Films — by Collection

Staff Picks: Megan Duffy

This year I’m looking forward to being immersed in the tales of sword wielding assassins and beautiful futurist robots and then taken on an intimate journey into the life of a bohemian art collector and the history of New Zealand cinema. But what has me the most excited is the Live Cinema event in Wellington, with the hugely talented Lawrence Arabia performing an original score to the 1928 film, Lonesome, at the Paramount – spectacular!

The Assassin

Nie Yinniang

Hou Hsiao-hsien

Shu Qi plays the eponymous killer in this ravishingly beautiful foray into historical martial arts territory from Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien. Winner of the Best Director Award at Cannes.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland

This intellectually teasing, near-future drama stars Domhnall Gleeson, with Oscar Isaac as a reclusive AI genius and an eerily bewitching Alicia Vikander as the android Ava, programmed to test the boundaries of creation.

Our Little Sister

Umimachi Diary

Kore-eda Hirokazu

Three sisters in their 20s get to know their teenage half-sister in this charming family drama, beautifully accentuated with flavours and sensations of its unmistakably Japanese setting. From the director of I Wish.

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

Lisa Immordino Vreeland

Present-day art world stars pay tribute in a lavishly illustrated profile of the arts patron extraordinaire who transformed a modest fortune and adventurous taste into one of the premier collections of 20th-century art.

The Wolfpack

Crystal Moselle

In this stranger-than-fiction doco, we meet six brothers who have spent their entire lives locked by their father into their Manhattan apartment – where they watch movies obsessively and film their own ingenious re-enactments.