A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a virus has wiped out most of humanity, with survivors being terrorized by roaming scavengers called "Reapers." The protagonist is Hig, a pilot who survived the flu that killed everyone he knew, his wife included. He lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting ex-Marine. Hig sometimes heads off in his 1956 Cessna, where he can fish and pretend things are how they used to be. When a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life might exist if he flies a bit further. He risks it all. to chase a possible haven in Grand Junction.

Three friends go on a spa weekend that descends into chaos when their trainwreck friend joins, leading to hilarious consequences.

A writer tries to reconnect with his sons. Based on the novel by David Gilbert.

After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.

Christopher Nolan's next film, The Odyssey, is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX® film technology. The film brings Homer's foundational saga to IMAX® film screens for the first time.

It's a BRAND NEW DAY for Peter Parker. Fighting crime full-time as Spider-Man in a world that doesn’t remember him -- and the pressure of seeing his old friends move on without him -- sparks a change in Peter he may not have the power to control. But that transformation might also be the only thing that can stop a shocking new threat to the city and those he loves - a powerful villain no one can even see. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2025-26 Live in HD season comes to a close with American composer Gabriela Lena Frank's first opera, a magical-realist portrait of Mexico's painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz. Fashioned as a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, the story depicts Frida, sung by leading mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, leaving the underworld on the Day of the Dead and reuniting with Diego, portrayed by baritone Carlos Álvarez. The famously feuding pair briefly relive their tumultuous love, embracing both the passion and the pain before bidding the land of the living a final farewell. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met-premiere staging of Frank's opera, a "confident, richly imagined score" (The New Yorker) that "bursts with colour and fresh individuality" (Los Angeles Times).The vibrant new production, taking enthusiastic inspiration from Frida and Diego's paintings, is directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker.

Adaptation of the first of J.K. Rowling's popular children's novels about Harry Potter, a boy who learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, he meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents' mysterious deaths at the hands of a powerful adversary.

When Lou, a gentle purple creature with an embarrassingly stretchy trunk, rescues Kiri, an ungrateful little dinosaur, from a flood, they’re swept into the greatest adventure in prehistory!

This year, André Rieu celebrates a spectacular milestone — the 20th anniversary of his iconic summer concerts on the magnificent Vrijthof square. Captured live in his beloved hometown, this brand-new cinema event marks two decades of music and unforgettable magical summer nights. Viva Maastricht! is a joyful tribute to the city where it all began. Joined by his world-renowned Johann Strauss Orchestra and a vibrant ensemble of artists, André brings the spirit, culture, and warmth of his hometown to life in a dazzling new concert filled with emotion and wonder. From timeless waltzes to soul-stirring classics, this landmark anniversary concert promises an evening of passion, joy, and togetherness. Be part of this historic celebration as the Vrijthof once again transforms into a breathtaking open-air ballroom — only in cinemas this summer.

Indie filmmaking duo Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson follow up their award-winning feature debut Ghostlight with a bittersweet coming-of age-story steeped in the pre-social media innocence of the early 2000s. Mouse follows the story of best friends Callie and Minnie. Callie is the golden child of their suburban American community and a prodigal theatrical talent. Minnie, by contrast, lives a much quieter, constrained life, shaped by the responsibilities of a working-class household led by her solo mother. As the pair approach their final year of high school, their relationship is suddenly upended, leaving Minnie adrift in unfamiliar social and emotional territory. Struggling to find her footing, Minnie struggles with the vulnerabilities of teenage life, and in the process, forms an unexpected and deeply affecting bond with Callie's mother, Helen. Voted second runner-up for the popular Panorama Audience Award[KP1.1] at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, Mouse is a heartfelt, and tender indie gem. - Heperi Mita

Hannah, a mother takes her trans non-binary teenager Frances to Amsterdam to visit their gay grandfather Jimpa. But Frances' desire to stay with Jimpa for a year abroad means Hannah is forced to reconsider her beliefs about parenting and finally confront old stories about the past.

Known for his sincere observations of childhood, unconventional families and the emotional weight of loss and grief, Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest film combines his preferred themes in a speculative film that blends the preservation of memory with technological advancements. Set in near future Japan, grieving parents Otone (Haruka Ayase) and Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto) turn to REbirth, a company providing the bereaved with humanoid replications of their loved ones. With this technology, the couple is granted more time with their seven-year-old son, Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki). Otone's architectural background fuels her desire to construct and control, whereas guilt-ridden Kensuke initially dismisses the humanoid as a "Tamagotchi", until a tender relationship forms. But as the humanoid develops and shares memories he shouldn't have, his parents grow perplexed and grapple with the ramifications of their decision.

For master of American humour David Wain, creator of some of the most enduring comedies of the 21st Century (Wet Hot American Summer, They Came Together), stupidity is the highest form of sophistication. Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass continues that grand tradition, following small-towner Gail (Zoey Deutch), whose blissful engagement crashes down when her high school sweetheart sleeps with his ‘celebrity sex pass', prompting Gail to travel to LA to do the same. Her chosen celebrity: Mad Men star Jon Hamm. Along the way, Gail amasses a merry troupe of Wizard of Oz-like followers, each with a Hamm-bone to pick, including one-time co-star John Slattery (in a hilariously self-deprecating turn). Irreverent and light-as-a-feather from start to finish, Gail Daughtry follows in the footsteps of last year's Naked Gun reboot, nobly attempting to extract as many laughs from its audience as possible within a short frame of time. Along the way, Wain captures an LA of tacky surfaces and maps to the stars, and there's just a dash of the eeriness David Lynch brought to Mulholland Drive, for those who look closely. - Tom Augustine

The latest work from Tamara Kotevska (Honeyland) tells the story of a Macedonian farmer suffering through an economic slump as the small village his family has called home for generations is slowly abandoned. As his children and wife follow suit, moving to Germany to start a new life, he initially plans to follow them after selling the farm, before finding an injured stork and deciding to stay to nurture it back to health. The deep connection between man and nature is explored as he forms a bond with the stork and ponders if leaving the family farm for a life in the city is worth it. Filmed in rural Macedonia and filled with majestic shots of landscapes and wildlife, Tale of Silyan takes inspiration from the folktale of the same name and intertwines it with a narrative about a world changing too fast. As economic disparity and inequality grow deeper, the importance of our relationship with nature often loses out to the rat race of modernity. In contrast, Tamara Kotevska focuses on the connections that make our time on earth worthwhile.

With his masterpiece Mysterious Skin, iconoclastic nineties auteur Gregg Araki consciously separated from the vicious ironic detachment and pop culture detritus of his vaunted Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, adapting a source novel (Scott Heim's novel of the same name) for the first time and in turn creating one of the defining coming of age films, one of such aching tenderness and truth that it can be hard to look at, but even harder to turn away from. Joseph Gordon Levitt was never again as thrillingly alive as he is here as Neil, as one of two young men grappling with the abuse they suffered as children from their summer baseball coach. His path has wildly diverged from another survivor, Brian (future The Brutalist director Brady Corbet): where Brian has retreated into a quiet life obsessing over alien abductions, Neil lives on the edge, turning tricks in their shared small-town of Hutchinson, Kansas. Remembrances of their shared trauma draw them finally, inexorably back together. Featuring exceptional supporting turns from the likes of Jeff Licon, Elisabeth Shue and especially a luminous Michelle Trachtenberg, in what is surely the most significant performance of a tragically short career, Mysterious Skin is Araki at his most empathetic, poetic and heartbreaking, not so much a symbiosis of all that came before as an apotheosis; a transcendence.

When the easygoing would-be novelist Zorg meets the tempestuous Betty in a sunbaked French beach town, it's the beginning of a whirlwind love affair that sees the pair turn their backs on conventional society in favor of the hedonistic pursuit of freedom, adventure, and carnal pleasure. But as the increasingly erratic Betty's grip on reality begins to falter, Zorg finds himself willing to do things he never expected to protect both her fragile sanity and their tenuous existence together.

Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale is a self-contained chapter in the life and times of Wal Footrot and his dog, Dog. We witness Wal's herculean struggle to impress the All Black selector - and Dog's strenuous efforts to come between Wal and Cheeky Hobson, and heated attempts to get in behind the sultry Jess.

For her stunning feature debut, La Gravida, cinematographer turned director Marine Atlan tackles the coming of age genre in the most French way possible, delivering a sprawling chronicle of teenage angst that starts off as a laid-back class trip to Italy and gradually turns into a devastating tale of loss. Featuring an impressive cast of unknowns, this deserved winner of the Cannes Critics' Week Grand Prize announces the arrival of a formidable new talent. What makes Atlan's film feel at once fresh and part of a long tradition of great French teen flicks is how she fills it with new faces, outfits, attitudes and sexual preferences, yet portrays the kind of dramas that have been happening since drama was first invented. Indeed, the iconic setting of La Gravida, which follows a high school group to Naples and Pompeii, frames this story of unrequited love and adolescent turmoil against a backdrop of precious artifacts from ancient history — frescoes, statues and calcified bodies in agony — that depicted the very same things thousands of years ago. Times may have changed, and everyone may be glued to their phones now, but feelings are still feelings.

Filmed at the prestigious Comédie-Française theatre and using actual members of the troupe, the feature got its original start as an attempted series of skits during the pandemic era. We're taken behind the scenes to experience the journey of Nina (Pauline Clément), an experienced actress who is taking a turn in the director's chair to stage a performance of Macbeth. Unfortunately for Nina, the play is cursed from the outset and everything that could go wrong, does. Malfunctioning props, intoxicated actors, infidelity, clashing egos, absent cast members, overzealous security staff and even parental mishaps all clash in the frantic three hours before the play begins. But as the old saying goes "the show must go on" and Nina must battle fate and hold everything together in order to deliver a performance that is still worthy of the famed theatre institute. The title directly translates to "French Comedy" and the film certainly lives up to its moniker. An uproarious, gag-filled farce that is a gleeful parody of theatre antics and a much needed piece of joyous escapism. -Jordan Saloman

Jim Parfait is the ultimate king, or rather queen of the Parisian gay community. A 20-million plus followers influencer, he spends his days cultivating his 24-pack of abs at the gym, or the temple of gay culture elevation and depravation. On a fine day, one of his abs inexplicably deflates. That is the first symptom of a new disease spreading among gay people: heterosis. With the impending doom of turning straight, Jim Parfait needs to find a cure against the epidemic. Unbeknown to him, Lucien, a reclusive twink who secretly holds a reliquary of Jim Parfait paraphernalia and sex toys, may hold the key to salvation. But first, Lucien has to escape the draconian control of his homophobic Health Minister mother and come out into the shiny, shallow, shameless queendom where Jim reigns. Unabashedly heterophobic, Marco Nguyen and Nicolas Athané's Jim Queen was the runaway laugh-out- loud hit of the Midnight Screenings at Cannes Film Festival. Delightfully plunging audiences in an ultra-colourful and exuberantly explicit gay fantasia, Jim Queen doesn't refrain from cleverly satirising the obsessions of its target audiences. A wild unicorn ride that shan't be missed!

In the botanical garden of an old university town in Germany, and at the heart of celebrated director Ildikó Enyedi's sprawling meditation on a world that is mysterious and sensitive enough to stun anyone paying attention, a gargantuan gingko tree stands for more than a century. It is the subtle constant and quiet connector between scientific seekers from three different times. In 1908, the first woman to get past an admissions process rigged in men's favour explores the radical and sensual possibilities of plants and avant-garde photography. In 1972, a lovestruck student encounters a surprising spark of communication when his crush enlists him to supervise her geranium experiment. In 2020 (a strand star-powered by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Léa Seydoux), a visiting neuroscience professor stuck on a campus in pandemic lockdown is eyed with suspicion as he immerses himself in the hallucinogenic possibilities of life across species. Over a decades-long career, Enyedi has brought her wild and peculiar eye to European arthouse cinema, opening up the strangeness in everyday existence and dream layers that are often hiding in plain sight.

Mexico, 1986. England and Argentina meet in the World Cup quarterfinal with more than a little animosity between them, the two nations at war. A game played in the shadow of the conflict over the Falkland Islands, the lead up to the match was as much about pride and political capital, as it was about football. That all changed once a certain Diego Maradona stepped onto the pitch and wrote his name into the history books. 40 years on from one of the most memorable World Cup games of all time, those who were there relive not only that crazed game, but the context surrounding it. Some famous faces recall the chaos with good humour - English national treasure Gary Lineker is affable covering off the English language narration; John Barnes wears a wry smile throughout - others hold more than a touch of bitterness (see: Peter Shilton). While fans of La Albiceleste can settle in for a triumphant dose of nostalgia, this intimate account of the infamous "hand of God" quarterfinal might still be a hard watch for those with three lions on their shirts.

Intelligent and unassuming 17-year-old Ainara (Blanca Sora) lost her mother at a young age but keeps her close through her faith. When she announces she is considering becoming a cloistered nun, this proposal takes her family by surprise and causes a rift between them, putting relationships and religious conviction to the test. Ainara's somewhat distant father Iñaki (Miguel Garcés) is preoccupied with a struggling business and his two younger daughters, whereas Maite (Patricia López Arnaiz), Ainara's atheist aunt, supports her niece's autonomy but is fervent that the teenager considers university and travel first. Ainara must also consider a blossoming romance with a boy from her choir against the allure of an introspective, peaceful monastic life.

Veneno is a young man with a troubled past hustling his way around Mexico and offering sexual favors to truckers in exchange for cash. When he meets Muñeco, a relatively closed off and seemingly straight older truck driver with problems of his own, he joins him hauling freight through the Mexican desert. As the road goes on and they form an emotional bond that puts them both in danger, Veneno's secrets are slowly uncovered and his past threatens to catch up with him. Secrecy, pain and desire collide in this intense, emotional and unashamedly erotic thriller that won the Queer Lion and Best Picture in the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival. Writer-director David Pablos takes the audience deep into the seedy netherworld of outlaw Mexican truck drivers where drugs, violence and sex are like currency and danger haunts the long straights of the road. Ximena Amann's masterful cinematography is so evocative, you can feel the heat and smell the petrol coming off the screen. While it is drenched in masculine energy and dark intensity, it is the tenderness at the heart of the story that pulls the film together and leaves the deepest mark.- Jordan Salomen

Please note: This is a highlight selection of the best films from both programmes, including all award winners. The featured shorts will be announced 17 August. Since 2012, the Wairoa Māori Film Festival and Pollywood have been part of NZIFF, curating the annual Ngā Whanaunga Māori Pasifika short film programme. The name “Ngā Whanaunga" was gifted by Huia Kaporangi Koziol, who described it as meaning relatedness and connectedness between peoples. Māori are part of the great Pasifika whānau; our Polynesian peoples journeyed on the same waka from Hawaiiki, and are related by culture, language and blood and in wairuatanga (soulfulness) across our vast sea Moana-nui-a-kiwa. From the beginning, screening Māori works alongside Pasifika was symbolic of whānaungatanga and connectedness. Now in its second year as a combined programme, Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best presents the very best of Māori and Pasifika filmmaking alongside the best films made by everyone in Aotearoa. Wairoa Māori Film Festival founder Leo Koziol (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rakaipaaka) and Pollywood Film Festival founder Craig Fasi (Niue) continue their role in short film programming, focusing their lens upon Ngā Whanaunga: Aotearoa New Zealand’s Best 2026 indigenous talent in their role as co-curators. Artistic Director Paolo Bertolin, Senior Programmer Carmen Gray, Programmer Heperi Mita (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakahemo, Ngāi te Rangi) and Programme Advisor Madison Marshall round out the selection committee. A total of 130 films were submitted for this year’s competition, with 14 finalists chosen by the selectors. A jury of three selected the winners of the competition as follows: Umbrella Best Short Film Award ($5,000): The Whole Thing by Calvin Sang Auckland Live Spirit of the Civic Award ($4,000): Arrival by Ahmed Osman Park Road Post Award for Māori Pasifika Talent ($2,000): Todd Karehana, director of Socks Canon Emerging Talent Award (Canon EOS Camera and Lens of the value of $4,500): Isaac Ieremia, director of Ciggie Wi Kuki Kaa Memorial Award for Best Performance to a Māori Pasifika Talent ($5,000): Keporah Torrance for Kurī by Ana Chaya Scotney Best Artistic Contribution: Allan George, editor of Tall Hours by Sophie Black Special Mention: Giovanna Varea, for her performance in Daunitukutuku by Tumeli Tuqota The winner of the audience vote takes away the coveted Letterboxd Audience Award, consisting of 25% of the box office from NZIFF screenings in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. This award will be announced on Sun 23 Aug at Closing Night in Wellington.

In 1980s NYC, an artist experiences a precious window between sickness and mortality - a time when beauty and love remain within reach.

Annemarie Jacir has built a beautiful career depicting the everyday life and struggles of the Palestinian people in heartfelt works like Wajib (2017). With Palestine 36 she managed to raise resources (from Arab as well as global funds) to produce an ambitious fresco of her people's struggle for independence and self-determination. On the backdrop of the British Mandate of the 1930s, Jacir conjures up a sprawling narrative with characters involved in the crucial historical events that led to the strikes and the revolt against the colonial rule. Capitalising on the uninhibited performances of a cast sporting great Palestinian actors Hiam Abbas and Saleh Bakri and international talents, such as Jeremy Irons, Jacir delivers a classic narrative that morphs into a captivating fresco of a historical struggle encompassing the soul of a people and their attachment to their ancestral land. A must see that brings History alive to talk about our troubled times.

Living in queer-friendly San Francisco in 1999, Sarah Leavitt (Abbi Jacobson) works and (almost!) illustrates for a progressive magazine, and is about to hop on the U-Haul express with her girlfriend, Donimo (Samira Wiley). But when Sarah's mother, Midge (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), starts exhibiting increasingly eccentric behaviour, familial ties pull her back to her conservative hometown in Maine. With emotional and physical distance threatening her relationships and the weight of being the eldest daughter on her shoulders, Sarah discovers that the heartbreaking reality of Alzheimer's disease is a tangled web of memory that persists in the minds of those left behind.

"The Chronology of Water," the first film directed by Kristen Stewart, isn't some serviceable, prosaic, actor-directs-actors-how-to-read-the-script thing. It's far more artful and captivating than that. It's based on the 2011 memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch, who told the story of how she grew up in a sexually abusive household, and how she attempted to squirm away from the legacy of it — through competitive swimming, through sex and drugs and anger and other escape hatches, and ultimately through becoming a writer in the mode of Charles Bukowski. Yet for a long time her escapes didn't work. She was too imprinted with the sickness that had been visited upon her. All of this is incredibly internal. It's the sort of thing I've seen a hundred filmmakers try to dramatize, and what you tend to get is good intentions, a lot of piety about abusive households, and maybe a workable shadow of the consciousness the film is out to capture. Kristen Stewart shoots past all that. As a writer-director, she's working on the high wire — making a movie that's all about consciousness, one that shows you everything but never spells it out too obviously.

A mute woman and her daughter suffer exile in New Zealand and bring with them a piano. She is then set to marry a rich landlord but a peasant begins to fall in love with her.

Adelaide filmmaker Anthony Frith dreams of joining the ranks of cinematic legends like a Kubrick or Lynch. But unfortunately, his talent has been wasted on commercials and corporate videos. That is, until he decides to contact The Asylum. A production company famous for its "mockbusters" such as, Sharknado, Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. After they task him with directing an Adelaide set dinosaur film, ‘The Land that Time Forgot', Anthony finds himself deep over his head and humbled by the chaos of attempting to hold the production together and produce a finished product on a budget that doesn't quite cover his needs.

The life of Franz Kafka in a series of independent chapters: from his birth in 19th-century Prague to his final years in Berlin and death in 1924, and his imagined future.

Set in Tangier, the story centers on an aging Spanish woman who has lived in the same apartment for decades - in Calle Málaga (Malaga Street). The titular street feels like a character in this story - every beautiful shot an intimate exploration of long-established lives, loves, and connections with the residents and the buildings themselves. Touzani captivates all senses in this deliberately paced, lush love letter to her home city. Life-long Tangier resident María Ángeles-Muñoz (played with a blend of fiery defiance, charm, and intimacy by an exquisite Carmen Maura) has her world turned upside down when her daughter arrives and gives her the choice of moving to Madrid with her, or being moved into a senior care facility. Maria soon finds herself out of place in a world that isn't hers. Full of defiance, she finds her way back, only to find an empty apartment and her lifetime of precious keepsakes sold to a local antiques dealer. As she finds ways to earn money to buy her belongings back, María leans on old friendships (including an amusing silent performance from María Alfonsa Rosso as Sister Josefa), and discovers unexpected new bonds that change the path ahead.

[Cycle of Love] tells the genuinely incredible story of P.K. Mahanandia, a young and poor Delhi street artist who in 1975, while drawing portraits for tourists and passersby, met Swedish traveller Lotta. The two soon fell in love, with P.K. driven by a prophecy made to him by an astrologer as a baby that said, "You will marry a girl who is not from the village, not even from this country, she will be musical, own a jungle and be born under the sign of the ox." As it happens, Lotta was born in May, played the recorder and piano and while she didn't own a jungle, her family did have a small forest. He knew it was destiny. They married. — Alex Ritman, Variety