Deception abounds in this nuanced portrait of lies and loss when a middle-aged woman discovers her recently deceased husband led another life in France, contradictory to the pious Muslim home they built together in England.

Christos Nikou’s quietly accomplished first feature finds deadpan comedy in a programme designed to forge new identities for the victims of an unexplained amnesia epidemic.

“Radu Jude's tale of a sex tape gone wrong jams two very different movies together for a bold, hilarious take on society's awful state.” — Eric Kohn, Indiewire

This digital restoration of Claire Denis’ striking Beau Travail lends new crispness and intensity to not only one of the great films of the 1990s, but one of the greatest endings in all of cinema.

A Jehovah’s Witness wrestles with persecution and patriarchal confinement in this powerhouse debut from Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili.

A filmmaking couple navigate love, recognition and Ingmar Bergman in Mia Hansen-Løve's triple-layered Cannes darling, a serene and self-reflective ode to film and storytelling.

Justin Chon writes, directs and stars in this stylish drama about a Korean-born, Louisiana-raised man who must go up against an unjust US immigration system to keep his family together.

A retired boxer will stop at nothing in the pursuit of her missing sister, launching herself into the belly of the beast to find and punish those responsible for her disappearance.

Two strangers connect in the intimate confines of a train compartment in Juho Kuosmanen’s arresting sophomore feature.

Documentarian Julien Temple explores the close ties between Shane MacGowan, Ireland’s beloved punk poet, and his home country’s tumultuous history.

A pop-tastic and wholly demented animated adventure has zookeepers tasked with safeguarding endangered mythical creatures from warmongers intent on exploiting their powers for destruction.

Andrey Konchalovsky’s tense political drama, a Venice prize-winner beautifully shot and rich with historical detail, tells the story of an infamous 1962 Soviet massacre and its attempted cover-up.

Adapted from the short story by Haruki Murakami, Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s profoundly moving, poetic vision of grief and the deep mysteries of the human spirit is the Cannes 2021 winner for Best Screenplay.

“An impassioned film with an unflinching Indigenous and feminist perspective.” — Sarah Ward, Screendaily

From Spanish creator Amalia Ulman, the darkly comedic El Planeta explores the relationship between a mother and daughter pair on the edge of financial ruin.

Operatives from both sides of the Korean divide, working diplomatic jobs in Somalia, must come together to survive as Mogadishu descends into civil war in a political thriller from writer/director Ryoo Seung-wan.

Jessica Chastain shines in this biopic centred on the trials, tribulations and televangelical legacy of the larger-than-life Tammy Faye Bakker.

The unique power of Australia’s Bangarra Dance Theatre, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performing arts organisation, fuels this artful documentary by Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin.

A thrilling tale of resilience, Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Flee is just as interested in the quiet toll trauma takes on survivors as it is the extraordinary acts that ensured their survival.

Wes Anderson brings his signature style to this delightful comedic anthology, paying homage to French New Wave and The New Yorker’s golden age journalists of the 50s and 60s.

A soon-to-be-demolished social housing estate, named after Yuri Gagarin, in the Parisian banlieue provides the earthly anchor for weightless flights of fancy in this wondrous and moving debut feature.

Awkward and flirty 18 year old Jewelisa is ready for a secret date that might change her family dynamic forever. Confronted by her mother’s beliefs and her own doubts, Jewelisa finds herself confessing her deepest truth in a hilariously chaotic family cringefest.

In post-war Germany, Hans is repeatedly convicted for being gay. Over his many stints in prison, he develops a tumultuous friendship with Viktor. A moving film about the forces that conspire to destroy one man’s freedom.

Iconic Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino delivers a majestical memoir with this beautifully shot, ribald bout of nostalgia for growing up amongst the anarchy of 1980s Naples.

Winner of the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival, Happening is a powerful and timely abortion drama, executed precisely by director Audrey Diwan.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of urban Shiraz, an affable but desperate prisoner is almost undone by a ‘selfless’ gesture that goes viral.

Debut director Panah Panahi’s stunning Iranian road movie wowed critics at Cannes with its rich emotional nuance and sly political critique.

An indomitable Kosovar woman defies entrenched patriarchal societal norms to ensure her family’s welfare in this subdued but spirited debut feature, inspired by a true story that scooped three top awards at Sundance 2021.

Documentarian Heidi Ewing turns to narrative feature filmmaking in this lilting, graceful love story about two Mexican men whose bond is tested by distance, homophobia and hostile immigration systems.

An archaeologist reluctantly agrees to test-run a humanoid love robot programmed to fulfil her desires in this poignant comedy starring Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens.

Eskil Vogt’s chilling, supernatural Scando-spin on arthouse horror explores what it means to be a gifted child through disturbing, uncanny and heedlessly violent means.

Powerful performances and surgical craft anchor Robert Machoian’s slow-burning thriller, acutely observing the collapse of a family and the breakdown of its patriarch with mounting dread and carefully ratcheted suspense.

Two strangers explore the pleasures and pitfalls of platonic friendship while bonding over online Spanish lessons in this intimate, expressive drama shot during lockdown over video-chat calls.

Melancholic, atmospheric and heartfelt, Ben Sharrock’s feature exploring immigrants awaiting asylum eschews conventional approaches to stories of the modern refugee crisis to create something profound and surprising.

A pregnant teen and her mother look to the women of their community for help in Cannes-selected abortion drama Lingui, the Sacred Bonds, set amidst the natural beauty and religious strictures of Chad.

Sensual, subversive and sun-drenched, “even mothers make mistakes” (Peter Debruge, Variety) in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s glittering directorial debut, the 2021 Venice Film Festival winner for Best Screenplay.

Two amateur criminals discover a monstrous fly in the trunk of a stolen car. Their plan? Train the fly and make a fortune in this joyously absurd buddy-fly bromance.

Helming this compelling documentary following one of New Zealand's sporting superstars, Kiwi director Peter Brook Bell charts how Mark Hunt overcame a challenging childhood to rise to global success – despite his best efforts to throw it all away.

Fran Kranz’s highly accomplished debut feature takes an unflinching look at the endemic horror of school shootings in America and their lingering scars, through the eyes of the parents of the perpetrator and his victim.

Follow Tilda Swinton on a strange supernatural journey into the Colombian jungle, in this hypnotic new film from the director of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Cemetery of Splendour.

Following the success of David Downs’ book of the same name, NZ director Annie Goldson (Brother Number One NZIFF 2011, Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web NZIFF 2017) brings his story to the big screen.

The biggest player in the New Zealand economy is put on notice in this spirited documentary that sees a young activist from rural Northland go up against the powerful dairy industry.

After missing her flight to a prestigious internship, an anxiety-ridden architecture grad fakes being in New York while lying low in her home town scrounging for another ticket.

Socialist pioneer Eleanor Marx is fully brought to life – with all her complexities and contradictions – in this stylised, lavish biopic featuring a deeply affecting performance by Romola Garai.

As Tadzio in Death in Venice, Björn Andrésen electrified audiences worldwide with his fragile beauty. Fifty years later, his life is still haunted by the fallout from the role that made him recognised, and coveted, across the globe.

Mothers of the Revolution tells the story of one of the longest protests in history, when between 1981 and 2000, thousands of women from around the world came together at Greenham Common to take a committed stand against nuclear proliferation.

Railing against an oppressive, overbearing father, a teenage girl embraces independence and flirts with desire over the course of a formative weekend in this sunny, sinister Croatian drama.

The life of British post-war photographer Maurice Broomfield is examined by his son, documentary veteran Nick Broomfield, whose own confrontational style lies at odds with his father’s steadfast pacifism.

The great Aboriginal actor David Dalaithngu looks back on his amazing life and career in this personal film memoir, given added pathos as the ageing icon fearlessly faces his impending death.

Based on the 2014 memoir, My Salinger Year is The Devil Wears Prada for the literary world, a young woman’s coming of age as she balances her writing ambitions with her new job at a major New York City literary agency.

A mysterious, unclassifiable semi-satire of its disconnected upper-classes, Poland’s selection for this year’s Oscar race follows an angelic masseuse trying to draw meaning out of his patients’ lives.

Mexico City is in the throes of revolt. Hospitals are overrun and streets are unsafe. But for one wealthy family, their only concern is that the wedding of their daughter must go ahead. And so the festivities continue — at least until the resistance arrives at their doorstep...

Check out the year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by this year’s guest selector, Kerry Fox, from a total of 117 submitted entries.

Our premium collection of Māori and Pasifika short films from the gifted storytellers of Moana-nui-a-kiwa.

If a young man cannot command an inmate-run prison with his storytelling, his first night behind bars promises to be his last in this lush, striking and unexpected tale that blends magical realism with current affairs.

A nail-biting rescue thriller wrapped up in a chilling vision of near-dystopia, this Kiwi-Canadian co-production tackles Canada’s dark colonial roots through strong genre craft.

What if you had to audition for your own life before being born? “A film of dizzying conceptual ambition – No Exit meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” — Variety

The first Australian film featured in Cannes’ Official Selection in a decade, Justin Kurzel’s disturbing dive into the tormented mind and soul of a mass-shooter is bolstered by four remarkable lead performances.

Gianfranco Rosi’s visually stunning portrait of ordinary people living in the warzones of the Middle East is the kind of sensory experience that demands the immersion of a darkened movie theatre.

After learning he only has months to live, a working-class father reckons with guilt and grief as he searches for a replacement family for his young son.

One of China’s premier filmmakers delivers his love letter to cinema, set during the Cultural Revolution of his youth. Warm, funny and (despite rumoured political censorship) surprisingly sharp-edged.

By equal turns horrifying and beautiful, The Painted Bird sees Czech filmmaker Václav Marhoul put a young boy through every manner of evil that 1940s Eastern Europe can conjure in this war-torn vision of hell.

Jacques Audiard’s charming exploration of the tangled work and love lives of three young Parisians is a beautifully-crafted love letter to the classics of French New Wave.

Patu! is the definitive film of the 1981 Springbok tour protests, a technically complex piece of guerrilla filmmaking that explicitly connects apartheid abroad and racism at home. Newly preserved by Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

Dame Jane Campion returns with her Venice Silver Lion-Best Director winner; a rich, menacing neo-Western tackling cowboy brothers and the mother and son who come between them.

Moving with the breathless intensity of a political thriller, this disturbing document of potential voter fraud in the 2018 Zimbabwe election is elevated by astonishing access to key players behind-the-scenes.

This pressure-cooker Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film puts viewers on the frontlines of an impending massacre in the Bosnian genocide – with harrowing power.

Taking as its inspiration the groundbreaking book of the same name by autistic thirteen-year-old Naoki Higashida, this documentary attempts to present the world as it might be experienced by neuro-divergent individuals.

Recently widowed and grieving, army officer Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) proves vengeance is a dish best served bold in this dark — and comic — take on the revenge thriller from Oscar-winning Dane, Anders Thomas Jensen.

Let this exultant ode to the life-sustaining waterways that criss-cross our planet wash over you, captured in jaw-dropping imagery by Mountain director Jennifer Peedom.

The life of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was about so much more than just food, as affectionate documentary Roadrunner illustrates in interviews with those whose lives were touched by the curious, convivial rover.

An uplifting documentary featuring Māori and Pākehā kaitiaki repo, or swamp guardians, working across the motu to restore Aotearoa’s precious wetlands.

A tonic for the nerves, Rosa’s Wedding is an uplifting and spirited ode to loving thyself, drenched in the dreamy seaside sunshine of the Costa del Azahar.

Dizzying and captivating, Emma Seligman’s feature-length debut stars Rachel Sennott as a young woman who cannot escape her sugar daddy, her ex-girlfriend or her own lies at a family wake.

Tracing the story of one of our more complex characters, this layered portrait re-examines the exploits of influential outsider, Dutch immigrant artist Theo Schoon, told in his own words and through first-hand accounts.

Schoolyard romance, musical numbers and lifelike robotics collide in this animated glimpse at what teenage life might look like in a world increasingly run by artificial intelligence.

Bill Gosden championed countless New Zealand films during his tenure as Festival Director, and not all the obvious ones, either. Maybe it was its lust for Americana, the protagonist’s escape from southern parochialism (Bill grew up in Dunedin), or Gillian Ashurst’s darkly cartoonish take on Goodbye Pork Pie’s road movie legacy, that made him regard Snakeskin with such fondness.

Fascinated, he wrote, “I wouldn’t be surprised if, played backwards, it turns out to contain the solutions to every unsolved murder in the South Island”.

Get close to the stray dogs of Turkey as Elizabeth Lo’s camera becomes a canine companion, guiding us through a cross-section of Istanbul society as lived by our four-legged friends.

This queer coming-of-age romance combines all the sensuality of François Ozon’s best with the infectious energy of a CW drama and how meeting one person can open you up and change the trajectory of your life.

Tehran’s byways teem with life in this Iranian crime-caper that blends gritty, Buñuelesque social realism, strong character drama, and spirited storybook style adventure.

“The Liberace of Sandusky” emerges from retirement for one last day in the sun – and one final night on stage – in a knock-out turn by Udo Kier. 

This portrait of a woman on the verge follows fitness influencer Sylwia Zając, a social media celebrity with 600,000 followers, whose glossy, energetic brand begins to crack as she grows more and more isolated by her fame.  

An incisive investigation into the strange, contradictory drivers behind the political and philanthropic relationship of the religious American right and pro-occupation Israel.

Filmed on the same land where the Unabomber once lived, Ted K draws viewers into the psyche of a haunting figure in America’s history.

Mohammad Rasoulof fuses the gripping dramatic style of compatriot Asghar Farhadi with the contemplative aesthetic of Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan in this incisive internal critique of Iran’s punitive processes.

In love, newly engaged and maintaining a long-distance relationship, director Jan Oliver Lucks and his fiancée decide to throw traditional rules out the window by opening up their relationship before they tie the knot.

Based on a true story, Tigers is a riveting look at the price of success in the cut-throat world of professional football.

“Titane is coming, and it’s coming to fuck you up." — Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

Offering an intimate look into organised crime in the Calabria region of Italy, To Chiara forgoes the shock-value of violence and drug addiction to consider the heartbreaking impact on family and culture.

High above London, two scaffolders unwittingly expose their secret selves.

A love letter to a rapidly vanishing world: this gentle documentary follows a handful of elderly men who, with their beloved dogs, comb the forests of Northern Italy on the hunt for a rare culinary delicacy.

This captivating tale of fated lovers, drawing on myth and fantasy, is also a love song to Berlin.

A gentle exploration of the complexities of the human heart, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a balm for the soul.

What Sir Edmund Hillary did in conquering Everest, Sir Hekenukumai Busby has done in reclaiming the lost art of traditional Māori voyaging, sailing the vast Pacific navigating by the stars – restoring the past to carve our way into the future.

Equipped with keen intelligence and a big heart, lawyer Jeffery Robinson educates and challenges in equal measure, giving voice to the silenced and seeking acceptance of racist realities in pursuit of lasting change.

This Sundance favourite follows the unflinching team of journalists behind India’s only women-run newspaper traversing personal, political and professional discrimination as the newspaper pivots to digital.

Our Bill Gosden tribute wouldn’t be complete without a wall-to-wall Technicolor classic. Bill’s love of early cinema, vibrant studio-era musicals, and frankly anything starring Elvis could be felt throughout his retrospective programming, not least in the carefully curated Live Cinema events he looked forward to most. Douglas Sirk, Hollywood’s unrivalled melodramatist, influenced some of Bill’s absolute favourites — Fassbinder and Almodóvar, most famously — and this presentation of one of the director’s late masterpieces is a fitting occasion to luxuriate in larger-than-life filmmaking on the biggest screen available, as only Bill would have it.

“Y'all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out???????? It's kind of long but full of suspense.” — @_zolarmoon