About

Thomas Caldwell is a writer, broadcaster, award winning film critic and film programmer based in Melbourne, Australia.

He is a presenter on Primal Screen, on Melbourne independent community radio station Triple R (3RRR, 102.7FM) which broadcasts Mondays night in the same timeslot as Plato’s Cave, the film criticism show he produced and hosted from 2011 to 2017. Thomas was also the film reviewer for the Breakfasters on 3RRR, the film reviewer for Afternoons on ABC Radio Melbourne, and a regular guest on Books and Arts, ABC RN, discussing book to film adaptations.

Thomas has contributed commentaries, video essays and written essays for DVD and blu-ray releases most recently for Second Sight Films (UK) and Umbrella Entertainment (Australia), and previously for 101 Films (UK) and Madman Entertainment (Australia). His film reviews, articles and interviews have appeared in The Age, Overland Literary Journal, Senses of Cinema, Metro, Screen Education and The Big Issue, and he is the author of the secondary school textbook Film Analysis Handbook. He won the Ivan Hutchinson Award for Writing on Australian Film in the Australian Film Critics Association (Auscritic) Writing Awards on three occasions, most recently in 2022 when he also won for the award for an Individual Review of an International Film.

He is currently the Artistic Director of the Children’s International Film Festival (Australia), and was previously the Programmer for the Melbourne International Film Festival and the Artistic Director of the Europa! Europa film festival.

Updated May 2026