ALPHABETICAL
LIST OF NEW ZEALAND FEATURE FILMS ON DVD & BLU-RAY
The first New Zealand title to find its way to laserdisc would appear to be
'Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence', the end of 1983 or early 1984. I would appreciate
someone helping me with free articles on laserdisc release dates. The earliest known New Zealand title to be transfered to dvd is the January 1998 release of 'The Piano'.
Since there are arguments about whether 'The Piano' is a New Zealand or an
Australian production, some state that the first, all-New Zealand title to find
its way to dvd, would be Peter Jackson's 'Braindead aka: Dead Alive', which first appeared on dvd in September of 1998.
The first HD players were released in April, 2006. Blu-ray players followed in June 2006.
The first NZ HD-DVD title is Peter Jackson's 'King Kong', which showed up on HD,
14 November 2006. Again, there are those who will no doubt say that 'King
Kong' is not a New Zealand title, although that would be quite a stretch, but
if the criterion is that it has to be mostly New Zealand, with little outside money or input,
perhaps 'The World's Fastest Indian' would do, released 13 Feb. 2007. There are only three films that can be found on HD DVD: 'The Frighteners', 'King Kong' and 'The World's Fastest Indian'.
As of March 2010, there are 12 titles on Blu-Ray DVD with the first being 'The World's Fastest Indian', released 13 Feb. 2007.
As of June 2010, there are about 165 feature films on dvd that most people would consider New Zealand titles. Valid arguments could be made for adding titles and removing titles from such lists, including the ones found here. However in the end, all such lists are subjective, which leads to the saying: "That's what makes the world go 'round".
NOTE: All discs are single-sided, except for 'When Strangers Appear' which has a widescreen version on one side and a full-screen version on the other. 'Hot Target' is also a "flipper" as it is packaged with other (non-nz) titles; it also is "double-featured" on the same side with another (non-nz) title. IMDB (International Movie Datebase) ratings are a 1-10 scale - The reason that 'Iris' aka: 'Out of Time' and 'Taking the Waewae Express' do not yet show an IMDB rating is because IMDB's minimum of 5 votes has not been reached - You can change that with your vote.
I am offering some dvds for sale. Most are lightly used ones from my own collection, but there are a few new discs as well. Many are titles that are hard to find but I have priced them for quick sell. They all originated from authorized distributors. If you are looking for a unique gift item, you might find one here.