Genre: Criminal coming of age
Cast: James Frecheville, Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver
Director: David Michôd
Animal kingdom is a powerful psychological crime drama that tells the story of a tense battle between a dangerous criminal family and the police.
Armed robber Pope Cody is in hiding, on the run from a gang of renegade detectives who want him dead. His business partner and best friend, Barry "Baz" Brown (Joel Edgerton), wants out of the game, recognising that their days of old-school banditry are all but over. Pope's younger brother, the speed-addicted and volatile Craig Cody, is making a fortune in the illicit substances trade - the true cash cow of the modern criminal fraternity - whilst the youngest Cody brother, Darren, naively navigates his way through this criminal world - the only world his family has ever known.
And into this world arrives their nephew, Joshua "J" Cody.
Following the death of his mother, J finds himself living with his hitherto estranged family, under the watchful eye of his doting grandmother, Smurf, mother to the Cody boys. J quickly comes to believe that he is a player in this world. But, as he soon discovers, this world is far larger and more menacing than he could ever imagine.

When tensions between family and police reach a bloody peak, J finds himself at the centre of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down, and which also threatens to ensnare innocent bystanders such as his girlfriend, Nicky.

One senior cop, Nathan Leckie, must lure J into the police fold and then shepherd him through a complex minefield of witness protection, corrupt cops, slippery lawyers and a paranoid and vengeful underworld.

J comes to realise that in order to survive he must determine how the game is played - he must somehow choose his place in this cunning and brutal animal kingdom. He must work out where he fits.