Thrillers

A retired boxer will stop at nothing in the pursuit of her missing sister, launching herself into the belly of the beast to find and punish those responsible for her disappearance.

Eskil Vogt’s chilling, supernatural Scando-spin on arthouse horror explores what it means to be a gifted child through disturbing, uncanny and heedlessly violent means.

Powerful performances and surgical craft anchor Robert Machoian’s slow-burning thriller, acutely observing the collapse of a family and the breakdown of its patriarch with mounting dread and carefully ratcheted suspense.

Mexico City is in the throes of revolt. Hospitals are overrun and streets are unsafe. But for one wealthy family, their only concern is that the wedding of their daughter must go ahead. And so the festivities continue — at least until the resistance arrives at their doorstep...

If a young man cannot command an inmate-run prison with his storytelling, his first night behind bars promises to be his last in this lush, striking and unexpected tale that blends magical realism with current affairs.

A nail-biting rescue thriller wrapped up in a chilling vision of near-dystopia, this Kiwi-Canadian co-production tackles Canada’s dark colonial roots through strong genre craft.

When a stranger on a bridge utters a single word in his ear, Günter finds himself falling deep into the rabbit hole of his mysterious childhood in Alex van Warmerdam’s new, paranoia-fuelled thriller.

Recently widowed and grieving, army officer Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) proves vengeance is a dish best served bold in this dark — and comic — take on the revenge thriller from Oscar-winning Dane, Anders Thomas Jensen.

Bill Gosden championed countless New Zealand films during his tenure as Festival Director, and not all the obvious ones, either. Maybe it was its lust for Americana, the protagonist’s escape from southern parochialism (Bill grew up in Dunedin), or Gillian Ashurst’s darkly cartoonish take on Goodbye Pork Pie’s road movie legacy, that made him regard Snakeskin with such fondness.

Fascinated, he wrote, “I wouldn’t be surprised if, played backwards, it turns out to contain the solutions to every unsolved murder in the South Island”.

Tehran’s byways teem with life in this Iranian crime-caper that blends gritty, Buñuelesque social realism, strong character drama, and spirited storybook style adventure.