NZIFF 2026: 6 Must-See Films

Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah is a masterpiece. Wolfram is a similarly inspiring story of Indigenous heart, hope and resilience, despite everything that history has inflicted on Indigenous people. 

Following on from Sweet Country, Wolfram is a Western set in the 1930s Australian outback. After colonial bad guy Casey (Errol Shand) pillages his way onto mining lands, two labouring kids join forces with Sweet Country’s Philomac (Pedrea Jackson) in search of their mother (Deb Mailman).

Cinematographer-director Thornton films his narrative superbly, with his characteristic assurance. Yellows and oranges and ochres and reds. Sunsets and rains and horrors. 

Wolfram’s kids are centred— and grounding— in this primal and elemental story. The film builds to a moving conclusion, underscored by The Carter Family’s “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. 

Find out more about Wolfram here. 

Following its Grand Prix win at Cannes, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur won the 2026 Sydney Film (Festival) Prize. 

Zvyagintsev’s sequence of The Return, The Banishment, Elena, Leviathan, Loveless, and now Minotaur is one of the most extraordinary of the century. 

Currently living in exile in France, the Russian master’s new film is about Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the corruption of politics. 

One not to miss on big screens like the Embassy and the Civic. 

Find out more about Minotaur here. 

Best known for his festival provocation Taxidermia, Hungarian helmer György Pálfi’s latest, The Hen, is a sympathetic, witty adventure.

A stoical black hen escapes her Greek poultry farm, and covers some serious ground. Palfi tracks her from a chaotic gas station to a beleaguered Greek Taverna, via a protest and a predatory animal’s maw. She quizzically observes eggs cracked for an omelette, and is shooed from under an unsettled kid’s bed. 

Things take a darker turn, as the film explores such cruelties as the migrant crisis. 

The Hen’s inventive and involving style includes the soundscape. Bonus points for evocative use of local standards “Episimi Agapimeni” and “Ta Mavra Matia Sou”.  

The conveyor belt of cute chicks at the beginning had me reconsidering my poultry-heavy diet, albeit fleetingly. 

Find out more about Hen here. 

After Jai Courtney’s variable run of commercial Hollywood roles, it’s refreshing to see him in earthy crowdpleaser The Fox.

His Nick is a likeable, naive rural Aussie bloke. He discovers his fiancée, Kori (Emily Browning), is cheating on him with her vet boss Derek. 

Nick follows some magical advice from Olivia Colman’s quipping talking fox, but twists and turns lie ahead. Some of The Fox’s scenes are a hoot, from the family dog vomiting (critically) to Claudia Doumit’s Diana — Derek’s partner — and her amusing attempts to salvage the unfortunate sitch. 

The dearly departed Sam Neill wins, voicing a cheeky magpie, swearing like a sozzled sailor.  

Find out more about The Fox here. 

Claire Denis’ Beau Travail, The Intruder, and 35 Shots of Rum are three of the great female-directed films of the last 30 years. 

The Fence fits her oeuvre: elliptical and enigmatic, edgy and elegant, as Denis and her English co-writers adapt 1979 play Black Battles with Dogs. There’s plenty for her sharp French teeth to bite into. 

The setting is a watch-towered West African construction project, about to be taken over by Chinese management. Site foreman Horn (Matt Dillon) is increasingly on edge. His newlywed wife, a nurse (Mia McKenna-Bruce), is flying in that night. His sinister young engineer Cal (Tom Blyth) — arrestingly introduced with “Beds Are Burning” — is driving her. 

Alboury (Isaach de Bankolé) arrives outside the fence, tenaciously seeking his dead brother’s body, after his onsite death. 

The Fence has that tactile Denisian sense of unease. Working with cinematographer Éric Gautier (The Motorcycle Diaries), her compositions are striking. A zeitgeisty exploration of colonialism, fuelled by muscular and expressive acting.  

Find out more about The Fence here. 

Up Close, No One is Normal is the title of the important play in All of a Sudden. Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira) agrees with the sentiments, with characteristic style.

Marie-Lou is the compassionate director of a Parisian nursing home, who befriends Mari (Tao Okamoto), a Japanese theatre director fighting terminal cancer. Their terrific performances anchor a touching story about friendship and family, humanity and mortality. 

Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s first French-language film is as sophisticated and absorbing as his Oscar-winner Drive My Car. One of seven Japanese selections in the festival’s ‘Journeys’ spotlight.  

Find out more about All of a Sudden here.