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 the laserdisc release date. 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, with some arguing that the first, all-New Zealand title to find its way to dvd, would be Peter Jackson's 'Braindead - aka: Dead Alive', which had its first dvd showing 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. As of the first of December, 2007, there are only three films that can be found on HD DVD: 'The Frighteners', 'King Kong' and 'The World's Fastest Indian'. So far, the only title on BluRay DVD is 'The World's Fastest Indian', released 13 Feb. 2007, but it appears that the second is 'Black Sheep' which became available in the UK 31 March 2008 and will be 11 June 2008 in New Zealand. When more NZ titles find their way to HD or BluRay DVD, a seperate listing for them will be added to this database.
As of the end of December, 2007, there are some 134 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: DVD UPC numbers are given, when known. Mulitple numbers reflect multiple distribution. All 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. They are indicated "SL" or "DL" as to whether they are single-layered or double-layered. IMDB (International Movie Datebase) ratings are a 1-10 scale - The reason that 'Iris' and 'Quiet Night In' do not yet have an IMDB rating is because IMDBs' required minimum of 5 votes has not been reached - You can help change that with your vote. In the case of 'Men Shouldn't Sing', it has yet to be added to IMDB's database (But they have been given the details).