Encouraged by his father, Noonan made his first short film, Could It Happen Here?, set at North Sydney Boys High School when he was sixteen.

It won a prize at the Sydney Film Festival and was later screened on Australian television.

[1] In 1973 Noonan was in the inaugural intake on the directors' course (along with Gillian Armstrong and Phillip Noyce) at the Australian Film Television and Radio School.

[1] In 1995 he wrote the screenplay, with George Miller, and directed the film, Babe,[2] his first theatrical feature.

[1][2][6] Noonan has had two further projects including Zebras, a drama set in the final days of apartheid South Africa and The Third Witch, a retelling of William Shakespeare's Macbeth from the perspective of one of the witches, in development.