The Silent One (1984)

Once Were Warriors (1994)

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

The Piano (1993)

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

Sleeping Dogs (1977)

Recluse Smith is drawn into a revolutionary struggle between guerrillas and right-wingers in New Zealand. Implicated in a murder and framed as a revolutionary conspirator, Smith tries to maintain an attitude of non-violence while caught between warring factions.

Whale Rider (2003)

On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.

In My Father's Den (2004)

Paul (Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown due to the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence. But many, including the members of both their families (Otto, Moy), frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life.

The World's Fastest Indian (2005)

The life story of New Zealander Burt Munro, who spent years building a 1920 Indian motorcycle—a bike which helped him set the land-speed world record at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1967.

One Thousand Ropes (2017)

The father of a deeply troubled household that endured tragedy both from without and within, seeks to reconcile with his youngest daughter by making a journey to both symbolically and culturally lay the family "ghosts" to rest.

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1999)

Five years have passed and Jake has turned his back on his family. He's still up to his usual tricks in McClutchy's Bar, unaware, as he downs his latest opponent, that his eldest son, Nig, has died in a gang fight. The uncomfortable family reunion at Nig's funeral sparks a confrontation with second son, Sonny, and sets Jake and Sonny on a downward spiral.

Hinemoa (1914)

The film told the Māori legend of Hinemoa and Tutanekai. It is the first dramatic feature film produced in New Zealand.

Crooked Earth (2001)

Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.

Perfect Creature (2007)

The vampire myth is given a stylish 1960s treatment, where a human cop partners with a vampire cop to stop a vamp bent on creating a war between the two "separate but equal" races.

We Are Still Here (2023)

In a sweeping tale that spans 1000 years and multiple generations – from the distant past to the 19th century, the present day and a strange, dystopian future – this landmark collection traces the collective histories of Indigenous peoples across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Diverse in perspective, content and form, traversing the terrain of grief, love and dispossession, they each bear witness to these cultures’ ongoing struggles against patriarchy, colonialism and racism.

White Room (2019)

A man wakes up in an endless white void, unable to remember how he got there, he soon encounters an A.I. who takes the man through old memories of himself until he realizes his tragic purpose in the white room.

The Dark Horse (2014)

One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.

Struggle Without End (2024)

Two young teenagers are forced to take control of their own destiny amid the chaos of a pivotal battle in New Zealand’s first land wars in 1864.

Bellbird (2019)

In the wake of the loss of his beloved wife, a rural community rallies around a farmer to help him deal with his grief.

Out of the Blue (2006)

Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.

South Pacific: In Concert from Carnegie Hall (2006)

“SOUTH PACIFIC” IN CONCERT FROM CARNEGIE HALL premiered on April 26, 2006 on PBS. Based on James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning blockbuster was a landmark of post-World War II Broadway, a provocative romantic drama that beguiled audiences with a hit parade of instant standards. “South Pacific” reached new heights when, for one enchanted evening, Carnegie Hall presented a magnificent concert production with a dream cast headed by Reba McEntire, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jason Danieley, Lillias White, and Alec Baldwin. Directed for the concert stage by Walter Bobbie, with musical director Paul Gemignani conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Inky Pinky Ponky (2024)

When a young fakaleiti falls in love at St Valentine’s Highschool, she must navigate her way through a world of intolerance and bigotry to find happiness - in an unexpected place.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.