“Agent of happiness” Amber sets out on a cross-country road trip surveying the satisfaction of the Bhutanese public, as this crowd-pleasing doco questions whether the Himalayan country really is the happiest place on Earth.

Even if you’re not a fan of heavy metal, you can’t help but admire Alien Weaponry. If not for their rise to fame on an international scale, then for being the first band of the genre to sing in te reo Māori.

Direct from Competition in Cannes where it scored the Grand Prix, this radiant Indian drama follows two nurses looking for love but finding sisterhood in the vibrant, heaving 20 million plus populace of Mumbai.

A poetic assemblage of monologues and daft skits form an affectionate ode to Jewish-American identity in this charming quasi-documentary from one of the most important directors of our time.

Winner of the Caméra d’Or for Best First Film at Cannes, this Bergman-esque drama entraps the viewer into a claustrophobic debate of fact and fiction when two boys’ parents are called to a meeting at their school.

Léa Seydoux and George MacKay’s fatal attraction endures across space and time in Bertrand Bonello’s audacious Lynchian reflection on love and obsession, mixing sci-fi, melodrama, and horror across three different time frames.

This Australian debut marks the arrival of incredibly promising new directing talents as a bride-to-be tags along to her fiancé’s stag do from hell. An audacious, rollicking deep dive into power, control and the rituals of toxic masculinity.

Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.

An ex-convict finds redemption in the bond he forms with an unwanted mutt in Guan Hu’s dynamically shot and darkly comic Un Certain Regard Prize winner.

Equally mysterious and revealing, Lin Jianjie’s debut feature Brief History of a Family provides a dispassionate, almost analytical look into the dynamics of estranged family relations in contemporary China.

An aging aunt must voyage from her rugged Georgian home to cosmopolitan Istanbul in search of an estranged trans niece in this graceful cross-cultural panorama from Levan Akin.

Equal parts picturesque, creepy and batshit crazy, with a stunning performance from Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer in her first feature lead role, this riotous horror flick proves to be raucously entertaining and refreshingly unpredictable.

In 2021, 26 plundered artefacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey are returned to the modern day nation of Benin. Mati Diop’s dreamlike documentary skilfully examines the debate surrounding the repatriation of stolen cultural treasures.

Reclusive auteur Terrence Malick’s sophomore effort, beautifully restored in 4K, is a bewitching, visually ravishing pre-World War I fable of passion and betrayal on the sun-drenched Texas prairie.

Sensitive and funny, this semi-autobiographical film follows 13-year-old Chris Wang as he grows up in diaspora, flirting through AOL emojis and navigating family life, with beautiful small details that feel painfully realistic and true to life. 

Aaron Schimberg’s darkly comic feature from indie powerhouse A24 sees a man with facial tumours make a Faustian pact to change his appearance, only to discover good looks can’t buy happiness.

This rebellious debut plasters teenage angst across a politically and religiously charged critique of the systems forced upon children before they’ve even had the chance to form their own opinions.

This triptych tale of a family in turmoil is equal parts incredibly moving and scabrously funny, Matthias Glasner’s award-winning drama may be called Dying, but it’s really a celebration of the messiness of life.

This groundbreaking documentary on musician, artist and superstar producer Brian Eno changes every time it screens. The two New Zealand premiere screenings at the Festival will both be completely different and will never be seen again.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi follows up his Oscar-winning film Drive My Car with a modern eco-fable that provides a gorgeous meditation on humanity’s relation to nature and an unnerving commentary on the price of progress.

A lovesick young student accidentally becomes a right-wing cause célèbre when he fails his exam in this sharp Hungarian satire which recalls the incisive social critiques of the Romanian New Wave.

Direct from wowing audiences at Cannes, this immersive animated wonder from Lativian director Gints Zilbalodis tells the surreal tale of an unlikely group of animals who must overcome their differences to survive a great flood.

An energetic re-envisioning of Baroque music through the lens of the fiery female composers whose revolutionary work was concealed throughout history.

A 17-year-old grows disillusioned with her father as they take a hike through the Catskills in this incisive minimalist drama from debut feature filmmaker India Donaldson.

Mean Girls  meets  Face/Off   to absolutely wild results in Sasha Rainbow’s gory and uniquely Kiwi black comedy about a Chinese student who finds a new way of achieving popularity one body at a time.

Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane bring the brutality of Grand Theft Auto to the world of Shakespeare – or is it the other way around?

A runaway groom with his bride-to-be in hot pursuit takes us on an epic tour through colonial-era Asia in Miguel Gomes’s playful Cannes prize-winner which mingles the artificiality of classic cinema with a documentary sense of place.

Brutal, enraging and heartrending, Polish writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s controversial take on the Polish-Belarusian border crisis serves as a startling call to arms in the face of a little-seen humanitarian crisis.

In 1979, group of young Māori and Pasifika activists sought to stop Pākehā students at the University of Auckland performing a parody of haka each capping week. Unfortunately, the consequences for those activists were severe – many were convicted of crimes. Director Katie Wolfe uncovers this largely forgotten event in our history with interviews from both in this resonant and thought-provoking documentary.

Christchurch-born filmmaker Jonathan Ogilvie returns home for this evocative coming-of-age story that brilliantly captures the feeling of growing up weird in the Garden City. Starring Ed Oxenbould, Márton Csókás and featuring Stella Bennett aka Benee in her acting debut, Head South will be our Opening Night film for the Christchurch leg of the festival.

Returning to the Festival is Peter Jackson’s sublime 1994 film about the notorious Parker-Hulme murder drew rapturous acclaim and brought the former splatter king a newfound mainstream respectability.

A vital and terrifying historical document, this remarkable film follows the first year of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, revealing the extensive spoils of war left behind by the American occupation.

Filmmaker Joshua Prendeville’s sterling documentary holds a delicate lens to the fascinating life and work of one of Aotearoa’s literary treasures, Dame Fiona Kidman.

A sensitive vampire meets a depressed teenage boy in this deadpan romantic comedy about two loners connecting.

Gunge, goons, and girls with unbreakable psychic bonds are your new late-night obsession in this unsettling fable about what happens when you get offered a chance at a fantasy, but choose to settle for reality.

Paul Simon is that rare popular artist who has produced vital music across seven decades. Drawing on archives and intimate new footage, this comprehensive documentary examines the creative career of a lifelong seeker.

Acclaimed playwright Annie Baker ruminates on the evolving relationship between an 11-year-old misfit and her single mother during the summer holidays in this intimately observed debut feature.

Belfast’s own Beastie Boys become unlikely figureheads of the Irish Language Act in this madcap biopic of sex, drugs, and Gaelic rap.

Paul Wolffram’s urgent documentary takes us into the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea and one indigenous woman’s fight against the insidious influence of sanguma – sorcery violence.

A quietly diligent examination of a family-run three-star Michelin restaurant in France, revealing minute details of a sprawling ecosystem as it unobtrusively traverses kitchens, dining rooms, suppliers, markets, cheese caves, farms, vineyards, and apiaries.

Defying the traditional rock ’n’ roll narrative, this is the story of how a young Australian hard rock band developed a political conscience and brought their audience along with them.

On the eve of a move towards greater public health data reporting, a medical error throws life into a spin for a respected surgeon and her surgical team; the downward spiral threatening all in her orbit.

Is “political freedom” worth the cost of familial or social discord? When Bhutan’s king abdicates in favour of democratic reform, a strange series of events unfolds, where the old and the new collide in wondrous fashion.

Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir enlists her family and friends to help investigate the mysteries of her childhood and her family’s connection to their nation’s troubled past in this multi-award-winning documentary.

A lonely but fiercely determined 70-year-old widow takes second chance on love in this charming and funny yet politically subversive romance from Iran.

A young filmmaker recounts the story of directing her first feature in Zia Anger’s enthralling, deeply personal inquiry into the growing pains inherent to creation and collaboration.

Lucy Lawless makes her directorial debut with a raucous documentary exploring the life of another warrior princess – fierce and fearless Kiwi war video journalist Margaret Moth.

The year’s best New Zealand short films as chosen by guest selector, Gerard Johnstone.

Support these Māori and Pasifika films and vote for your favourites at screenings all across the motu.

Filmed in Palestine between 2019 and 2023, No Other Land is documentary film performing its calling. An urgent and irresistible reminder as to why we choose to understand the world, and others, through cinema.

Beautifully shot in stunning black and white, this exquisitely realised first feature from Italian filmmaker Tommaso Santambrogio paints a stark and poetic portrait of a Cuban society crippled by mass exodus.

Saoirse Ronan brings Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir to the screen in this ardently moving portrait of addiction recovery set in the majestic Orkney Islands of Scotland.

Starring the late great Harry Dean Stanton in his most iconic role, Wim Wenders’ newly restored modern classic delivers one of the definitive outsider views of America.

Critically and commercially loathed and dismissed upon its release, championed and revived by Martin Scorsese, and now restored in a majestic 4K transfer, master filmmaker Michael Powell’s twisted, voyeuristic psychological thriller about a serial killer whose chosen weapon is a camera is even more alarming – and alarmingly prescient – than ever.

Vera Drew lays her soul bare with this fever-dream of a DC Universe parody that takes us through the trippiest and most monumental moments of her life and gender realisation.

One of Pablo Escobar’s “cocaine hippos” ponders the meaning of existence from beyond the grave in this gleefully unclassifiable film that playfully weaves fact, fiction and form into a truly unique cinematic experience.

Julio Torres makes a bold directorial debut with a bright, colourful and unique take on the American dream featuring a delightfully manic performance from Tilda Swinton.

Winner of multiple awards at Sundance this powerful and heartwarming documentary reveals an outwardly introverted gamer’s vibrant secret cyberlife following his death from a degenerative muscular disease.

Opus is a starkly intimate, self-performed elegy capturing a dying man’s genius.

A year in the life of a pack of mysterious Sasquatches unfolds as an eccentric mix of nature documentary and silent-era comedy in the Zellner brothers’ peculiar yet profound film.

A conflicted family implodes as protests spread throughout Iran, Mohammad Rasoulof’s courageous and urgent film delivers a bold middle finger to the totalitarian regime of his homeland.

The first thing you should know is that Mavis Beacon doesn’t exist. This bright and fresh Generation Z-skewing documentary takes the viewer on a whirlwind cyber-journey to the ’90s and back.

A chimney sweep confesses to having sex with a male customer much to the surprise of his colleague and wife. Dag Johan Haugerud’s candid and refreshing comic drama takes a candid and refreshing look at modern gender roles.

How far would you go to prove yourself? Pema, accused of infidelity, embarks on a journey through the beautiful yet unforgiving Himalayan landscape to confirm her virtue.

Five new Aotearoa shorts examine the ways we connect with each other. From strangers uniting to stand up for what is right to fleeting moments of understanding between loved ones, these films deftly capture the bonds and binds between us.

A young wife faces a nightmarish scenario when her husband suddenly starts behaving strangely in his sleep. Does he have a sleeping disorder or is something more sinister afoot? Jason Yu’s whip-smart debut will keep you guessing.

A corrections officer sees her placid work life thrown into disarray upon the arrival of a new inmate, a mysterious figure from her past, in this sophomore feature from Gustav Möller.

An electrifying assemblage of sound and image tells the story of a CIA-backed cold war coup in Congo – and the American jazz musicians weaponised in its cause.

First-time filmmakers Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien present a stylistically unique and visually stunning feature that delves into the unsolved 1978 Speedway Burger Chef murders while shifting away from the traditional true crime documentary format.

A young African immigrant seeking asylum in Paris tries to survive day-to-day in this tense, heartrending piece of social realism anchored by an astonishing performance from first-time actor Abou Sangare.

Direct from wowing audiences at Cannes, Coralie Fargeat’s magnificent shocker closes out this year’s Festival in style and lays down her marker to take the crown as the new queen of carnage with this wildly entertaining feminist body-horror feast.

An intimate look at the man behind the cape, Super/Man charts actor Christopher Reeve’s journey from super-stardom to near-death injury and the difficult road to embracing a different kind of heroics.

A psychedelic journey through a warped America, this contemporary picaresque follows a high school runaway as she navigates oddities, dangers and delights on the road to nowhere, from cinematographer-turned-director Sean Price Williams.

What began as an experience in biculturalism between Māori and Pākehā grew into Taki Rua Theatre, the unofficial national Māori theatre company. As we tour the motu with the latest ensemble of young artists, we witness the deeply personal and politically visionary story of the 30-year struggle to create a truly bicultural force, and the wāhine toa who agitated for change.

An Iranian judo champ weighs her principles and ambitions against the safety of her family and herself as government forces threaten violence unless she tows the party line, in this riveting political-sports-thriller.

Driven by a captivating central performance, this unsettling Oscar-nominated classroom thriller thoughtfully probes the grey area of student care versus culpability, and to what degree our systems promote or constrain our humanity.

This urgent, vibrant and incredibly topical debut feature from Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel follows two refugee cousins stranded in Athens as they strive to hustle and scam their way to a new life in Germany.

Featuring numerous unexpected twists and plenty of Hitchcockian suspense, German director Timm Kröger’s heady sci-fi thriller takes us on a gripping cinematic voyage packed with astute film references and brain-melting metaphysics.

A bold and atmospheric queer romance about two coal miners who find love deep in the bowels of the earth, this stunning feature from upcoming young Vietnamese filmmaker Trương Minh Quý was beautifully shot on 16mm film.

A makeshift family struggles with the challenges of daily life in the hope of finding a better future in this poignant debut from Somali filmmaker Mo Harawe, taking us beyond the usual sensationalist portrayal of his homeland.

Winning the Special Jury Prize at SXSW this year, Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s electric debut launches our festival with a fiery trio of delinquent schoolgirls railing against the colonial system in 1950s New Zealand.

A poignant and beautiful snapshot of grief that asks us, how can you know what to do when the light breaks on the day following a major tragedy?

French director Agathe Riedinger, in her stunning feature-length debut, brings to life a unique heroine in Liane, a young woman obsessed with the glittery world of social media and reality TV fame.