Archive of capsule reviews for the best movies on TVNZ+

These films were on TVNZ+ at one stage but aren’t anymore. These capsule reviews live here now.

The Boxtrolls

A young orphan boy is raised by a loving family of underground box-wearing trolls in this Oscar-nominated family adventure from Laika Entertainment. While it’s based on the children’s novel Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow, you could easily mistake the film’s gorgeously rendered Victorian world for a classic Roald Dahl setting. With an irresistibly charming sense of familial whānau bonds and a wry message about class inequality, The Boxtrolls remains one of Laika’s less-appreciated films (though you can still appreciate the likes of Coraline, ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings, which are also on TVNZ+).

Coraline

This daringly creepy kids film put stop-motion studio Laika on the map. Director Henry Selick’s (The Nightmare Before Christmas) take on the Neil Gaiman novel follows fed-up young Coraline who discovers a tunnel to a parallel mirror-verse where her parents appear to be absolutely perfect. But something’s a little bit off in this world, and it’s not just the whole everyone-has-buttons-for-eyes thing.

Fun fact: the film recently returned to NZ cinemas for its 15th anniversary where it managed to beat both Robert Zemeckis’ Here and the Sir Ian McKellen-led The Critic at the local weekend box office.

Corsage

Having missed out on an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, the mighty Vicky Krieps came back with a vengeance five years later in this atypical costume drama. OK, she still didn’t get an Oscar nod, but she did nab Best Performance at Cannes.

Krieps plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria who, steering down the barrel of 40, primes herself for the onslaught of public judgement at being considered an old woman. In her review, an impressed Lillian Crawford labelled the film “a majestic blueprint for modern historical drama.”

Dredd

Karl Urban is judge, jury and executioner in this beloved adaptation of the violent sci-fi comic. Set almost entirely in an overcrowded building complex, the story (penned by Alex Garland) follows Judge Dredd and a rookie cop (Olivia Thirlby) as they make their way up a 200-level slum in pursuit of a heavily-armed dealer of a time-altering drug named SLO-MO.

Determined to not waste a single minute of the viewer’s time, the film blasts through its future dystopia (and plenty of crims) with acerbic joy and violent glee. Unlike the unfavoured Stallone version, Urban made the honourable call never to take the helmet off. Is there any wonder that, a decade on, fans are still calling for Judge Urban to return?

The Grey

Liam Neeson plays a plane crash survivor capable of making it out of the snow-laden Alaskan wilderness alive. Unfortunately, he’s stuck with a bunch of people who are not, making them easy prey for the hungry wolves stalking them.

After the blistering success of Taken, Hollywood’s put America’s favourite Irish action dad in a lot of terrible and/or forgettable films. But in the early years of The Liam Nee-ssance, Joe Carnahan’s life-or-death thriller stood out from the pack by delivering both tense survival scenarios and enough food-for-thought about what it truly means to fight for your life. Masanobu Takayanagi’s cinematography, in particular, captures a grim sort of beauty in winter-blasted nature that perfectly aligns with a film pushing so closely to the edge of hopelessness without fully toppling off.

Groundhog Day

You’ve probably heard this one’s a stone-cold classic, but it’s always worth repeating. Bill Murray plays a huge asshole in the form of a weatherman who, for unknown reasons, keeps repeating the same day over and over again. Murray engulfs the role in this stone-cold classic, his increasing insanity snowballing to the film’s many comedic highs. A stone-cold classic, Groundhog Day went on to inspire the creation of an entire subgenre, numerous references in other films, and one maniac to watch the film every day for a year. A stone-cold classic.

A Hero

A seemingly simple good deed from a man on temporary leave from prison blows up in his face in this Grand Prix Cannes award-winner from Asghar Farhadi—writer-director of Oscar-winners A Separation and The Salesman. Basic mistakes and errors in judgement widen astronomically when his supposedly genuine gesture comes under scrutiny, and any attempts to shut down accusations of fraud risks raising his chances of going back to the slammer.

It’s “tense, spiralling drama” Flicks’ Amanda Jane Robinson wrote in a review that also touched on the peculiar life-imitating-art aspect of the film—one that saw Farhadi in hot water over accusations of plagiarism.

Hunger

Based on a true story, this tense BAFTA and Cannes-winning drama revolves around IRA member Bobby Sands and the hunger strike he leads in prison as a means of defying the British occupation of Northern Ireland. The film delivered two key breakout stars: the first is director Steve McQueen, who would go on to make Best Picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave; the second is two-time Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender, who lost a worrying amount of weight for this film (something he recently said he wouldn’t do again). The pair reunited for 2012’s incredibly good, incredibly uneasy Shame, which is also available on TVNZ+ if you dare.

In My Father’s Den

A decade and a half prior to his Succession success, Matthew Macfadyen led this excellent New Zealand crime mystery as a war photographer who returns to Otago only to become engulfed in the search for a missing teenage girl. As the case thickens, so do the past traumas that forced him to leave in the first place.

An adaptation of Maurice Gee’s novel, In My Father’s Den boasted supremely sophisticated storytelling that felt both refreshing upon release and a worthy addition to the Cinema of Unease, and remains one of Aotearoa’s strongest feature debuts. Tragically, writer-director Brad McGann passed away in 2007, making it his first and last feature film.

Leave No Trace

Local talent Thomasin McKenzie delivered a sensational breakout performance in this delicate father-daughter tale, holding her own alongside an equally powerful Ben Foster. The film follows the pair attempting to live off-grid in Oregon—a plan continuously foiled by authorities.

It’s one of the rare movies still rated 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes after 250+ reviews, with Flicks’ Steve Newall contributing to the score with his write-up. “Director Debra Granik keeps us spellbound by a duo geographically and emotionally isolated from society. As it irresistibly encourages the viewer to invest in its characters, Leave No Trace proves to be an example of the magic that can be conjured by a filmmaker and their actors.”

Locke

Tom Hardy. In a car. For 82 minutes. That’s the eye-catching conceit of this minimalist thriller from filmmaker Steven Knight, who previously scored an Oscar nomination for writing Dirty Pretty Things. His suspenseful script here doesn’t rely on there’s-a-bomb-in-the-car gimmicks, but rather the slow squeeze of seeing a man on his (touch-free) phone calmly trying to keep his career and home life from obliterating over the course of the night. Tremendously tense all the way through, with a typically fine-tuned performance from Hardy.

Magic Magic

A growingly anxious Juno Temple and a very creepy Michael Cera lead this uncompromising 2013 psychological horror from esoteric filmmaker Sebastián Silva. Temple plays Alice, a naïve tourist who joins her cousin for a getaway to Chile for what should be a chill time. However, having never been outside the US, the mix of unfamiliar surroundings and unusual strangers leads Alice down a potently paranoid path. If you think you’ve seen all that the ‘cabin in the woods’ genre has to offer, this one may surprise you.

The NeverEnding Story

This beautifully, tragically ’80s family film brings a fantasy novel to life for one bookworm of a kid. Needing a place to escape his bullies, the young boy finds an adventurous otherworldly realm that may or may not have ties to his own.

You wouldn’t necessarily expect to see a filmmaker take charge of a flight-of-fancy kids film just a few years after making a two-and-a-half hour submarine war thriller, but that’s exactly what Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen did. Boasting some truly incredible practical effects that hold up to this day, The NeverEnding Story presents a window to a completely different universe—one that isn’t afraid to get dark or trippy.

Night of the Kings

A nominee for Best Film at the Toronto and Venice film festivals, this ambitious hybrid of crime-thriller and fantasy centres on a young thief sent to a prison run by prisoners. If he hopes to survive the night, he must keep telling stories. He starts with a tale about a fellow criminal in the slum of Abidjan…

Filmmaker Philippe Lacôte made waves previously with his film Run, which became The Ivory Coast’s second-ever submission to the Academy Awards. Here, he made even greater splashes with a film beloved by critics. “An assured, energetic piece of epic filmmaking,” RogerEbert.com boasted. “Blends elements you’d think could never go together into a swirling, striking whole,” Boston Globe praised.

Nightcrawler

Long before he and his brother Tony created Andor, perhaps the greatest modern Star Wars thing Disney’s released, veteran screenwriter Dan Gilroy stormed onto the directorial scene with this striking, suspenseful feature debut. Jake Gyllenhaal delivers his creepiest role to date as Louis Bloom, an unblinking salamander of a man who seemingly and suddenly appears in Los Angeles where he discovers a knack for freelance crime journalism. Wielding a camera like an AK47, Bloom’s unwavering persistence and willingness to record the worst of LA sees him (happily) cross all sorts of moral and ethical boundaries to get the scoop. As Rene Russo’s desperate broadcaster states: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

One Second

Legendary filmmaker Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) delivers a totally irresistible love letter to cinema. Set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution during the ’60s and ’70s, the story follows an escaped convict in a remote country village desperate to find a film celluloid containing a news reel with footage of his estranged daughter. Unfortunately, the reel’s stolen by a little vagabond who needs it to save her younger brother.

The lead pair’s Tom and Jerry odd couple dynamic provides constant amusement within a larger canvas illustrating the impact of cinema not just as an artform but also a valuable community asset. If the film’s ending coda feels strangely out-of-place, that’s because it was added after the Chinese government pulled the film from screening at Berlin 2019 citing “technical reasons.” As such, the conclusion hits with a tangy taste of irony.

Road House

“Hard to defend and harder to resist, 1989’s Road House is a stone-cold good-bad classic.” That’s the nailed-it-in-a-nutshell headline we used for Matt Glasby’s excellent retrospective on the Patrick Swayze mega-macho beat-em-up flick from 1989. Feeling like a B-movie that somehow got smuggled into an A-movie production, 1989’s Road House is bulked to the lats with ultra-entertaining, id-pleasing bravado and plenty of You Can’t Do That These Days moments. I can’t even share my favourite quote on here without fear of being reported to Flicks’ HR department.

Silence

Adapting the novel by Shûsaku Endô, Martin Scorsese’s ruminative 2016 historical drama stars Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as Portuguese Catholic priests in the 17th Century who travel to Japan to spread The Lord’s word. During their propagation, they attempt to find their mentor (Liam Neeson), rumoured to have abandoned the religion.

Released three years after The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese’s faith-v-faith-based epic couldn’t have been more different. Slow, brooding, and boldly candid with the moral complexities of the story, Silence is the kind of work typical of a master craftsman freediving into a subject matter close to their soul, aided by some engulfing cinematography from Rodrigo Prieto (nominated for an Oscar here) and an outstanding turn from Tadanobu Asano (if smiles could kill, his would be the sharpest).

Smash Palace

Four years after 1977’s groundbreaking Sleeping Dogs, Roger Donaldson cemented himself as a Kiwi filmmaking legend with this rugged piece of domestic drama that teeters towards full-blown thriller. Screen great Bruno Lawrence centres this disturbing snapshot of early ’80s Aotearoa as the owner of a junkyard undeterred by the growing frustrations of his wife, who feels like she’s been put in the corner. One point of tension stacks on top of another until it all boils over into a scenario that puts their daughter at severe risk.

Stranger than Fiction

A low-key Will Ferrell comedy? Yes, it does exists, and it comes in the form of this very witty and incredibly charming meta-movie. Ferrell stars as an everyday man with an everyday name, Harold, who doesn’t realise he’s a character in a novel—until he hears the author (a perfectly cast Emma Thompson) narrating his every move. It’s a strange but harmless phenomenon until the narrator announces that he’s going to die soon. How does Harold change a predetermined story? That’s a big part of the joy of watching Stranger Than Fiction unravel. The other big part is seeing Ferrell’s range as an actor, presented with a role that suits both his comedic sensibilities and his dramatic range.

Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton

There are a lot—a lot—of surf documentaries out there. Few are as engrossing as this one. Colossal as the waves it captures, Take Every Wave tells the humongous life story of surfer Laird Hamilton and the unlikely career he made riding the most monstrous of waves. Much more than a biography and surf doco, the film goes in-depth about the team effort involved in executing these stunts and the technological advances that came from the high-stakes hijinks of these adventurous beach bums.

Waru

Eight wāhine Māori bring the whaea power to this hard-hitting Aotearoa anthology revolving around the tangi of a boy who died at the hands of his caregiver. The very definition of a trailblazer, this landmark feature gave Māori female filmmakers the platform they’ve long been owed. Since then, we’ve seen these directors flourish with the likes of Whina, Cousins, Rūrangi‌, Ahikāroa and Not Even while Waru producers Kiel McNaughton and Kerry Warkia continued using the format to platform more underrepresented filmmakers with Vai and Kāinga.