Margaret Pomeranz, David Stratton, join Australian Film Walk of Fame

28 June 2025

Colloquially referred to as Margaret and David, the long time Australian film critics became, on Sunday 1 June 2025, the first non-actors to be inducted to the Australian Film Walk of Fame.

The pair are perhaps best known for the two film review television shows they co-hosted, The Movie Show, on SBS, from 1986 until 2004, and then At the Movies, on ABC, from 2004 through to 2014.

Among other roles, Stratton served as director of the Sydney Film Festival from 1966 until 1983. Pomeranz meanwhile was a prominent anti-censorship activist, and was once detained by police during a protest. Despite the warmth of their professional partnership, they often disagreed with each other as to the merits of a film. This became a distinguishing hallmark of their collaboration.

In the earlier days of disassociated I wrote a fair bit about film, and often saw Pomeranz and Stratton at various previews screenings and other events. Stratton hosted a conversation with Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, of 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 2006.

One evening, while waiting to go into a preview screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Sydney in 2012, Pomeranz walked right passed me, as she was leaving the earlier screening. “Any good?” I asked her. She nodded politely in response.

The Australian Film Walk of Fame plague awarded to Pomeranz and Stratton earlier this month, is the second one presented this year. In recent years, the Walk, located outside the Ritz Cinema, in the Sydney suburb of Randwick, has been a little quiet. Is this something of a Film Walk of Fame revival?