The 2020/21 Westpac OpenAir program will feature a line-up of eight premieres and preview screenings over a record 69 nights, opening with the Sydney premiere of Robert Connelly’s hotly-anticipated, The Dry, a film adaptation of Jane Harper’s award-winning novel which stars Eric Bana and Genevieve O’Reilly.

Following its world premiere at Berlin International Film Festival this year, Stephen Maxwell Johnson’s thrilling drama High Ground will receive its Sydney premiere, along with the heart-warming Toronto International Film Festival selected, Penguin Bloom, starring Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln and Jacki Weaver.

Biographic drama Ammonite (Saoirse Ronan, Kate Winslet) and Oscar award-winner John Patrick Shanley’s Irish drama, Wild Mountain Thyme (Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm), will join Jessica Swale’s uplifting debut feature Summerland (Gemma Arterton), and inspiring female surf documentary, Girls Can’t Surf, as four preview screenings sure to be in high demand on the harbour.

Audiences can also look forward to seeing some of their favourite classics on the big screen with Love Actually, Almost Famous, Thelma & Louise, The Devil Wears Prada, Grease and Pulp Fiction all confirmed in the line-up along with a selection of the year’s most talked about films, including:

• Oscar contender The Prom starring Meryl Streep, James Cordon and Nicole Kidman;
• Local Trans-Tasman comedies Baby Done featuring Rose Matafeo and Matthew Lewis and box-office hit Rams featuring Sam Neill and Michael Caton;
• Netflix’s sci-fi drama Midnight Sky starring George Clooney;
• Blumhouse’s horror comedy Freaky lead by Vince Vaughn;
• American neo-Western drama Let Him Go starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane;
• Teen comedies Kajillionare and Barnaby Thompson’s Pixie;
• Female-led dramas Dreamland starring Margot Robbie and Sigourney Weaver starrer, My Salinger Year
• Festival darling, The Furnace, starring David Wenham;
• The action-packed Honest Thief, starring Liam Neeson;
• Musical spectaculars The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and Spike Lee’s David Byrne’s American Utopia; and
• The sensational drama based on true events, Misbehaviour, featuring Keira Knightly and Jessie Buckley.