Jacinda Ardern in Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern in Prime Minister

Pop CultureMay 19, 2025

Everything we learned from the Jacinda Ardern movie trailer

Jacinda Ardern in Prime Minister
Jacinda Ardern in Prime Minister

There will be tears, there will be imposter syndrome, there will be a Clarke Gayford cinematographer credit. 

In January, reviews began pouring out of the festival circuit for Prime Minister, the feature length documentary following Jacinda Ardern over a period of seven years. Co-directed by New Zealand-based Michelle Walshe and American filmmaker Lindsey Utz, the documentary is said to encompass everything from her rise to power, to becoming the second women to ever give birth while in office, to leading the country through numerous disasters and eventually stepping down. 

Not to be confused with the other NZFC funded Jacinda Ardern documentary that is yet to surface, Prime Minister was made with the blessing of Ardern herself. This means unprecedented access and even some personal home video that sees Clarke Gayford secure a director of photography credit. “World leaders have rarely been captured with as much intimacy,” wrote Variety, who also noted that “the film’s lack of political complexity proves detrimental.”

You can read more of the early reviews here, including a B rating from IndieWire who said it “acts as an intimate study of what it means to serve others when it seems like the world is falling apart.” There’s still no indication of when Prime Minister will be released in Aotearoa, or when Clarke Gayford is launching his own cinematography masterclass, so here’s everything we’ve gleaned from the newly-released trailer in the meantime. 

Jacinda Ardern peers out at the Parliament protests in Prime Minister

There will be many landscape drone shots

First of all, it is simply not a documentary about Aotearoa if it isn’t stuffed to the gills with drone shots of our pristine beaches, our lush green bush and picturesque little cities. “Every time I got on a plane, I would look out the window and think ‘from that mountain to that river, that is my responsibility’,” Ardern muses at one point. 

There will be mic drops

“Do you think you can credibly lead a government?” one reporter asks in a media scrum shortly after Ardern steps into the role as Labour leader. “Would you like to tell me why you don’t think I can?” she retorts. If the punters at Sundance like that burn, wait till they hear about “arrogant prick” or the finger point that stopped the nation. 

Jacinda Ardern in Prime Minister

There will be tears

In her final address to parliament, Ardern famously said that you can be a leader and you can also be “a nerd, a crier, a hugger.” Silencing any allegations of crocodile tears in Prime Minister, she can be seen crying at multiple points during the trailer, and even admitted to crying throughout the premiere of the film. “I cried through most of it, and I’m not sure if that’s equivalent to laughing at your own jokes,” she said during the Sundance film festival. Cryception!

There will be meta moments

With a seven year shooting period comes plenty of time for reflection, and it appears Ardern will rewatch or listen to some of her earlier documentary interviews within the documentary. “In the back of my mind I thought, ‘how are we going to do this with a baby’,” she muses, before you realise she is actually listening to herself say that many years later. “I just feel sorry for myself listening to that,” she says in the present day. “Because I had no idea what was coming.”  

There will be baby stuff

One of the more memorable shots in the trailer is a heavily pregnant Ardern balancing a cup of tea on her big old belly on the couch at home. Presumably the work of legendary internationally-renowned cinematographer Clarké Gayførd, we also get very cute snippets of Neve celebrating with birthday cake, and scuttling away from a small robotic dog.

There will be imposter syndrome 

“I was 14 years old when someone first used the term imposter syndrome, and it was like something just clicked,” says Ardern over a shot of her Sun-inned teenage self. “I just had a bit of a fear that I shouldn’t be there.” You know who doesn’t have imposter syndrome? Neve’s small robotic dog, pictured here plotting world domination. 

There will be ‘dumpster fire’ 

We all remember the phenomenon of Lady Gaga’s phenomenal “there can be 100 people in a room” run during the promo for A Star Is Born, and now Ardern might be testing our patience with a catchphrase of her own: dumpster fire. Just today she told Yale students that the world has turned from “tumultuous to an all-out dumpster fire”, and in the trailer says this: “it’s hard to switch on the news some days and just think the world is a dumpster fire.” A fair few mentions to go before she can compete with Gaga, but something to keep tabs on for sure. 

There will be… everything? 

From Winston’s dramatic kingmaker decision to Ardern giving birth while in office and taking Neve to the UN, to catastrophic national events like the March 15 attacks and the eruption on Whakaari, to the pandemic and the parliament protests, the trailer also serves as a good reminder of just how much pivotal history we have experienced in Aotearoa in the very recent past. No wonder we all need a cup of tea, a lie-down, and a robot dog to do our bidding.

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Pop CultureMay 19, 2025

New to streaming: What to watch on Netflix NZ, Neon and more this week

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We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+

Tucci in Italy (Disney+, May 19)

Most recently playing an American cardinal in the fortuitously timed Conclave, acclaimed actor Stanley Tucci is no longer locked away in the Vatican but swapping the papacy for pasta. One mouthful at a time, and as debonair as ever, the charming sex symbol traverses Tuscany, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Abruzzo, and Lazio, indulging in the diverse culinary cultures of these regions. Per The Post’s James Croot, his appetite for conversation and cuisine is truly infectious and delightful.”

M9 (TVNZ+, May 19)

Blending a TED talk, a theatre show and whaikōrero, M9 returns with with nine orators delivering powerful kōrero on Te Ōhanga Māori. Visionary kaikōrero such as business leader Traci Houpapa, cultural strategist Te Wehi Wright, and founder of Māori Millionaire, Te Kahukura Boynton, all share their pathway to prosperity. From collective economic, to whanaungatanga, to mana motuhake, this groundbreaking special is bound to inspire the next wave of Māori innovators and entrepreneurs.

Sirens (Netflix, May 22)

The star-studded Sirens follows Devon DeWitt (Meghann Fahy) over one incendiary weekend, when she unexpectedly turns up at an idyllic seaside estate in search of her sister Simone (Milly Alcock). With Simone’s all-consuming new job and strange relationship with new boss (Julianne Moore), who also happens to be the seductive leader of a disquieting wellness cult, alarm bells soon start ringing. Billed as an incisive, sexy, and darkly funny exploration of women, power, and class,” this fusing of Get Out and A Simple Favor is sure to be sharp, savage, and salacious.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Neon, May 22)

Rarely are actors as powerful as the superheroes they embody – Christopher Reeve is the exception. From the documentarians who helmed McQueen, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story candidly charts the American actor’s meteoric rise to fame as Superman in the late 70s and his work as an activist after a freak horse-riding accident in the mid-90s left him paralysed. This extraordinarily moving and frequently unvarnished portraitof a super man will likely leave you in tears.

Nine Perfect Strangers (Prime Video, May 22)

Riding in on the coat-tails of The White Lotus, the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers departs from Liane Moriarty’s source material with a fresh setting and a new bunch of overworked city-dwellers. Invited for a week of transformational psychedelic therapy in the snow-caked Austrian Alps by mysterious director Masha (Nicole Kidman), the titular strangers include Henry Golding, Dolly de Leon, and Christine Baranski. Set to be pushed to the brink and “healed” while doing it, breathe in and get ready to trip out.

Pick of the Flicks: The Surrender (Shudder, AMC+, May 23)

Premiering at SXSW, Julia Max’s debut feature The Surrender may go under the radar without a theatrical release, but like Lake Mungo or Relic, this through-your-fingers supernatural horror is a hair-raising rumination on grief. Loosely inspired by Max’s own experience, the film hauntingly follows Colby Minifie’s fraught relationship with her grieving mother, who hires a malevolent figure to resurrect her recently deceased husband. Labelled as a wholly unique vision of grief, filled with carnage and unspeakable horror that escalates at a steady clip,” The Surrender is one to watch from behind the sofa.

The rest

Netflix

Untold: The Fall of Favre (May 20)

Sarah Silverman: Postmortem (May 20)

Newly Rich, Newly Poor (May 21)

Real Men (May 21)

Sneaky Links: Dating After Dark (May 21)

Tyler Perry’s She The People (May 22)

Sirens (May 22)

Brassic: S1-S3 (May 23)

Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds (May 23)

Fear Street: Prom Queen (May 23)

Off Track 2 (May 23)

Forget You Not (May 23)

Big Mouth: S8 (May 23)

Our Unwritten Seoul (May 24)

TVNZ+

M9 (May 19)

Code of Silence (May 19)

Grosse Pointe Garden Society (May 20)

Big Adventures in Thailand with Sue Perkins (May 21)

Confessions of Octomom (May 22)

Hot Tub Time Machine (May 22)

Attitude (25 May

Pathfinders S3 (25 May)

Watson (25 May)

Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain (May 25)

ThreeNow

Suburgatory S1-S3 (May 22)

Long Bright River (May 25)

Whakaata Māori

Under the Whāriki (May 19)

Neon

Underplayed (May 20)

Chinatown (May 21)

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (May 22)

Machete (May 23)

The Natural (May 24)

Greedy People (May 25)

Prime Video

Edge of Tomorrow (May 20)

Motorheads (May 20)

Nine Perfect Strangers (May 22)

Clarkson’s Farm S4 (May 23)

A Haunting in Venice (May 23)

Disney+

Tucci in Italy (May 19)

Minnie’s Bow-Toons: Pet Hotel (May 20)

Kaizen (May 21)

Pirates: Behind the Legends (Episodes 1-8) (May 21)

Apple TV+

Fountain of Youth (May 23)

Shudder/AMC+/Acorn/HIDIVE

Dead End Drive-In (Shudder, May 19)

The Surrender (Shudder, AMC+, May 23)

Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter S2 (AMC+, May 23)