16 New Zealand screenwriters

Andrew Ralph Adamson is a New Zealander film director, producer and screenwriter based mainly in Los Angeles, where he directed the Academy Award-winning animated films Shrek and Shrek 2. He was director, executive producer, and scriptwriter for the 2005 production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He also worked on the movies Batman Forever and Batman & Robin as a visual effects supervisor.

Philippa Jane Boyens is a New Zealand screenwriter and film producer who co-wrote the screenplay for Peter Jackson's films The Lord of the Rings series, King Kong, The Lovely Bones, and the three-part film The Hobbit, all with Jackson and Fran Walsh.

Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. She is the second of five women ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and the first and only female filmmaker to receive the Palme d'Or, which she received for the acclaimed film The Piano (1993), for which she also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Among her other directed films An Angel at My Table and Bright Star are the most highly regarded.

Nikola Jean Caro is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals. She was hired to direct the 2020 live-action version of Disney's Mulan, making her the second female and the second New Zealand director hired by Disney to direct a film budgeted at over $100 million.

Ellory Elkayem is a New Zealand film director.

Sir Peter Robert Jackson is a New Zealand film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03) and the Hobbit trilogy (2012–14), both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien. He is the third-highest-grossing film director of all time, his films having made over $6.5 billion worldwide.

Charles Knight is a New Zealand filmmaker.

Anthony McCarten is a New Zealand novelist, playwright, journalist, television writer and filmmaker. He is best known for writing the biopics The Theory of Everything (2014), Darkest Hour (2017), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and The Two Popes (2019). He received Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for The Theory of Everything and The Two Popes.

David Alexander McPhail is a New Zealand comedic actor and writer whose television career spans four decades. McPhail first won fame on sketch comedy show A Week of It, partly thanks to his impressions of New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. He went on to appear in multiple series of sketch show McPhail and Gadsby, and hit comedy Letter to Blanchy. All three shows featured his longtime friend Jon Gadsby.

James William Napier Robertson is a New Zealand writer, film director and producer, who wrote and directed 2009 film I'm Not Harry Jenson, and 2014 film The Dark Horse, for which he won Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Film at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards, and which was declared by New Zealand critics "One of the greatest New Zealand films ever made".

Andrew Niccol is a New Zealand screenwriter, producer, and director. He wrote and directed Gattaca (1997), Simone (2002), Lord of War (2005), In Time (2011), The Host (2013), and Good Kill (2014). He wrote and co-produced The Truman Show, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 1999 and won him a BAFTA award for Best Screenplay. His films tend to explore social, cultural and political issues, as well as artificial realities or simulations.

Peter David Broughton, generally known as Rawiri Paratene, is a New Zealand stage and screen actor, director and writer. He is known for his acting roles in Whale Rider (2002) and The Insatiable Moon (2010).

Peter Salmon is a New Zealand based film and television writer/director.

Taika David Cohen, known professionally as Taika Waititi, is a New Zealand film and television director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and comedian. He is the recipient of an Academy Award as well as two further nominations. He has also received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. His feature films Boy (2010) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) have each been the top-grossing New Zealand film.

Dame Frances Rosemary Walsh is a New Zealand screenwriter, film producer, and lyricist. She has won BAFTA and Oscars for her music, film-producing, and script-writing.

Vincent Ward is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and artist, who was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2007 for his contribution to film. His films have received international recognition at both the Academy Awards and the Cannes Film Festival. The Boston Globe called him "one of film's great image makers", while Roger Ebert, one of America's foremost film critics, hailed him as "a true visionary."