We are proud to be able to screen a really awesome programme of international cinema, including films from Japan, Senegal, Australia, Romania, Macedonia, Poland, Burkina Faso, Somalia and a couple of landmarks of New Zealand cinema from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Click through to the individual pages of each film for notes and reviews, a trailer, sharing options, and the ability to save to your calendar. And here’s an ics calendar file of the full programme that you can download and import to the device of your choice, and pdfs of the full 2023 brochure and the one-page schedule
Coming soon
Go to previous films
Crash
Highly controversial on its original release, Cronenberg’s provocative satire about a group of sadomasochistic car-crash fetishists remains as unsettling as it is mesmerising ...
Honeyland
A centuries-old way of life tending wild beehives deep in the countryside is disrupted by the arrival of new neighbours. “An elemental struggle between ancient tradition and greed… an incredible true story” – Time Out ...
The Wild Goose Lake
Gangland subterfuge tumbles into a dazzling nocturnal manhunt in this film noir par excellence – a modern genre classic in the making. “Spellbinding pulp noir” – Rolling Stone ...
Never Gonna Snow Again
This unclassifiable satire of Poland’s disconnected upper-class follows an angelic masseur as he tries to draw meaning out of his clients’ lives. “A magical… tour-de-force" ...
Sweet Smell of Success
Broadway has never been as seductive or as menacing as it is in this bitter farce about a venomous gossip columnist (Burt Lancaster) and his soulless lackey (Tony Curtis) ...
B Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin
This archive-heavy documentary revisits the vibrant music and art scene of West Berlin during the divided city’s punky, druggy, trashy 1980s heyday.” – Hollywood Reporter ...
Celia
A dark childhood fable about a young girl who escapes into her fantasies. “One of the best films about childhood since The 400 Blows” – Time Out ...
Waxworks
One of the final works of German Expressionism offers a sophisticated melding of genres, as a young poet dreams up fantastical tales inspired by the waxworks of some notorious personages ...
France
Dumont takes aim at 24-hour news culture, with Léa Seydoux as a TV journalist juggling her unflappable public image and chaotic family life. “A biting and complex satire” – Les Inrockuptibles ...
Tilaï
Forbidden love for a stepmother sets in motion a chain of devastating events in pre-colonial West Africa. Cannes Grand Prix. “A flawless balance of wit and tragedy” – NY Times ...
The Captain
A German deserter in WWII discovers great power in an abandoned Nazi captain’s uniform. “Parable, historical reckoning and pitch-black comedy. Clever and well-crafted” – Film Comment ...
System K
A lively, endlessly fascinating documentary about the incredible art world stirring in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “A full-blown nosedive into a unique moment of collective creation” – Hollywood Reporter ...
Gallant Indies
A troupe of bold young multi-ethnic Parisian dancers defies tradition in this modern take on the Baroque opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau ...
The Gravedigger’s Wife
A gentle, big-hearted drama about a gravedigger seeking money for his wife’s operation. “This Somali language film’s simplicity and economy is its power.”– The Observer ...
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
With its heightened aesthetic ... its alt-rock soundtrack and the central figure of a skateboarding vampire wearing a chador, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is one of the coolest, most unusual films on our 2023 programme. ...
Le Franc + The Little Girl who Sold the Sun
A penniless musician finds a lottery ticket and a young girl defies convention to become a newspaper seller in these two wonderful featurettes from the famed Senegalese director ...
The Wicker Man
This brilliant folk horror classic follows a devoutly Christian policeman (Edward Woodward) whose search for a missing girl on a remote Scottish island is led astray by the pagan-worshipping inhabitants ...
Nightmare Alley
The hauntingly strange world of a travelling carnival is the setting for this moody melodrama about a charlatan spiritualist and his fall from grace. ...
The Searchers
Perhaps the most iconic and revered Western ever made, It was named the 15th greatest film of all time in the Sight and Sound Critics Poll last year. Martin Scorcese said of John Wayne's leading role "It’s the greatest performance of a great American actor." ...
Taxi Driver
A must-see film for movie lovers, this Martin Scorsese masterpiece is as hard-hitting as it is compelling, with Robert De Niro at his best. - Rotten Tomatoes ...
The Naked City
Amid a semi-documentary portrait of New York and its people, Jean Dexter, an attractive blonde model, is murdered in her apartment. Homicide detectives Dan Muldoon and Jimmy Halloran investigate. ...
The African Queen
John Huston's film, now restored for its 50th anniversary, is a ripping, gripping yarn, a surprisingly erotic love story and, as it happens, a premonition of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Humphrey Bogart plays the boozy riverboat captain, Katharine Hepburn the prim Christian missionary. ...
Previous Films
Back to Current
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?
Former animator Frank Tashlin brings cartoonish exuberance to this wild satire of ’50s mores, as a put-upon ad-exec attempts to wrangle a glamorous movie star for a lipstick commercial. With Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield ...
Collective
A heroic reporter investigates a shocking health-care fraud in the aftermath of a tragic nightclub fire. “The best film about journalism since All the President’s Men” – The Times ...
The Big Steal
This winning ’80s comedy caper stars a young Ben Mendelsohn as a teen conned by a used-car dealer when trying to score his dream car to impress his big crush. ...
Pigs and Battleships
Imamura’s breakthrough film was this dazzling portrait of the power struggles between small-time gangsters in the port of Yokosuka, home to a US naval base. “A rambunctious carnival of post-war folly” – NY Times ...
Smash Palace
The follow-up to Sleeping Dogs is an intensely felt drama of family break-up, starring a brooding Bruno Lawrence as a junkyard owner suffocating in domestic turmoil ...
Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth is the true but stranger-than-fiction adventure of eight visionaries who spent two years quarantined in the Arizona desert inside of a self-engineered, self-sustaining replica of Earth’s ecosystem ...
My Brilliant Career
Based on teenage author Miles Franklin’s celebrated turn-of-the-century coming-of-age story, Gillian Armstrong’s debut feature upends the conventions of period romance. Stars Judy Davis and Sam Neill ...
Ace in the Hole
Kirk Douglas plays a cynical newsman who stumbles on a potentially career-making story in Billy Wilder’s acidic and unflinching examination of journalistic ethics ...
Mandabi
A Senegalese man’s life is turned upside down when he receives an impossible-to-cash money order from his nephew in France. “A feast for the eyes and ears” – NY Times ...
Girlhood
From the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, this energetic and deeply empathetic drama follows a shy Parisian teenager drawn into a black girl gang. “Empowering and electrifying” – The Observer ...
Sleeping Dogs
This classic Kiwi thriller and debut from director Roger Donaldson stars Sam Neill as an everyman caught between an oppressive fascist government and a radical resistance movement. ...
Tokyo Drifter
A loyal lieutenant in a Yakuza gang is unable to adjust to a life outside organised crime. “Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colours is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima – an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage” - Janus Films ...
The Night of the Hunter
The dark fairytale elements of the film are elevated by the iconic black and white cinematography ... It’s a film truly unlike any other. We know that this will look incredible on the Embassy screen. ...