Cactuslab is the team behind the NZIFF website. We've put together our top picks for this fantastic festival even though our only qualifications are that we really really love films, and have incredibly good taste. At least, most of us do. And naturally those of us who don’t are wrong and have had their picks quietly edited out.
Films — by Collection
- Cactuslab
- Dominic Corry
- Dunedin Film Society: Raphael Richter-Gravier
- Letterboxd
- Staff Picks: Andrew Harrison
- Staff Picks: Ant Timpson
- Staff Picks: Bill Gosden
- Staff Picks: Caroline Palmer
- Staff Picks: Cianna Canning
- Staff Picks: Collette Wright
- Staff Picks: Felicity Drace
- Staff Picks: Hedda ten Holder
- Staff Picks: Jo Scott
- Staff Picks: Kailey Carruthers
- Staff Picks: Kate McGee
- Staff Picks: Lynn Smart
- Staff Picks: Melanie Rae
- Staff Picks: Michael McDonnell
- Staff Picks: Nic Marshall
- Staff Picks: Nick Paris
- Staff Picks: Rebecca McMillan
- Staff Picks: Rosie Jones
- Staff Picks: Sandra Reid
- Staff Picks: Tim Wong
- Wellington Film Society
Cactuslab
![Green Room](/assets/resized/sm/upload/nf/go/dd/mw/Green%20Room_001-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=481dd08762)
Green Room
Punk rockers and skinheads clash in this intense, darkly humorous game of cat-and-mouse, from the director of bracing indie thriller Blue Ruin.
![Under the Shadow](/assets/resized/sm/upload/5y/yq/su/so/001-13%20KEY-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=ab3ea26a3a)
Under the Shadow
This politically charged, spine-chilling debut from Iranian Babak Anvari is a tense and atmospheric thriller set in a haunted Tehran apartment during the terrifying final days of the Iran-Iraq War.
![Operation Avalanche](/assets/resized/sm/upload/vn/ri/aj/d4/KEY-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=6dbc222f4f)
Operation Avalanche
Everyone knows the moon-landing was faked for the television cameras, but nobody had quite so much evidence before actor/director Matt Johnson uncovered this astounding behind-the-scenes footage, starring himself.
![A Quiet Passion](/assets/resized/sm/upload/yx/vz/gr/qk/AQP_01256_CROP%20KEY%20OPTION%202-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=4364a1e221)
A Quiet Passion
Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle and Keith Carradine star in Terence Davies’ lively, witty and ultimately intensely moving dramatisation of the sheltered life of 19th-century New England poet Emily Dickinson.
![High-Rise](/assets/resized/sm/upload/kz/0d/85/j0/1%20KEY-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=3db38069ff)
High-Rise
In Ben Wheatley's ambitious, wildly disorienting adaptation of the J.G. Ballard novel, tenants of a high-tech skyscraper slip into a literal class war. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller and Elisabeth Moss.
![Elle](/assets/resized/sm/upload/42/ea/sl/7m/Elle_03_rgb%20KEY-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=0195efe0e3)
Elle
Genre subversive Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct and Black Book, teams up with the great Isabelle Huppert to craft this provocative, blackly comic thriller.
![Midnight Special](/assets/resized/sm/upload/i8/vm/fv/cr/MS-02234%20KEY-0-520-0-390-crop.jpg?k=8ec0ee3a33)
Midnight Special
Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst and newcomer Jaeden Lieberher star in this dazzling, genre-defying sci-fi/chase movie from the director of Mud and Take Shelter.