The prestigious British and Irish Film Festival returns to Aotearoa cinemas with fresh New Zealand premieres, hotly anticipated titles, and big-screen experiences unlikely to reappear. The fest runs from 29 October to 19 November and includes three new locations: Waiheke Island, Whāngarei and MTG in Napier.
Full details can be found on the official site. Read on for our six handpicked highlights from the 2025 programme plus a quick rundown of the rest of the films in this year’s line-up.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
England’s loud, punctual, iconic metal band reunite after a 15-year hiatus (and four decades since the original mockumentary) for one final performance. Director Rob Reiner returns, as does star and co-writer Christopher Guest.
“This new one is not an 11 out of 10, like the original,” Luke Buckmaster wrote, “but it’s pleasantly silly, sweet, and noisy.”
Dead of Winter
Emma Thompson and Judy Greer star in this snow-dunked wilderness thriller that starts innocently enough: a woman travels alone through northern Minnesota. Everything takes a quick and deadly turn, however, when she gets in the middle of a kidnapping.
As per The Guardian’s 5-star review: “Thompson’s relatable presence and likability-aura make a very good solvent for the concentrated nastiness of Greer’s desperate villain.”
The History of Sound
The director of 2022’s excellent Living combines the acting powers of Paul Mescal (Gladiator II) and Josh O’Connor (Challengers) for this intimate romance set during The Great War. Mescal and O’Connor play two men who bond over a shared love of folk music—and for each other. Reuniting after the war forced them apart, the pair embark on a project to collect folk songs throughout rural New England, but what will become of their relationship when this project’s over?
“A film of lingering melancholic beauty,” praised The Hollywood Reporter.
The Choral
The great Ralph Fiennes leads this music drama as a chorus master (and a dirty, dirty atheist according to the men who hired him) brought in to take charge of a choral society whose male members have been recruited to fight in The Great War. With teenage boys as replacements, they all juggle the joyous experience of singing with the angsty anticipation of these young lads possibly being conscripted.
IndieWire assures that this one’s “a light, low-key crowdpleaser that occasionally steps into more harrowing territory before neatly spinning right out of it.”
Re-creation
Jim Sheridan, Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, co-writes and co-directs this unique take on the courtroom drama that doubles as a self-reflection of the true-crime documentary genre. The trial is a work of fiction, but the crime is based on the real-life 1996 murder of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier. The setup screams 12 Angry Men, but its emphasis in conflicting perspectives and the grey areas in between resonates closer to Anatomy of a Fall. Prepare to ponder on this one long after its brisk 89 minutes are up.
“Despite its occasionally disjointed nature, it’s a moving and at times risky film that uses a grisly real-life murder to turn the lens on our fascination with true crime,” writes Observer.
The Golden Spurtle
This is a documentary about the World Porridge Championship. That’s it. Plain and simple, like the mighty oat slop itself. The battle to claim the 2023 porridge-making crown, however, is rigid and spicy, with the film following budding breakfast behemoths as they take their particular passion as far as humanly possible with only oats, salt, water, and know-how at their disposal.
Comparing this to bloated TV food competitions, Little White Lies praises how filmmaker Constantine Costi “manages to go from top to tail in a whip-cracking 75 minutes.”
Everything else playing at the 2025 British & Irish Film Festival:
Bill Nighy and Dominic West lead this adaptation of David Gilbert’s novel about a world-renowned but reclusive author who, believing he is about to die, summons his estranged sons to his home—not to seek forgiveness, but to reveal a wild secret.
A Merchant Ivory classic starring Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter and Denholm Elliot, based on the period romance novel by EM Forster. Nominated for eight Oscars at the 1987 Academy Awards including Best Picture and took home the gold for its screenplay, set decoration, and costume design.
Documentary on the mania around the National Lottery when it launched in Ireland in 1986 and the story of a man who tried to beat the system by attempting to fix the draw, an act that divided a whole nation.
Doco biography on Marianne Faithfull—a survivor, provocateur, and rock icon who has spent more than six decades defying expectations with over 35 albums to her name.
Bollywood-inspired British musical reinvention of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, centred on a crabby British-Indian man who hates refugees.
Two estranged brothers with chequered childhoods in the care system suddenly find themselves living under the same roof in this Irish drama. Not to be confused for the Sydney Sweeney boxing movie of the same name coming out later this year.
Irish dramedy centred on a struggling novelist who is forced to take care of three eccentric older women – and his own mother – over the course of one chaotic weekend in Dublin.
Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man
Both vilified and vital to peace, Gerry Adams breaks his silence in this documentary, tracing his journey from teenage activist to key architect of the Good Friday Agreement, and revealing the personal story behind one of modern Ireland’s most controversial and transformative leaders.
Screen royalty Brian Cox stars in his own directorial feature debut, a reunion tale about a man looking to make amends with his estranged older brother only to find himself potentially taking over the family’s whisky distillery.
A certified crowdpleaser inspired by the life of John Davidson, charting his journey from a misunderstood teenager in 1980’s Britain to a present day advocate for the understanding and acceptance of Tourette Syndrome.
This sun-scorched tension-brewer centres on a washed-up tennis pro living a dull existence teaching tourists how to hit a ball. But one vacationing family might just change the entire trajectory of his life—for better or worse.
A young woman released from prison struggles to regain custody of her children. When she bumps into her childhood friend, the two women soon realise their only chance is to join forces and take destiny into their own hands.
Ellie Bamber (who also appears in Words of War, see below) plays Kate Moss in this British drama that sees the supermodel on a journey of self-discovery when acclaimed artist Lucian Freud (two-time Emmy winner Derek Jacobi) offers to paint her portrait.
Two old friends walk 600 kilometres through the Scottish highlands to reconnect with each other, with nature, and with parts of themselves they have lost.
The mighty Maggie Smith earned her first Academy Award in this 1969 British film playing a headstrong teacher in a private school in 1930s Edinburgh who ignores the curriculum and influences her impressionable 12-year-olds with her over-romanticised world view.
Sadie Frost (Mary Quant) profiles one of the most famous faces in fashion in her second feature documentary. Featuring contributions from Dustin Hoffman, Paul McCartney, Charlotte Tilbury, Joanna Lumley and Twiggy herself.
War biopic on world-renowned journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who went from being a local print journalist to braving the Chechen killing fields and exposing Russian state corruption under Vladimir Putin.
