Thriller

Tarik Saleh deftly explores the tangled state of modern-day Egypt through his firebrand thriller set in Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the country’s most respected religious teaching institution.

Park Chan-wook makes a welcome return to NZIFF with this masterful and seductive romantic thriller about an insomniac detective investigating a mysterious widow oddly unconcerned with her husband’s death.

An art-school-dropout drowning in student debt, Aubrey Plaza discovers she has a talent for credit card fraud in this gripping Sundance breakout from first-time writer/director John Patton Ford.

We are delighted to open this year’s edition with the World Premiere of Tearepa Kahi’s film Muru.

This staggering, fly-on-the-wall portrait of the charismatic anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, filmed in secret following an assassination attempt on his life, is one of the year’s most electrifying films.

A 7-year-old child becomes caught in a conflict of loyalty after her beloved brother falls victim to brutal schoolyard bullying.

Andrew Semans’ deliciously unhinged thriller stars Rebecca Hall as a single mom with a dark secret that threatens to overwhelm her cosy corporate lifestyle.

A weekend getaway becomes a holiday from hell for a Danish family in this mercilessly unnerving horror flick from Danish director Christian Tafdrup.

Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris deliver brooding performances as predator becomes prey in up-and-coming director Thomas M. Wright’s dark and intense Australian true crime drama.

Director Chloe Okuno and lead actress Maika Monroe bring a fresh femme perspective to this heart-stopping 70s-style psychological thriller dripping with Hitchcockian voyeurism and rampant paranoia.