9 Best Movies Set in or About New Zealand

9 Movies Set in or About New Zealand

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on New Zealand.

1. 

   1. Green Dolphin Street

   1947

   When a man mistakenly writes home from colonial New Zealand asking for the wrong sister's hand in marriage, the error binds two families together across decades of love, sacrifice, and disaster — including a spectacular earthquake. A sweeping romantic epic.

2. 

   2. Until They Sail

   1957

   In wartime New Zealand, with the local men gone to fight, four sisters navigate love, loss, and scandal amid the American soldiers passing through on their way to the Pacific. A romantic wartime drama.

3. 

   3. Tracker

   2010

   In 1903 New Zealand, a hardened Boer War veteran is hired to hunt down a Māori seaman falsely accused of murder, and their cat-and-mouse pursuit through the wilderness becomes a grudging test of respect. A tense frontier drama.

4. 

   4. Juloratoriet

   1996

   After a freak accident kills their mother in 1930s Sweden, a boy, his sister, and their grieving father start over in a new town, and the film traces the family's sorrow and love across generations, reaching in time to New Zealand. A lyrical Swedish drama.

5. 

   5. L'Oncle Charles

   2012

   A gruff rugby tycoon who made his fortune in New Zealand, diagnosed with a fatal illness, places an ad seeking the sister he hasn't seen in fifty years — prompting a scheming clerk to pass off an impostor to claim the inheritance. A French comedy.

6. 

   6. Race for the Yankee Zephyr

   1981

   When a backcountry New Zealand hunter stumbles on a crashed World War II plane holding a fortune in gold in a remote mountain lake, a gang of ruthless crooks comes after him and his daughter. A rollicking adventure caper.

7. 

   7. Falling Inn Love

   2019

   A burnt-out San Francisco executive impulsively wins a rundown inn in rural New Zealand and moves there to fix it up and sell it, only to fall for both the countryside and a handsome local contractor. A breezy romantic comedy.

8. 

   8. Under the Southern Cross

   1929

   Set among the Māori of New Zealand, this early drama tells a story of love and rivalry against the customs and landscapes of the islands. A silent-era romance.

9. 

   9. The Young Guy in New Zealand

   ニュージーランドの若大将 · 1969

   In this entry of the popular Japanese Young Guy series, the ever-cheerful hero travels to New Zealand for a breezy round of adventure, sport, and romance. A lighthearted comedy.