Greenstone is the tale of a Māori woman whose beauty is used as a pawn by her ambitious father, Chief Te Manahau. In episode one, the missionary-educated Marama (Simone Kessell) travels to England with her father (George Henare), who sets about arranging an arms deal while she falls for their English host, ex-military man Sir Geoffrey Halford. Created for TV One by Greg McGee, the ambitious series was initially developed as a co-production between local company Communicado and the BBC. Local iwi Tainui helped fund the series, after the BBC withdrew.

This documentary recounts true stories of New Zealanders lost in the bush, by using a mixture of dramatic re-constructions, news footage and present day interviews. Survivors recount their terrifying ordeals, and experts give tips on bush survival. In this excerpt, father and son John and Matt Painting tell the story of their rescue from the Kaimanawa Ranges in September 2000, and bush expert Mike Spray explains how building a shelter rather than keeping on tramping through terrible weather conditions could have made all the difference at the time.

Each episode of Going Going Gone introduces sellers as they head to auction, and then sees if buyers agree with their valuations when the items go under the hammer. This opening episode heads to Turners for a classic car auction, and follows a woman selling off her antique family furniture, as her heirlooms are assessed then presented for sale by auctioneer James Parkinson. The show ends with a teaser: the arrival of a bejewelled solid gold bull at Webb’s auction house. The long-running popular factual show was made by Greenstone Productions for TVNZ. 

Nature documentary A Flock of Students captures footage of a species rarely caught on camera: a colony of young human 'freshers' who have migrated south to Dunedin. Over footage of nesting, university pie-eating contests and social gatherings, narrator Sydney Jackson provides insights into student display rituals, social groupings and early, "somewhat unfocused" attempts at courtship. As winter bites, temperatures fall below zero, and the male of the species builds up resistance by exposing itself to all available germs. David Kilgour (The Clean) provides the music.

In The Tem Show Temuera Morrison interviews and hangs with his entertainment whānau. This 'revenge of the bros' episode sees Tem korero with Kiwis involved in the Sydney-shot Star Wars chapters: he hakas with Jay Laga'aia and Bodie Taylor and cooks some eggs for Rena Owen in LA. He also meets George Lucas and gets cloned at Skywalker Ranch. Other guests in the series include uncle Howard Morrison, coaching Rotorua schoolboy rugby with Buck Shelford. This was Prime TV's first publicly funded local programme, and replayed on Māori Television.

Decades in Colour sourced home movies from more than 800 New Zealanders to paint a picture of New Zealand life, from "the inside out". Made by company Greenstone for Prime, each one-hour episode covered a decade from the 1950s to the 1970s, from post World War II recovery through to suburbia to cultural awakening. Presented by broadcaster Judy Bailey, the clips are narrated by the home moviemakers and their subjects. Bailey called it "a unique family history of the one family to which we all belong". A second series followed in October 2017. 

Auckland's Massive Company began in 1998 as a youth theatre group, committed to developing multicultural talent. Sons for the Road records a big moment in their evolution: performing at London's Royal Court Theatre, whose long history includes launching another piece of cross-cultural fertilisation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Their play is The Sons of Charlie Paora, a tale of rugby players and troubled male identity developed by Massive and UK writer Lennie James (who would later join the cast of hit The Walking Dead). The Independent called the play "wonderfully engaging".

Mercury Lane was a story-driven arts show that generally included a cluster of short documentaries, poetry and musical performances in each hour-long episode. This episode of the Greenstone-produced arts series features Sam Hunt interviewing acclaimed New Zealand poet Alistair Te Ariki Campbell. Campbell discusses his early childhood in the Cook Islands as the child of a Pākehā father and Polynesian mother, and reads a selection of poems. The programme ends with Auckland pianist Tamas Vesmas playing a Debussy prelude at the Auckland Art Gallery.

On 19 November 2010, the first of a number of explosions occured at the Pike River coal mine. Twenty-nine men were trapped in the tunnel. Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2017 NZ TV Awards, The Women of Pike River explored the lives of six of those left behind, who were wives and mothers of the miners. The disaster was NZ's worst single loss of life since the 1979 Erebus crash — until the 2011 Christchurch quake four months later. Despite assurances survivors would be rescued and the dead retrieved, new owners Solid Energy said the mine was too dangerous to re-enter. 

On 7 February 1863, the worst maritime disaster in New Zealand history occurred. British warship HMS Orpheus ran aground on a notorious sandbar at Manukau Heads, with the loss of 189 of the 259 onboard. Directed by John Milligan (Trio at the Top), this documentary was part of a series examining the country’s worst wrecks. Presented by Paul Gittins, it discusses the disaster, its cause, and the consequent investigations. While the British admiralty laid blame on the harbourmaster, local Māori interpreted the wreck as utu, for a breach of tapu by a Pākehā settler the previous day.