Films by Collection

James Croot

After growing up enchanted, uplifted and confused (especially when they played the reels of At Play in the Fields of the Lord in the wrong order) by afternoons and evenings at Dunedin’s Regent Theatre, the New Zealand International Film Festival has been an annual highlight of my more than 20 year career writing and talking about cinema.  2015 is an especially exciting year for us Christchurch-based festival goers, we’ve finally got a picture palace worthy of the event in the Isaac Theatre Royal. Even better for me, it’s right across the road from my workplace at Fairfax Media. Roll on mid August…

Being Evel

Daniel Junge

Loaded with footage of his legendary stunts, and packed with anecdotes almost as hair-raising, this warts-and-all portrait of 70s motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel upholds his primacy in the extreme sports pantheon.

Best of Enemies

Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville

Anticipating the punch-counterpunch set-up of today’s TV punditry, but so much more incisive, the 1968 TV debates between liberal Gore Vidal and conservative William F. Buckley Jr resound again in this terrific documentary.

Cartel Land

Matthew Heineman

“Matthew Heineman’s troubling documentary about vigilante groups on both sides of the border in the porous region between Mexico and the Southwestern US – an area increasingly taken over by drug cartels – is explosive stuff.” — New York

City of Gold

Laura Gabbert

This affectionate portrait of Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold is also a love letter to the culinary and cultural wonders of Los Angeles, from Beverly Hills fine dining to strip mall noodle joints and taco carts.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Ana Lily Amirpour

Our chador-wearing heroine walks the night-time streets of Bad City sinking her teeth into those who deserve to die. Outrageously languid, this new-school vampire movie is a triumphant first feature for Ana Lily Amirpour.

Inherent Vice

Paul Thomas Anderson

“Paul Thomas Anderson has taken Thomas Pynchon’s novel about the death of the hippie counterculture and turned it, reasonably faithfully, into a surreally funny, anxious and beautiful film noir.” — The Telegraph

A Most Violent Year

J.C. Chandor

In J.C. Chandor’s intense, 80s-set thriller an ambitious wheeler-dealer on New York’s contested waterfront (Oscar Isaac) tries to detoxify his business, but his Mob daughter wife (Jessica Chastain) has other ideas.

Partisan

Ariel Kleiman

The tension between father and wilful son is only intensified when papa is the leader of a murderous cult. An intelligently controlled drama highlighted by standout performances from Vincent Cassel and newcomer Jeremy Chabriel.

600 Miles

600 millas

Gabriel Ripstein

A tightly wound hostage thriller that boasts a commanding lead performance from Tim Roth, 600 Miles is a gritty and authentic portrait of weapon smuggling in Mexico and an auspicious debut for director Gabriel Ripstein.

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.