phar Lap, Flesh and Blood, and alongside teenage Nicole Kidman in Windrider, whom he later dated.
The Canadian also returned for the sequel The Man From Snowy River II.
He took his first step into musicals in 1993, where met future-wife Mandy Carnie. They tied the knot in 1996 and share three children.
A lover of Frank Sinatra, he was cast to sing the voice of his father as a young man in the mini series Sinatra, which was created by Tina Sinatra.
Following this, he created the show The Frank Sinatra Story In Song in 1998, which toured across Australia. He also featured in a concert in tribute to the singer, and still performs his songs to this day.
Tom has also performed on stage in the musical Chicago, and pays tribute to singers in his touring show Swingin‘, which he performs with his band.
Jack Thompson
Despite his real-life riding experience, Jack Thompson was seriously injured on set of the 1982 classic.
“I’d been a station hand, a drover and worked with [horses] as an actor, but I came to grief when making this picture,” he said
Jack, who played the legendary Clancy, severely damaged his left leg when the horse he was galloping on fell into a rabbit hole.
As a result, he turned up at rehearsals for his next movie in a wheelchair!
Following the movie and its sequel, he starred in films such as Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones as Cliegg Lars, The Great Gatsby, Mao’s Last Dancer and Mystery Road.
For the movie Breaker Morant, he was named as the best supporting actor at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Australian Film Institute’s Best Actor award.
His legacy in performing arts has been recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award, Outstanding Contribution to Australian Film and Entertainment by the Cinemas Association of Australia, and a Member of the Order of Australia.
Outside of acting, he has been a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and an advocate for Indigenous people.
For this, he has established a foundation to support First Nations building programs in East Arnhem Land.
In a 2024 interview with NT News, he said he was treated “like family” by First Nations stockmen at a cattle station in the territory in 1955.
“I learned about their culture and language and their Country which had been theirs for thousands of years and was so familiar to them,” Mr Thompson said before he delivered a memorial lecture that year.
The legacy of Kirk Douglas
Hollywood great Kirk Douglas was one of the few international names in The Man From Snowy River, and played Spur and Harrison.
However, he wasn’t the first choice for the roles of twin brothers, Spur and Harrison – both Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster were wanted.
It was never intended that one actor would play both brothers in the film, but once Kirk got the idea in his head, apparently there was no turning back.
Tom later said that he was not easy to work with.
“I was 25, but I looked about 17. Kirk apparently said to the director early on, ‘The kid’s too pretty.’ He was not an easy person,” Tom dished.
However, he did add, “But I know The Man From Snowy River would not have been the movie it became had Kirk Douglas not been on it.”
For her part, Sigrid found Kirk to be a good mentor, saying at the time: “You can certainly learn a lot from someone who is so generous with his knowledge.”
The Spartacus actor was nominated for three Academy Awards, an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His career spanned seven decades and he died at 103 in 2020.
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