Relay: New Zealand trailer and release date
Riza Ahmed’s fixer is in a fix in this new thriller.

This new thriller from director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) has been getting favourably compared to paranoid ’70s fare like The Parallax View, The Conversation, and Three Days of the Condor. So we’re certainly intrigued.
When is Relay being released in New Zealand?
Relay hits New Zealand cinemas on August 21, 2025.
What is Relay about?
Riz Ahmed is paranoid loner Ash, a recovering alcoholic who makes a living acting as an intermediary between corporate whistleblowers and their former employers, ransoming evidence stolen from the latter on behalf of the former.
Like a modern day version of Gene Hackman in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Ash is fastidious and withdrawn, and uses a complicated system of communication to ensure he never has to meet his clients in person. However, when his latest customer, scientist Sarah Grant, is targeted by a squad of corporate mercenaries, all his precautions go out the window as he’s drawn into a web of conspiracy and murder.
Advance word is that this is a twisty, labyrinthine thriller—a ticking clock of a movie, constructed with icy precision. Sounds pretty good.
The cast of Relay
Riz Ahmed is Ash; Lily James is Sarah Grant; Sam Worthington, Willa Fitzgerald, and Jared Abrahamson are mercenaries Dawson, Rosetti, and Ryan; Matthew Maher is Hoffman, another of Ash’s clients; Eisa Davis is Wash, Ash’s AA sponsor; and Victor Garber’s in there somewhere, too.
Relay trailer
Why we’re excited about Relay
Well, Hell or High Water got an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, so that’s always worth keeping in mind. And this kind of nerve-wracking thriller is like catnip to us, honestly. Riz Ahmed is always eminently watchable, and the supporting cast is pretty stacked. Reviews so far indicate that Relay doesn’t quite stick the landing, which is a shame, but it doesn’t appear to be a deal breaker. We’re in.