Best movies like Muru
Serve or protect?
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Muru Starring Cliff Curtis, Poroaki Merritt-McDonald, Tame Iti, Jay Ryan, and more. If you liked Muru then you may also like: 211, Utu, We Are Still Here, Whale Rider, Once Were Warriors and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Inspired by actual events, the story of a local Police Sergeant 'Taffy' Tawharau, who must choose between his badge and his people, when the Government launches an armed raid through his Ruatoki community, on a school day.
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Utu
In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Maori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile.
We Are Still Here
In a sweeping tale that spans 1000 years and multiple generations – from the distant past to the 19th century, the present day and a strange, dystopian future – this landmark collection traces the collective histories of Indigenous peoples across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Diverse in perspective, content and form, traversing the terrain of grief, love and dispossession, they each bear witness to these cultures’ ongoing struggles against patriarchy, colonialism and racism.
Whale Rider
On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny.
Once Were Warriors
A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.
The Dead Lands
Hongi, a Maori chieftain’s teenage son, must avenge his father’s murder in order to bring peace and honour to the souls of his loved ones after his tribe is slaughtered through an act of treachery. Vastly outnumbered by a band of villains led by Wirepa, Hongi’s only hope is to pass through the feared and forbidden “Dead Lands” and forge an uneasy alliance with a mysterious warrior, a ruthless fighter who has ruled the area for years.
Do Not Split
The story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, told through a series of demonstrations by local protestors that escalate into conflict when highly armed police appear on the scene.
Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web
The larger-than-life story of Kim Dotcom, the 'most wanted man online', is extraordinary enough, but the battle between Dotcom and the US Government and entertainment industry—being fought in New Zealand—is one that goes to the heart of ownership, privacy and piracy in the digital age.
Sweeney 2
The plot is set on a group of bank robbers, who are both violent and successful, strangely getting away each time with an amount around the £60,000 mark, and often leaving behind cash in excess of this sum. The robbers are willing to kill their own team, to get away. As Jack Regan himself puts it after the first raid in the film: "I've never seen so many dead people". Armed with gold-plated Purdey shotguns, they evaded Regan and the Flying Squad for quite some time, before Regan finds encouragement from his Detective Chief Superintendent who was sent down for corruption because Jack wouldn't testify in court for him.
Mahana
It is the 1960s. Two Maori families, the Mahanas and the Poatas, make a living shearing sheep on the east coast of New Zealand. The two clans, who are bitter enemies, face each other as rivals at the annual sheep shearing competitions. Simeon is a 14-year-old scion of the Mahana clan. A courageous schoolboy, he rebels against his authoritarian grandfather Tamihana and his traditional ways of thinking and begins to unravel the reasons for the long-standing feud between the two families. Before long, the hierarchies and established structures of the community are in disarray because Tamihana, who is as stubborn as he is proud, is not prepared to acquiesce and pursue new paths. The story is adapted from Witi Ihimaera's novel Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies.
The Maori Merchant of Venice
A modern day take on the classic bard tale - with Silver as a movie producer.
Flight of the Albatross
After a period of separation, Sarah visits her research scientist mother on a remote New Zealand island. Before long Sarah becomes inextricably involved in events involving both Maori legend and an Albatross.
The Case Against Brooklyn
A rookie cop takes on criminals who have the local government in their pocket.
The Convert
A lay preacher who arrives at a British settlement in 1830s. His violent past is soon drawn into question and his faith put to the test, as he finds himself caught in the middle of a bloody war between Maori tribes.
Desert Thunder
Terrorists threaten to launch a missile armed with deadly disease at Europe. A special unit is put together to stop them.
Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic
The government rates the global outbreak of a deadly flu virus as a major threat to the UK. It could happen at any time. To predict the impact of the next pandemic more accurately than ever before, new data is needed. Dr Hannah Fry is on the case. She sets out to recruit the nation to download the BBC Pandemic app in a ground-breaking experiment to help plan for when that happens. How quickly will it spread? How many could it kill? What can we do about it? Hannah masterminds the experiment and adopts the role of Patient Zero by walking the streets to launch the outbreak. Meanwhile, an emergency physician finds out why flu is still such a danger a century after flu killed up to 100mi people. He meets researchers trying to discover what makes some people more contagious and visits a factory that will produce vaccine when the next pandemic flu virus emerges. Armed with the information he gathers and the results of the BBC Four Pandemic experiment, they make a shocking revelation.
Black Power: America's Armed Resistance
Filmmaker Dan Murdoch spent last summer documenting clashes between a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and a growing Black Power movement. Now in a follow up to 'KKK: The Fight for White Supremacy' he returns to America to revisit some of the people he met from the KKK and also meet members of the Black Liberation Movement: to find out what black power means, what their motivations are and why their movement seems to be gaining traction. With rare access to members of the Black Liberation Movement, Murdoch quickly finds himself in the midst of an armed black militia, outraged at the treatment of black people at the hands of police, patrolling the streets of their communities and calling for change.
Uproar
UPROAR is a story about connection and finding your place in the world. It is the story of 17-year-old Josh Waaka (played by Julian Dennison). Set in Dunedin in 1981, a rugby-obsessed country is divided over the arrival of the South African Springboks team, sparking nationwide protests. Under pressure from home and school to conform, Josh, who has never felt like he fits in anywhere, is inspired by the protests to find his own voice. A sequence of events sees Josh embrace his community and follow his heart to his whakapapa (Māori heritage), which brings him and his whānau on a journey towards healing.
White Lies
A medicine woman - a giver of life - is asked to hide a secret which may protect one life but which will destroy another.
Crooked Earth
Will Bastion returns home from the army after an absence of 20 years to bury his father, the former chief of thee Maori tribe, Ngati Kaipuku. The eldest son, he is reluctant to inherit his fathers role, so it is taken more willingly by his younger brother, Kahu. Kahu is the leader of a band of drug dealers and trouble-makers who ride horses through the middle of town, wrecking peoples gardens. Under the guise of refusal of a land settlement, Kahu makes a large marijuana deal with some murdering city folk. Will must choose between loyalty for his brother and his father, Maori tradition, and contemporary financial issues.
Two Loves
American-born Anna Vorontosov teaches school in a remote, primitive section of northern New Zealand. Her experimental teaching methods have won her the love and affection of her pupils and their parents and the admiration of the unhappily married school inspector, Abercrombie. Her personal life, however, is less secure; frightened of love and sexually inhibited, she has always been aloof with men. Eager to break down this barrier is Englishman Paul Lathrope, a somewhat irrational and immature fellow teacher who aspires to be a singer. Though Anna is attracted to him, she refuses to submit to his advances.
John Brown's Raid
White abolitionist John Brown and twenty of his men attempt to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Based on true events.
Mark II
Three Maori youths, bored with Auckland, head south in a restored Mark II Zephyr in search of something different. One of them is on the run from drug dealers, whom he had crossed. Various mini-adventures occurs as they make their way down the North Island, but it all comes to a head while visiting a cousin. Finally, they, the drug dealers and the police all come together, with the expected fights and arrests.
The Pā Boys
The Pa Boys is an energetic, uplifting road movie capturing the best of New Zealand's culture, beauty, talent and music, whilst exploring themes of identity, friendship and discovering your roots.
Anthrax
When cattle mysteriously start dying of anthrax in a small Alberta ranching community, an RCMP officer tries to keep the peace as ranchers lay the blame on a local agricultural research center. A reporter encourages the angry ranchers - led by the Mountie's mother-in-law - to stage a sit-in at the research center. When an eccentric old rancher dies after being exposed to a deadly strain of anthrax, the protesters are quarantined. No one notices that the reporter has disappeared - along with several vials of the deadly bacteria. The RCMP officer begins his own investigation, gleaning information from a U.S. government agent. He finds himself racing against time to recover the stolen anthrax.
Arriving Tuesday
Monica arrives back from her big overseas experience to find her boyfriend Nick unchanged. Although Nick styles himself an artist, he is really something of a cultural redneck, and when the couple head up north for a break, and they meet up with Riki, a poet, who is rather less shallow and charming.
Broken Barrier
Tom Sullivan, a young Pakeha journalist researching a series of exploitative, tabloid articles on "the" Maori people becomes a casual labourer on a Mahia Peninsular farm. The emotional liaison he forms with Rawi, a young Maori woman exposes the racism engendered by the particular social attitudes and expectations of that time.
The Gunnery: A Montford Point Marine
In this heartfelt short film by Daniel Leonard Bernardi, Roosevelt Farrow, born in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression, shares his lifelong dream of becoming a U.S. Marine, despite the racial barriers of his time. Raised by his grandmother in humble conditions, he was inspired by the sight of Marines visiting his community. Farrow's determination led him to join the Marine Corps, where he faced the challenges of Montford Point boot camp and eventually became an expert marksman and retiring as a Gunnery Sergeant. Although he never saw combat due, in his view, to his beloved wife's prayers, he realized the significance of his journey when he witnessed black officers rising in the ranks. Farrow's story is a testament to perseverance and the pursuit of one's dreams, encouraging others not to give up on their aspirations despite austere beginnings and social injustice.
211
Inspired by one of the longest and bloodiest real-life events in police history, Officer Mike Chandler and a young civilian passenger find themselves under-prepared and outgunned when fate puts them squarely in the crosshairs of a daring bank heist in progress by a fearless team of highly-trained and heavily-armed men.