Christian Petzold braids desire, artistic insecurity and the looming threat of climate change in his smouldering comedy of manners set over the course of a hot summer holiday on a Baltic coastline beset with forest fires.

This year’s Palme d’Or winner launches our Festival with a profound and galvanising reflection on truth, facts and fiction, pivoting around another extraordinary central performance from Sandra Hüller—familiar to audiences for her work in Toni Erdmann (NZIFF 2016) and In the Aisles, among other terrific films.

Judy Blume’s ground-breaking novel about puberty—and so much more—gets a heartfelt and poignant pitch-perfect adaptation that captures the essence of growing up, self-discovery, and the quest for identity.

In this astonishing, edge-of-the-seat chronicle, the camera follows audacious, high-risk quests to escape from North Korea, and the man who plans them, with a rare intimacy and emotional power.

Sensual and simmering with tension, Black Swan and Dune choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s debut feature reimagines classic opera Carmen for the modern era, a musical drama set in the hotbed of the America–Mexico border.

This behind-the-scenes documentary follows the curators at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam as they put together the largest Vermeer exhibition ever attempted and discover what makes a Vermeer, truly a Vermeer.

Strap in for an unforgettable, visionary trip, an Oscar-nominated journey that stunned Cannes with its cinematic flair. Your hosts? An octogenarian Polish auteur – and a donkey.

We close this year’s festival with the most delightful film from Cannes. Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki returns with a deadpan romantic crowdpleaser about two lost souls on a bumpy road to finding each other.

A tense eco-thriller from US director Daniel Goldhaber questions just how far its young activist protagonists are willing to go in order to confront their nation’s complicity in the climate crisis.

Direct from Cannes this visually rich costume drama rips the jaw-dropping true story of the abduction of a young Jewish boy by the Catholic church from the pages of history.

Set in 80s Tuscany Alice Rohrwacher’s enchanting new film stars The Crown’s Josh O’Connor as a lovelorn Englishman who teams with an eccentric gang of grave-robbers to plunder ancient Etruscan artefacts.

A dangerous romance ensues between a successful lawyer and her teenage stepson as Catherine Breillat returns for the first time in a decade having lost none of her propensity to transgress.

Natalie Portman shadows Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’ salaciously entertaining metafictional psychodrama about an actress researching for a role in a film about a tabloid sex scandal.

Straight from Cannes where its intricately composed script was deservedly awarded, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest is a deeply affecting and morally complex drama told from multiple perspectives.

As the nation plunges into pandemic, Gwen Isaac’s observational documentary delves into the trenches with Siouxsie Wiles, the fuchsia-haired microbiologist who emerged as a national hero and a satanic witch in the minds of a divided New Zealand.

Set in 1940s Australia, an Aboriginal orphan arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun (Cate Blanchett) in this spiritual thriller from Warwick Thornton.

Check out the year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by guest selector, Niki Caro.

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is pleased to announce this year’s Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika Shorts selection.

Goran Stolevski’s tender sophomore film is equal parts coming-of-age and coming-out story, as much a commentary on the pressures of masculinity and heteronormativity as it is a witty, sentimental romance set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Melbourne.

Celine Song’s gorgeous, intensely bittersweet romance ruminates on the lives and loves of two childhood friends fleetingly reunited after decades apart – a remarkable debut feature that was the talk of Sundance.

Wim Wenders hits the sweet spot with this deceptively simple character study chronicling the daily life of a Tokyo cleaner, which is emotionally resonant in its stunning attention to detail and filmic poetry.

Anchored by a remarkable performance from Sydney Sweeney, Reality reconstructs the interrogation and arrest of American whistleblower Reality Winner in real-time, to disturbing, pulse-pounding effect.

A beautifully ambiguous story of friendship, love and loss. At times heart-warming, at others heart-wrenching, this wordless fable explores what happens when the closest of bonds are weathered away by time and circumstance.

Drawing on a tragic true event, this multi-awarded and mesmerising, stately courtroom drama upends notions of race, cultural heritage, class and female agency, and the mythologies and social prejudices underpinning received ideas.

There are shoemakers, and then there's Salvatore Ferragamo—whose glittering life is explored in this affectionate, glam-packed documentary film by award-winning Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Australian maverick Rolf de Heer’s new post-apocalyptic meditation reveals the full spectrum of humanity: from the shadows of discriminatory violence to sparks of redeeming kindness, all told through the journey of one lone traveller, “BlackWoman".

This rollicking mockumentary set at a scrappy theatre camp in upstate New York is an affectionate look at a ragtag troupe of eccentric misfits who just want to sing and dance.

Fans of dub musician Tiki Taane are in for a treat with the film of his one-off 2021 concert extravaganza, ‘Otautahi Proud’.