We round up the best of the homegrown content coming to your screens this year.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

2025 is a brand new year, and with it comes a brand new year of television and films. While the local screen industry endured a brutal year in 2024 – and there are more challenges to come – TVNZ, Three, Whakaata Māori and Sky/Neon have all recently revealed their upcoming year of local programming, with plenty to look forward to. It includes a lot of factual and documentary shows, a mix of scripted drama and comedy, and a Lower Hutt man who discovers an alternative reality inside his garden shed. (Then again, who hasn’t?)

There’s also plenty of old favourites returning this year. Three has new seasons of Homebound 3.0, Paddy Gower Has Issues and David Lomas Investigates, while on TVNZ, The Brokenwood Mysteries returns, as does The Gone, Hui Hoppers, Educators and My Life is Murder. Shortland Street and Country Calendar are back on TVNZ too, as well as Taskmaster NZ, NZ’s Best Homes with Phil Spencer, Grand Designs NZ, Down for Love, Eat Well for Less NZ and Endangered Species Aotearoa. Award-winning series Homesteads returns to Whakaata Māori for a second season, as does architectural series The Drawing Board. (Sad face: there’s no mention of beloved reality shows like Celebrity Treasure Island or The Traitors NZ).

Here’s our hand-picked selection of the local TV shows and films to look out for in 2025.

Scripted

As far as scripted shows go, I’m keen to see Tangata Pai (Three), a drama that tells the story of five people in the last hour of their lives before a bomb is detonated at a Māori protest, and Secrets at Red Rocks (Neon, Sky Open), a family drama adapted from Rachael King’s award winning novel about a 12-year-old boy who discovers a mythical world after he finds a sealskin hidden on Wellington’s rocky coastline. Neon and Sky Open also have The Ridge, a six part psychological thriller from BBC Scotland and Sky New Zealand that tells the story of a woman who flees a disastrous life in Scotland to visit her estranged sister in Aotearoa, only to find her dead upon arrival.

In March, Whakaata Māori will screen End of the Valley, a new fluent drama series that follows a young man torn between rival tribes, and whose struggle between loyalty and survival leads him to an ancient taonga.

For comedy fans, don’t miss Warren’s Vortex (TVNZ), a series made by the team behind Wellington Paranormal which follows a Lower Hutt dad who discovers a hidden vortex in his garden shed. Small Town Scandal (Neon, Sky Open) sees Tom Sainsbury’s mockumentary true-crime podcast hit the small screen, as the comedian plays a disgraced journalist turned podcast host who investigates the death of his millionaire uncle in a town bursting with suspects.

Jono Pryor created and stars in Vince (Three), a comedy series about a TV presenter who’s dropped by his network after an unfortunate mishap and will do anything to clear his name, while Harry McNaughton and Rebecca Gibney star in musical comedy Happiness (Three), which sees a Broadway director return home to “smalltown Aotearoa” (aka Tauranga, our fifth biggest city) only to end up directing a local theatre production. There’s also Dead Ahead (TVNZ), a dramedy about a whānau who return to Aotearoa after a decade living overseas and inadvertently throw the balance between the physical and spiritual realms into disarray.

Documentary/Factual

A lot of this year’s TV seems to be about people travelling around looking at things. There’s the anticipated Miriam Margolyes in New Zealand (Neon and Sky Open from February 9), which sees the British Australian actor take a road trip through Aotearoa, while MKR NZ hosts Manu Fiedel and Colin Fassnidge take a caravan around the country in Off the Grid (TVNZ). New Zealand Tomorrow (Three) has Guy Williams roaming the motu in search of interesting “future focused stories”, while Love It or List It NZ (TVNZ) sees interior designer Alex Walls and real estate agent Paul Glover help homeowners decide whether to renovate or sell their property.

There’s also some great documentary series heading our way. I’ve seen the first few episodes of Queer Aotearoa: We’ve Always Been Here (TVNZ+, February 1), which is a fascinating and thoughtful docu-series that delves into the untold history of New Zealand’s LGBTQI+ community. Lomu: The Lost Tapes (Three) tells the story of All Black legend Jonah Lomu in his own words, while Don’t (TVNZ) sees comedian Bubbah Olo joined by other New Zealand comedians as they explore the important life choices facing rangatahi today. All Access Driving School (Neon, Sky Open) comes from the makers of Wheel Blacks: Bodies on the Line and follows a cast of learner drivers, each with a different disability, while also on Sky Open is Choir Games, about two different choirs who attend The World Choir Games, the biggest choral competition on the globe.

A series that’s sure to be an emotional watch is Hospice Heroes (Three), which introduces us to the staff and volunteers of one of New Zealand’s largest hospice facilities as they help terminally ill patients. It hopes to destigmatise hospices by showing the “humour, compassion and energy” that exists there. Over on TVNZ, funeral directors Kaiora and Francis Tipene take a journey through grief around the globe in The Casketeers: Life & Death Around The World.

Movies

Tinā (in cinemas February 27)

Written and directed by Miki Magasiva (Teine Sā, We Are Still Here, The Panthers), Tinā follows the story of Mareta, who is struggling after the death of her daughter in the Christchurch earthquakes. Taking on a role as a substitute teacher at an elite local private school, she finds a group of children in desperate need of guidance, inspiration, and love. “The film is a poignant portrayal of her journey through the dark valleys of sorrow and struggle, and eventually finding a degree of peace,” wrote RNZ. “Tinā is a soul-stirring journey of loss, healing, and cultural unity.”

The Rule of Jenny Penn (in cinemas March 25)

Stephen King called this locally-produced horror one of the best movies of last year, and we cannot wait till opens here in March. Directed by James Ashcroft, whose 2021 nightmare Coming Home in the Dark left us all like a deer in headlights, Jenny Penn is set within the confines of an aged care facility, where Geoffrey Rush finds himself stuck in a sadistic game run by ageing psychopath John Lithgow. We’re very scared and excited.

Holy Days

There’s no release date on this one yet but plenty to look forward to in this feature adaptation of Joy Cowley’s 2013 novel. Take one lost boy, three weird nuns on a mission, and a rickety old station wagon, and you’ve got a journey across the motu that, according to the production synopsis “just keeps going south”. With an all star international cast of nuns including Miriam Margolyes, Jacki Weaver and Judi Davis, as well as the debut of young local actor Elijah Tamati, this will surely be a New Zealand road movie to remember.