Movies about New Zealand

In the 14th century a village seeking escape from the Black Death are guided by a boy's vision to tunnel into an abandoned mine and emerge into 20th century New Zealand.

From the land of early Peter Jackson comes another Braindead movie in bad taste. It’s the third day of shooting the low budget horror ‘Tonight They Come’ on location in the wilds of New Zealand. Director SMP is already beside himself having to work with a self-obsessed leading man and a bimbo actress when into his line of fire comes a new runner, wannabe screenwriter Wesley Pennington. Clearly an accident-prone nerd, Wesley nevertheless tries his best to fit in with the crazed cast and demented crew while falling head over heels for Susan, the set caterer. But something nasty has entered the local water supply and suddenly the zombie extras start acting like genuine members of the living dead, gore stunts looks even more authentic and actual severed limbs fly. Reel life turns real as Wesley attempts to save the day while ensuring his latest script will get made.

When Kylie Bucknell is sentenced to home detention, she's forced to come to terms with her unsociable behaviour, her blabbering mother and a hostile spirit who seems less than happy about the new living arrangement.

After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world.

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.

A dysfunctional gang of criminals takes a middle class Maori family hostage and discovers too late that they are cannibals.

A small-town criminal finds an ancient Chinese time-travel device that can help him pull off a heist and start a new life-but he may not survive the consequences of tampering with time. The Castle meets Looper, Mega Time Squad is a study in high-meets-low, combining elements of the sci-fi, the crime thriller and the comedy to make a comedy heist film with a time-traveling twist.

American tattoo artist Jake Sawyer wanders the world, exploring and exploiting ethnic themes in his tattoo designs. At a tattoo expo in Singapore, he gets his first glimpse at the exotic world of traditional Samoan tattoo (tatau), and, in a thoughtless act, unwittingly unleashes a powerful angry spirit. In his devastating journey into Pacific mysticism, Jake must find a way to save his new love, Sina and recover his own soul.

An ex-Boer war guerrilla in New Zealand is sent out to bring back a Maori accused of killing a British soldier. Gradually they grow to know and respect one another but a posse, led by the British Commanding officer is close behind and his sole intention is to see the Maori hang. Written by Filmfinders 1903. A guerilla fighter from the South African Boer war called Arjan (Winstone) takes on a manhunt for Maori seaman Kereama (Morrison), who is accused of murdering a British soldier. What follows is a cat and mouse pursuit through the varied landscape of NZ with both hunter and huntee testing their bushcraft and wits against that of the other. Written by Anonymous

After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.

Love Birds is a hilarious charming romantic comedy that tells the story of a regular Kiwi bloke who finds himself on a quest to find true love – all with the help of a native New Zealand Shelduck. Comedian Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords, The Boat That Rocked) plays Doug – a road working employee and massive fan of the legendary band Queen, along with Golden-Globe Award winning actress Sally Hawkins (Made In Dagenham) who plays Holly the sassy animal specialist.

A 3D feature film about Sir Edmund Hillary's monumental and historical ascent of Mt. Everest in 1953 - an event that stunned the world and defined a nation.

Wealthy and precocious teenager Juliet transfers from England to New Zealand with her family, and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. When their parents begin to suspect that their increasingly intense and obsessive bond is becoming unhealthy, the girls hatch a dark plan for those who threaten to keep them apart.

Set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D Day, two Kiwi commandos, sent to destroy German gun emplacements to distract Hitler's forces away from Normandy, discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash demonic forces to win the war.

When Melanie goes home from the pub with a handsome stranger, she’s captivated by his charm and attentiveness. He sails her away to his ‘castle’- a rundown shack on a deserted island. But when seduction becomes deception and passion becomes possession, Melanie realizes that she has been kidnapped. Torn between fear and desire, Melanie must escape – but her ardent admirer has other plans.

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.

Teenage twins battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between British and Maori during the British colonization of New Zealand.

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 private detective Zimin receives an order for video observation of an apartment. Having safely mounted the bugs and cameras, he begins the observation. In the field of his surveillance cameras are two young women the pharmacist Irina and a certain blonde woman. Gradually he finds out more and more about their problems. At some stage, Zimin begins to understand that the life of the people he observes reflects in a crooked mirror his own life that had hitherto appeared cloudless.

Two best friends, Grant and Paul, hit the country road for a night of fun, but unfortunately take a short cut to their fate... where they meet the Locals.

The life story of Colin McKenzie, a forgotten pioneer of international cinema who was born in rural New Zealand in 1888.

A romantic drama that charts the lives of three women from different backgrounds, forever changed when they emigrate to New Zealand as war brides.

A genetic engineering experiment gone horribly awry turns a large flock of docile sheep into unrelenting killing machines in this rural horror comedy directed by Jonathan King and featuring special effects designed by Weta Workshop.

When a Sumatran rat-monkey bites Lionel Cosgrove's mother, she's transformed into a zombie and begins killing (and transforming) the entire town while Lionel races to keep things under control.

A team from the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb's Crunchy Delights descends on Earth, planning to make human flesh the newest taste sensation. After they wipe out the New Zealand town Kaihoro, the country’s Astro-Investigation and Defense Service (AIaDS) is called in to deal with the problem. Things are complicated due to Giles, an aid worker who comes to Kaihoro the same day to collect change from the residents. He is captured by the aliens, and AIaDS stages a rescue mission that quickly becomes an all-out assault on the aliens’ headquarters.

After a long voyage from Scotland, pianist Ada McGrath and her young daughter, Flora, are left with all their belongings, including a piano, on a New Zealand beach. Ada, who has been mute since childhood, has been sold into marriage to a local man named Alisdair Stewart. Making little attempt to warm up to Alisdair, Ada soon becomes intrigued by his Maori-friendly acquaintance, George Baines, leading to tense, life-altering conflicts.

New Zealand milk farmer Rob gives his lover Lucinda a ring. Trying to spark up her relationship with Rob, she takes her friend Drosophila's advice and starts to try and make Rob angry. But she tends to go too far. Admiring her ring while driving a lonely road, she has a run-in with an older woman that sets off a chain of events that begins with her quilt being stolen

Two women run a business breaking up couples for cash but when one develops a conscience their friendship unravels.

The story of a woman who must find her kidnapped son, navigating a world she doesn't know, on the edge of danger with every heartbeat.

A forest ranger is haunted by the disappearance of his four-year-old daughter, and the subsequent breakup of his marriage. He discovers his ex-wife Ana is pregnant to the policeman in charge of his missing daughter's case.

Hongi, a Maori chieftain’s teenage son, must avenge his father’s murder in order to bring peace and honour to the souls of his loved ones after his tribe is slaughtered through an act of treachery. Vastly outnumbered by a band of villains led by Wirepa, Hongi’s only hope is to pass through the feared and forbidden “Dead Lands” and forge an uneasy alliance with a mysterious warrior, a ruthless fighter who has ruled the area for years.

Two young couples head into the New Guinea wilderness in an effort to find Michael Rockefeller, the heir to the Rockefeller fortune who disappeared in 1961.

John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam pay tribute to their late Monty Python colleague Graham Chapman in this hilarious, 3-D animated adaptation of Chapman's brazenly fictionalized life story. (TIFF)