It has become a truism recently to say Australians are staying away from Australian films at the cinema. But why is that? Let's consider some of the possibilities. Disappointing results: Ethan Hawke in Predestination. Australian films are dark and depressing This is a frequent complaint, and there's at least some truth in it. Our filmmakers do tend towards darker material. But so do Hollywood's most interesting directors. David Fincher's Gone Girl isn't light and fluffy, but it has already taken more than $17 million locally. Dark isn't necessarily a turn-off. Besides, we don't only do dark. We turn out about 30 feature films a year (more if you include features financed outside official channels) and they don't all fit the same mould. Last year, for instance, saw the release of Save Your Legs!, a blokey comedy about cricket, and Goddess, a gaudy musical about a stay-at-home mum who rediscovers her creative side via the internet. They both underperformed, Save Your Legs! making about 10 per cent of its budget back at the box office and Goddess about one-sixth.

Oh, and last year's best-performing Australian film was The Great Gatsby, a tale of a con artist, his doomed love affair, and a former lover who dies after being hit by a car. This year's (though it was released on Boxing Day 2013) is The Railway Man, about a veteran still suffering PTSD four decades after being brutalised as a POW in Burma. Not exactly light fare. Home grown: Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson in The Rover. Australian films are full of outmoded ocker stereotypes Another common complaint, even if it is seemingly borne out of the trauma of watching The Adventures of Barry McKenzie some time in the mid-'70s. But, even assuming it is the case, it's far from clear it's a turn-off.

It was true of Kenny in 2006, and the film took almost $7.8 million locally and made Shane Jacobson a star. It was true of Save Your Legs! and it didn't help it one bit. It was true of 2011's Red Dog, the year's top local grosser with $21.5 million. But it hasn't really been true of any of this year's releases other than Wolf Creek 2 ($4.7 million), which has outperformed everything except The Railway Man. It's the critics' fault Margaret Pomeranz recently decried a tendency of our press to knock Australian filmmaking in general. "The eagerness with which the local media pick up bad news and negative reviews from overseas reminds me of the old days," she wrote. "I hate to say it, but it smacks of colonial cultural cringe." Yet the reality is many of the Australian films released this year have been showered with praise: The Babadook, Predestination, The Infinite Man, Felony and Charlie's Country have been lauded, but not one of them has passed the $1 million mark. On the flipside, critics are accused of being too soft on Australian films, and maybe there's something in that. When you watch 300-odd films a year it can be thrilling to see some aspect of your real-world experience reflected back at you, especially if it's done inventively and with wit. But if you watch only six or seven films a year (the Australian average) that matters less: you simply want to be entertained.

Then again, the most notable thing about the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes given by critics and audiences to Predestination, The Babadook, The Infinite Man and others isn't how much they differ but how little, which suggest the critics haven't got it that wrong after all. I didn't even know it was on Conduct a straw poll in your home or office. Who had heard of Son of a Gun before it opened (or indeed since)? Or of 52 Tuesdays (a prize winner at Sundance and Berlin earlier this year; local box office $163,411)? Or of The Infinite Man (raves at the hipster festival SXSW in Austin Texas, local box office $50,516)? Not many, at a guess. The problem is most Australian films get a limited release, and that means a small budget for advertising and marketing. Troy Lum, managing director of eOne Australia, told industry site if.com.au last week the distributor had spent about $300,000 on prints and advertising for Son of a Gun, which opened on 53 screens. A typical Hollywood blockbuster opens in Australia on about 500 screens, with a P&A spend anywhere between $1.5 million and $3 million. What's more, those films tend to be released globally at the same time. The $3 million spent in Australia might come on top of $30 million in the US. The chatter around the film – in advertising and marketing, traditional and social media – is simultaneous and deafening. Little wonder the Australian film, being released and marketed in Australia only, gets drowned out.

Tim White, producer of Son of a Gun, says he wonders whether Australian films actively suffer from being released at home first. "We now have to consider releasing our films here after the US or UK," he says. "The fact is, our young audience will be exposed to the campaigns and media profiles from overseas." There are echoes of the cringe about this, too. As a veteran PR figure in the industry says: "It's almost as if we need to hear from overseas that something is good before we'll give it a go. It's the same if it's a blockbuster or an Australian film – it's just that the blockbuster makes a lot more noise." Now I know about it, why can't I see it – now? The horror-comedy 100 Bloody Acres opened in August 2013 off great festival receptions at home and abroad … and promptly sank without trace. It took $18,356 at the box office. But that didn't mean people didn't want to see it. They did. In 2013, a US research team claimed it was illegally downloaded 57,870 times in October alone.

"We can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend this isn't happening," the film's producer, Julie Ryan, said at the time. "We have to come up with a new way of financing and distributing these sorts of movies." A year on, nothing has changed. Australian films generally hit the cinemas, garner whatever scant attention they can, then disappear. Around 120 days later, they crop up on DVD, Blu-Ray or on iTunes or video on demand (VOD) platforms. But by then, the audience has moved on. For many in the industry, closing this release "window" so that titles are available to view at home on or very close to the day they hit cinemas is the best, perhaps only, chance many Australian films have to succeed. Expect to see some major developments in this area soon. Why would I spend $20 on a low-budget Australian film when I can see a blockbuster for the same price? The average budget of an Australian feature film is now about $11 million. The average budget of a Hollywood film in 2013 was $71 million. The harsh truth is that our films can't compete financially with the low-budget indies from the US, and they can't mix it aesthetically with the big-budget blockbusters. That isn't to say some don't have a red-hot go. The Rover had action aplenty. The Babadook is an inventively scary twist on the horror genre. Predestination is a smart, beautifully shot piece of high-concept sci-fi. Son of a Gun is a fast-paced prison-heist movie with more than a faint echo of Michael Mann. Go with an open mind, and many of these films have rewards; but go expecting a Marvel flick and yes, you'll leave disappointed.

Australian films are rubbish Well, it's a matter of taste, isn't it? But it is a widely held perception, and one shared by some powerful figures in the business. This is how Josh Lawson sold his film The Little Death last month. "If you are an Australian who doesn't like Australian films, this is the film you should watch. Because neither do I." (Box office to date: $253,841) One senior figure in cinema exhibition went much further. "Nineteen out of 20 films we make are sub-standard," he told me. "We just make horrible films.

"No one wants to see them because they're not stories that engage with our customers. If these were Kiwi films we wouldn't be screening them, but because they're local we do screen them, because we feel we have an obligation." (This isn't just a sentimental issue: a condition of producers receiving the 40 per cent tax rebate known as the producer offset is that films receive a cinema release.) The problem, he adds, is that "Australian filmmakers try too hard to make artistic pieces, they try too hard to get noticed, because ultimately they all want to work in the US." The solution? "Make films that engage Australian audiences. Make films that are good quality. Make films that have characters that resonate with Australian audiences. People just want to be entertained, to be swept away by the story." Loading

Is it really that simple? Probably not. But it couldn't hurt to try, could it? On twitter: @karlkwin