From the 1990s onward, New Zealand-made films have increasingly achieved international success, including both those with local funding and themes, and those with additional foreign cooperation, such as Avatar and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[6] Some New Zealand directors and actors have been ignored in large part by their own country, despite success overseas, and often had to work in the US, Australia, and the UK as a result.

The screening—which was in fact a demonstration of Thomas Edison's kinetograph[7]—was part of a show presented by Charles Godfrey's Vaudeville Company.

[10][11] New Zealand's oldest surviving cinema is in Roxburgh in Central Otago, which opened in the town's Athenæum Hall on 11 December 1897.

[12] The editors of the local newspaper, the Mount Benger Mail, wrote in the issue of 10 December: "We would draw the attention of the public to the Salon Cinématographe entertainment in the Athenæum Hall to-morrow evening.

[13][14] The oldest surviving purpose-built cinema in New Zealand — and in the Southern Hemisphere — is the Victoria Theatre in Devonport, Auckland, built in 1912.

[21] The film, a dark, political action thriller that portrays the reaction of one man to the formation of a totalitarian government and the ensuing guerrilla war, introduced Sam Neill as a leading actor.

[21] The imagery of large-scale civil conflict and government repression would be realised only a few years later when the 1981 Springbok Tour caused nationwide protests and clashes with police.

[24] Director Geoff Murphy was lured away by Hollywood, but he made two other key New Zealand films: Utu (1983), about the land wars of the 1860s, and a nuclear-apocalypse science-fiction story, The Quiet Earth (1985).

[27] In 1987 Barry Barclay's film Ngati, screenplay by Tama Poata and starring veteran actor Wi Kuki Kaa, was released to critical acclaim and some box-office success.

[32] Key examples of these are: The Lounge Bar (The Front Lawn), Kitchen Sink (Alison Maclean), A Little Death (Simon Perkins; Paul Swadel), Stroke (Christine Jeffs), La Vie en Rose (Anna Reeves), A Game With No Rules (Scott Reynolds), Eau de la vie (Simon Baré), O Tamaiti (The Children) (Sima Urale) which won the Silver Lion Best Short Film at the Venice Film Festival,[33] and Two Cars, One Night (Taika Waititi), which was nominated for the Best Short Film Oscar.

[34] The early 1990s saw New Zealand film gain international recognition, most obviously with Jane Campion's The Piano (1993), which won three Academy Awards.

Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994) and Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors also received international acclaim and high grosses in a number of countries.

[citation needed] The Piano and Heavenly Creatures showed an increasing tendency for New Zealand films to be partially or completely funded by overseas production companies, and star non-local actors (for example, Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel in The Piano, and Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures).

This did not stop the migration of New Zealanders to the United States: Tamahori, Melanie Lynskey of Heavenly Creatures and Canadian-born Piano star Anna Paquin are now all primarily based in America.

[citation needed] While the funding for these movies has come largely from the United States, the trend has helped New Zealand film studios and filmmakers develop skills and improve facilities.

In early 21st century, the amount of local content has significantly increased, with Whale Rider (2002) becoming the second-highest-grossing North American independent film of 2003 and third-highest worldwide, earning $40.1 million.

The latter part of the first decade of the new century saw the expansion of Peter Jackson's filmmaking empire, with the producer-director optioning the rights to The Lovely Bones, Halo, The Dam Busters and the fantasy series Temeraire.

Major productions such as Avatar and the 2007 blockbuster The Water Horse used Jackson's Wellington studios and the services of the special-effects company Weta Digital.

[37] Eagle vs Shark (2007) was director Taika Waititi's first feature film, starring Jemaine Clement and Loren Horsley.