Something to watch this weekend: Hunt for the Wilderpeople

We don’t often get to cel­eb­rate New Zealand cine­mat­ic achieve­ments in actu­al cinemas. The last big screen anniversary I recall was for 25 years of Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tail Tale back in 2011.

But this week­end cinema audi­ences can come togeth­er to watch a newly remastered ver­sion of a film that the nation abso­lutely loves – Taika Waititi’s 2016 com­edy Hunt for the Wilderpeople, fea­tur­ing Sir Sam Neill and glob­al megastar Julian Dennison.

I reviewed it for RNZ back in the days when we were mak­ing little videos and also – aston­ish­ingly – live on Morning Report. It was that big a deal.

Again, check out my remark­able abil­ity to pre­dict the future:

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is destined to be a Kiwi clas­sic. Waititi’s Boy still holds the record for the highest gross­ing loc­al film, but this new one should threaten that record. I can­’t ima­gine any New Zealander who won’t appre­ci­ate the humour, the pathos and the nos­tal­gia of a truly loc­al film.

For screen­ing times, here are the list­ings on Flicks. If you aren’t able to get to one of those (or per­haps have the mis­for­tune of liv­ing over­seas), stream­ing options can be found below.

Editor’s note

Apologies to news­let­ter sub­scribers for the giant movie poster illus­tra­tions in the new releases edi­tion. I want them to be smal­ler – closer to how they appear here – but I don’t know how to do that with Buttondown yet.

Also, tomor­row is the start of Easter week­end and I’ll be tak­ing a break from post­ing until the work­ing week starts again next Tuesday. I will be appear­ing on RNZ Nights tonight at about 8.40 to talk about Wilderpeople and its impact, Bi Gan’s amaz­ing Resurrection and anoth­er loc­al film that made good use of the sin­gu­lar tal­ents of Rima Te Wiata, Housebound on Māori+.

Where to watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Aotearoa: Digital rent­al from Google only

Australia: Streaming on Netflix

Canada: Digital rental

Ireland: Digital rental

India: Streaming on the Sony Pictures Amazon channel

USA: Streaming on Fubo or Tubi (free with ads)

UK: Streaming on MGM+