Several weeks ago, we asked you what your favourite films from the 2025 Whānau Mārama NZIFF were. Over 150 of you chose your top three, and the results are in!
Before we get to the top ten overall, here are a few interesting facts:
- 92 different films made it into at least one respondent’s top three – that’s over three-quarters of all the films in the programme!
- Five respondents liked particular films so much that they didn’t rank anything else. Clearly, these films were head and shoulders about the competition!
- Some films had a clear positioning in your selections – for example, the opening night film It Was Just an Accident was voted the favourite film by only four respondents… but eleven of you chose it as your second favourite. The same goes for Twinless, which was the third-favourite choice of ten voters – more than the combined number of people who placed it first or second!
Now it’s time to explore the top ten, as chosen by you!
10. The President’s Cake – a decent showing across first, second and third choices for Hasan Hadi’s debut feature;
9. Twinless – James Sweeney’s twisted comedy snuck in at the end of plenty of your lists;
8. The Weed Eaters – low-budget Kiwi horror-comedies are always popular with festival attendees, and Callum Devlin’s cannibalism romp was no exception;
7. Resurrection – VP Johnny recommended this one from Chinese visionary Bi Gan, and many of you agreed;
6. The Ballad of Wallis Island – a real crowd-pleaser, James Griffiths’s gentle comedy packed an emotional punch;
5. Sirât – flying beneath the radar for many, Oliver Laxe’s family odyssey across the Atlas mountains was picked by eleven of you as your favourite film of the festival;
4. It Was Just an Accident – the opening night film by festival darling Jafar Panahi drew acclaim pretty consistently across first, second and third-place picks.
3. The Secret Agent – the winner of the Best Director and Best Actor prizes at Cannes, it’s no wonder that Kleber Mendonça Filho’s latest feature was a hit with festival audiences here too! Twenty-one respondents put this political thriller in their top three;
2. Sorry, Baby – Eva Victor’s debut was a real smash at Sundance, handling its sometimes-fragile subject with a combination of uproarious humour and righteous fury. It packed out the cinemas here, and twenty-two of you thought it deserved a place in your lists of favourites;
But, of course…
1. Sentimental Value – putting a Joachim Trier film in the closing night slot? Cinematic perfection. The final scores weren’t even close for the Norwegian auteur’s sixth feature: sixteen of you chose it as your number-one pick!
It was a great year for international cinema, clearly – our top ten features films from nine different countries! We can’t wait for next year’s programme for more chances to explore the world from the comfort of our little cinematic city.