40,000 Years of Dreaming is an hour-long documentary film presented by George Miller and produced by the British Film Institute, as part of their Century of Cinema series.

The film acts mainly as a collage of various pieces of Australian film, past and present, including Miller's own Mad Max

Mad Max (franchise)

The Mad Max franchise refers to a series of futuristic films, taking place in the "Mad Max Universe", that tell a story of breakdown of society, murder, and vengeance. The first Mad Max was an Australian action film directed by George Miller and written by Miller and Byron Kennedy, released in 1979...

 series. In the film, Miller focuses primarily on Australian cinema as a vessel of public dreaming, creating a link between contemporary Australian cinema and ancient Aborigine

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

 dreamtime stories, while at the same time providing leigh-way to those elements that Miller posits make Australian film such a unique blend - the archetypal landscape, and the idiosyncratic Australian types, among them. Miller also places Australian cinema in the context of Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell

Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...

's monomyth, of which Miller has long been a proponent of.

Since its release in 1997, it - along with several of the other films in the Century of Cinema series, outside of Martin Scorsese's feature - has long been out of print, minus the occasional television showing.