At 13, Thornton was sent to boarding school, Salvado College, in Australia's only monastic town, New Norcia, Western Australia,[2][3] although he later declared he became angry with Christianity and did not consider himself religious.[4][5][6]
Thornton began his career making short films and has achieved success with them at film festivals around the world, including Payback at the Telluride Film Festival and Green Bush and Nana at the Berlin International Film Festival.[7] He describes his decision to become a filmmaker in an interview in 2007:
Where I grew up in Alice I was a DJ for a radio station (CAAMA). The station began a film unit and so I watched people pack cameras and equipment into cars and take off to make films. I was alone at the radio station and I thought that I really wanted to go with them. That's how it started, I made a film called Green Bush which is basically about that time. Eventually I went to AFTRS in Sydney and got really involved as a Director of Photography. I’ve been in the business for 9 years now.[7]
Thornton shared a personal as well as professional relationship with Beck Cole, and along with producer Kath Shelper called themselves "the trinity", working together from 2004.[8]
Virginia Trioli writes that Thornton's work is "driven by his emotional and intellectual response to the historical dispossession and contemporary despair of his people", using his films to tell stories with the minimum of dialogue.[9]
In 2009 Thornton wrote, directed and shot his first feature film Samson & Delilah, which won awards including the Camera d’Or for best first feature film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The following year he filmed the documentary series Art + Soul about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, which was written and narrated by curator Hetti Perkins.[1] The installation Mother Courage (inspired by Bertolt Brecht's 1939 character) was commissioned by dOCUMENTA and ACMI, and first exhibited in 2012.[1]
In 2024, Thornton is working on a film that represents his anger at the result of the Voice referendum:[9]
We're still getting the scraps. We asked for Australia to walk with us. We asked to have that dialogue in parliament and Australia proceeded to feel … that they know better and said no.
Thornton was formerly married to filmmaker Beck Cole, whom he met in 1999.[5] They have a daughter, Luka May,[22][5] an actress also known as Luka Magdeline Cole or Luka May Glynn-Cole.[23] The couple shared a personal as well as professional relationship (see above).[8] By 2018 Thornton and Cole had separated.[24]
Thornton also has a son, Dylan River, who is a filmmaker who has worked with his father,[25] and another daughter, Rona, from an earlier relationship.[5]
He chooses to continue to live in Alice Springs, which, he says gives him "strength and energy".[9]
Recognition and awards
In 2009, Thorton was named Northern Territorian of the Year[26]
Critic David Stratton describes Thorngon as "one of our greatest filmmakers", while Cate Blanchett calls him "the most brilliant visual storyteller".[9]