Surfers Paradise - the movie set

The Coolangatta Gold movie of 1984 culminated in an epic race finish at Surfers Paradise. The movie spawned the most famous surf lifesaving race of all, The Coolangatta Gold, that continues to this day each September and involves a grueling 46km ski paddle, board paddle, swimming and beach running progression from Surfers Paradise to Coolangatta on the NSW border and back to Surfers Paradise. The movie itself is also famous for its musical score by Bill Conti, who won Academy Awards for his work on The Right Stuff, The Karate Kid and Rocky.

Surfers Paradise played a leading role in the 1977 teen movie High Rolling, known as High Rolling in a Hot Corvette in the US, which was notable for the screen debut of Judy Davis, but billed American Joseph Bottoms as the star in order to get government movie subsidies.

In Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson, the 'paradise' city the refugees hope to reach is Surfers Paradise.

In the 1999 comedy The Craic, the heroic Irish immigrant played by writer and comic Jimeoin wants to learn to surf and he finally does so at Surfers Paradise.