From the icons (Sky Tower, Otara Market, Rangitoto, The Bridge), celebs, clans and stereotypes (Jafas), to the streets (Queen St, K Road), and Super City suburbs (Ferndale, Mt Raskill, Morningside), this collection celebrates Auckland onscreen. Reel through the moods and the multicultural, metro, muggy charms of New Zealand’s largest city. In this backgrounder, No. 2 director Toa Fraser writes about Auckland as a place of myth, diversity and broken jaws.

This collection gathers classic screen moments for the pavlova and pohutukawa season: from broadcasting icons (Goodnight Kiwi, Thingee), to barbies, bickering and beer. Families come together to eat and drink (Alison Holst, Peta Mathias, Graham Kerr), and fall apart (in full-length dramas from Niki Caro and Gregory King). Plus the Ghost Chips guy, and a Santa with tattoos.

This 1991 story from magazine show Sunday profiles Logan Brewer: production designer on Kiwi TV classics (C’Mon, Hunter’s Gold), and producer of Terry and the Gunrunners and live ‘spectaculars’ like the 1990 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. He talks through his career: learning about performing at England's National Theatre, and selling Aotearoa as “the last paradise” for Expo '92 in Seville — for which he is shown wrangling an extended shot of Kiri Te Kanawa and the NZ Symphony Orchestra, promoting fibreglass pohutukawa, and working with designer Grant Major.

This 21 December 1999 Xmas episode of Havoc 2000 recaps the show’s memorable moments of the year. The malarky includes various Kiwi TV celebrities, a notorious visit to Gore, cracking up at puns in Bulls, Angela D'Audney entoning Doors lyrics, 'Fun with Meat' classics, a nude horse, a honeytrap for presenter Nick Eynon, and Mikey bungy jumping from the Harbour Bridge. On the music front there’s truck bed tunes from The Hasselhoff Experiment, and an interview with dub pioneer Lee 'Scratch' Perry. The finale features a Ferrari and a "peace out" from newsreader Tom Bradley. 

In this documentary, writer and satirist Peter Hawes crosses the Bombay Hills border in his Morris van to record his take on mid 1980s Auckland. Pocked with as many puns as Auckland has volcanic craters, Hawes' profile is a sprawling, breezy look at New Zealand's largest city: from a Chase Corporation high rise to shearing sheep in Cornwall Park; from Eden Park to Bastion Point. Interviews (with politicians, sportspeople, gossip columnists, strip club fashion designers) are mixed with skits covering jogging, bridge building, shipwrecks, multiculturalism and sewers.

Haunui Royal directs this 1999 documentary on the people who live in the Far North, and their guardianship (kaitiakitanga) connection with the land and sea. Royal looks at how this traditional ownership is under pressure: from urban sprawl, pollution, and changing land use. Kaitiaki include farmer Laly Haddon, fisherman Rick, paralegal Ani Taniwha (whose work with ōi (shearwater) helped deepen her connection to the land); Ngāti Kuri members looking after Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga), and a group of rangatahi from Auckland.

In this short film, Māori kaumātua Laly Haddon and his Pākehā wife Sharley are interviewed about their relationship to each other and the land. The couple’s kōrero ranges from computers and tapu places, to horse breeding and racism, providing a lens through which to explore love, biculturalism and belonging. Cathy Macdonald’s film was part of international documentary Other Than, made up of 11 short films involving the theme of diversity. A 2013 Washington Post review found Turangawaewae “capable of great feeling”. Ngāti Wai leader Haddon died in Pakiri in July 2013.

This documentary looks at the history of the island of Motutaiko, the prominent landmark in the middle of Lake Taupō. Motutaiko is a sacred site for Ngāti Tūwharetoa. Directors Toby Mills and Moana Maniapoto use interviews and shots of island life to examine Motutaiko’s geological and mythological origins, its strategic place in Māori history (from the muttonbirds that gave the island its name, to its role as a stronghold), desecration of burial sites, and its contemporary place as a conservation bastion free of predators — and home to rare birds, insects and trees.

This 2014 series looks at the role of architects on Kiwi building projects, as they respond to the challenges of budget, environment, site and client expectations. In this last episode of the series, host Peter Elliott asks if "architectural design can be financially achievable". He meets company Herbst Architects, and talks space, emotion and design for a steep Waiheke Island section, and a modular bach. Two fathers share the build of a John Irving-designed beach house; and a Point Chevalier house designed by A Studio aims for zero energy. Plus Elliott recaps the series' grand designs.

In this award-winning tourism promo, an easy-going narrator guides us through a land of contrasts — “where else would you find golf and geysers?”. The sights range from frozen to boiling lakes, characterful cities to odd natives (kiwi, takahē, carnivorous snails). Visual highlights include quirky road-signs (“beware of wind”, “slow workmen ahead”), toheroa digging and a flotilla of capsizing optimists. Directed by NFU veteran Ron Bowie, the film won an award at the 1963 Venice Film Festival, before headlining a special Amazing New Zealand season of shorts in NZ cinemas.