Australian cinema delivered a bounty of strange sights in 2015, from leather-clad road warriors to competitive paper plane-throwing and a penguin-rescuing sheepdog.

The 2016 line-up looks similarly eclectic, promising such treats as man-eating spiders and a person who experiences time backwards.

Here are 10 films to mark on the calendar.

Spin Out

Xavier Samuel and Morgan Griffin star in Spin Out, Tim Ferguson’s directorial debut Photograph: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Comedian Tim Ferguson moves into feature film after a long career spanning television, stand-up, and a range of poignant songs exploring complexities of the human experience.

Ferguson is co-writer and co-director of Spin Out, a regional Australia-set rom-com about two long-time friends (Xavier Samuel and Morgan Griffin) coming to terms with their true feelings for each other while a ute muster takes place in their small town. Ferguson has pegged it as “Fast and Furious in a tuxedo”.

Lion

Director Garth Davis’ career was elevated spectacularly when he transitioned from helming episodes of Love My Way to sharing directorial duties with the great Jane Campion for Top of the Lake.

The momentum continues with Lion, a star-studded adaptation of A Long Way Home – Saroo Brierley’s best-selling book about a young Indian boy separated from his family, who uses Google Earth to track them down 25 years later.

Nicole Kidman and David Wenham provide home-grown muscle, joined by pedigree imports Dev Patel (star of Slumdog Millionaire) and Rooney Mara (Oscar-nominated for 2012’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

The Death and Life of Otto Bloom

The Benjamin Button-esque premise of writer/director Cris Jones’ fictional documentary revolves around a man who experiences time backwards. It will join a recent slate of batshit crazy Australian time travel movies, including 2014’s criminally under-watched The Infinite Man, and the Spierig brothers’ head-scratching Predestination. (Jones will have difficulty making a film weirder than the latter, which answered the who-even-thinks-of-that question of what might happen if you went back in time and slept with a younger version of yourself.)

Ali’s Wedding

Australian cinema has recently produced a number of multicultural comedies including Sucker, Alex & Eve and UnIndian. Director Jeffrey Walker and executive producer Tony Ayres will deliver Ali’s Wedding, drawing on the real-life experiences of co-director and star Osamah Sami, who had an arranged marriage that lasted just one hour and 40 minutes.

The Nest 3D

Not for arachnophobes, Kimble Rendall’s the next will be out in 2016 Photograph: Nest Holdings

In 2012 film-maker Kimble Rendall – who cut his teeth directing second unit on Hollywood productions including Ghost Rider and I, Robot – achieved the rare feat of making a blockbuster Australian B movie with his directorial debut Bait. It’s a creature feature about freaky weather conditions that led – naturally – to sharks swimming up and down supermarket aisles, terrorising clientele who just wanted to pick up some milk.

The film did modest business locally but was a hit in China, collecting around $25m. His next project, The Nest 3D, is a Chinese co-production, which follows a group of scientists who unwittingly unleash an ancient curse and must battle man-eating spiders.

Sherpa

Director Jennifer Peedom set out make a documentary from the perspective of Sherpa people who play a crucial role in getting tourists up the mountain, who have a long history of being ignored in films and TV shows about climbing Everest. She was on location when tragedy struck: an avalanche down the perilous Khumbu Icefall, which killed 16 Sherpas.

The focus of the film changed accordingly, resulting in what is very likely the most majestic looking industrial dispute picture ever made.

Arrowhead

A low budget Star Wars-inspired sci-fi movie featuring Shaun Micallef as the voice of a droid that looks like a desktop computer from the early 90s? Well, OK.

After impressing audiences with an effects-laden proof of concept short film, debut writer/director Jesse O’Brien received financing from Australian cable and satellite channel TV1 to make a full-length version. Arrowhead was shot largely in Coober Pedy in South Australia – where Mel Gibson and Tina Turner smashed up the set of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome back in the 80s – and follows the physical and psychological journey of a hapless space traveller who crash lands on a distant moon.

Jasper Jones

Author Craig Silvey’s much-loved 2009 gothic teen novel exploring racial discrimination in a dead-end town – billed as “an Australian To Kill a Mockingbird” – is still making the rounds.

The Kate Mulvany-adapted story recently debuted as a Belvoir St stage production, and a film adaptation is in the works from director Rachel Perkins (Radiance, Bran Nue Dae), starring Toni Collette, Hugo Weaving and Dan Wyllie.

Goldstone

Over the last decade and a half director Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds, Mystery Road, Toomelah) has emerged as a major talent. His follow-up to 2013 neo-noir Mystery Road – described by the film-maker as a spin-off rather than a sequel – tracks the same detective (Aaron Pederson) in a different town, for a different case.

Filmed in Queensland’s Winter Shire region, where John Hillcoat shot The Proposition, Sen’s A-grade cast includes Oscar-nominated Jacki Weaver, Tom E Lewis (star of The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith) and martial arts movie veteran Cheng Pei-pei.

The Family

True crime stories are all the rage, and tales about strange cults never get old. The zeitgeist is ready for The Family, director Rosie Jones’ investigation into a mysterious sect formed in the 60s by Australia’s most notorious cult leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

Believing she was a god, Hamilton-Byrne raised followers from a young age, kept them in seclusion and fed them Joe Cocker-sized servings of LSD. Now in her mid-80s, she reportedly spends her time talking to a plastic baby doll in the dementia care wing of a Victorian nursing home.