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.

Music videos — often they're no more than a promotional tool; sometimes they are works of art. They provide a chart of changing fashions and trends, and offer emerging filmmakers the chance to really show their stuff. The best clips lift the music even higher. So get your groove on for this career-spanning, 'best of' compilation: from mad scientists to metalheads, from Supergroove to The Naked and Famous — almost every Best Music Video winner at New Zealand's local music awards, since Andrew Shaw first took the prize for DD Smash's 'Outlook for Thursday' in 1983.

Steve Ayson’s supernatural short puts a twist on ‘domestic violence’ as a DIY home renovator fits a set of second-hand french doors to his doer-upper. He discovers that light isn’t all they let in. French Doors won selection to Melbourne and Clermont Ferrand festivals and sold to UK’s Channel 4 and France’s Canal Plus. At Locarno in 2002, Ayson won a ‘Leopard of Tomorrow’ prize, in a year the festival spotlit down-under films. Ayson has gone on to build a global career as a commercials director (including local classics Ghost Chips, and Lotto’s Lucky Dog).

The last novel by Taranaki author Ronald Hugh Morrieson revolves around a freezing plant worker (Peter McCauley) in an inter-racial marriage. The role of an English remittance man was expanded in a failed attempt to cast Peter O'Toole (the role ultimately went to NZ-born Bruce Spence). Morrieson's view of small town NZ is a dark one, as he explores racism, violence, murder, suicide and blackmail. Bruno Lawrence contributes to Jonathan Crayford's  jazz-tinged score, and features in the wedding band. The freezing works scenes were shot at the defunct plant in Patea.

This offbeat father and son feature was written by Scotsman Alan Sharp, and mostly filmed in the UK by a Fijian-Brit Kiwi. Lawrence of Arabia legend Peter O'Toole plays a stiff upper lip Englishman whose frosty relationship with his son warms after hearing an extraordinary tale of reincarnation from Reverend Dean Spanley (Sam Neill). Based on an Edward Plunkett novella, Toa Fraser's second feature won praise for its cast, and mix of comedy and poignancy, "intertwined to the last" (The Age). Spanley won a host of Qantas awards; GQ rated it their film of the year.

Sculptor (and Arts Foundation Icon) Greer Twiss is profiled in this episode of the early 80s series about notable artists, made for TVNZ. Twiss talks about his career and significant works, including the much loved Karangahape Rocks: an early, large scale bronze made at the limits of his ability at the time which twice caused him serious injury. His fascination with rendering functional everyday items — tools, wineglasses and rulers — as decorative sculptures is explored, along with his preference for working at home in the midst of his family life.

Maurice Gee's classic novel about aliens running amok under Auckland has rarely gone out of print, since its debut in 1979. First adapted as a memorable 80s TV series, this movie retooling sees teenage twins Theo and Rachel stumbling across shape-shifting creatures that are hiding beneath Auckland's extinct volcanoes. American showbiz magazine Variety praised Black Sheep director Jonathan King's "solid helming", and the excellent acting of Sam Neill as the mysterious Mr Jones. Oliver Driver plays lead villain Mr Wilberforce, under four hours of make-up.

A profile of New Zealand artist Julia Morison, made in the year she became an Arts Laureate. Morison is filmed in her studio “forming order from the chaos of her materials”. She explains how her tools and materials guide her image making – which in her thirty-year career, has ranged across a variety of media. The film also features her lesser known work – her collaborations with fellow artist Heather Straka, which include a series of short films, and a project entitled Madame and the Bastard.

This is the first installment in director Jason Stutter’s trilogy of short cautionary tales. The ingredients are simple: playful kid, dangerous tool. The recipe for a comic screen gem? Mix them up. Here a son, left alone after watching his Dad chop wood, has a go at figuring out how a heavy axe works ... in bare feet. With the economy of a Buster Keaton set-up, Careful’s razor sharp sense of squeamish anticipation saw it become a festival success. It was apparently inspired by listening to Pink Floyd song ‘Careful with that axe, Eugene’ on a road-trip.

In this series about butchery, Ken Hieatt dons his apron and saw to teach meat cutting skills in the home. Standing in front of two beef carcasses, Hieatt explains the tools of the trade and how to keep knives sharp. After sharpening his knife on a stone, Hieatt displays his skills by trimming his arm hairs. Hieatt assures the viewer that if you cut a beef carcass with his special technique, "you'll end up not 100% butcher but not too bad." State television produced several short programmes like this, from five to 15 minutes long, as show "fillers".