The Ian Mune Collection: Celebrating A Titan Of New Zealand Screen

NZ On Screen has launched The Ian Mune Collection, celebrating one of the most influential and enduring figures in Aotearoa’s screen history.

Spanning more than five decades, Ian Mune’s career as an actor, writer and director is woven through the fabric of New Zealand film and television. From early television drama and landmark cinema, through decades of award-winning work, Mune’s career has helped define what New Zealand stories look and sound like on screen.

The new collection features titles from across Mune’s remarkable career, and includes newly commissioned writing from film and television journalist Dominic Corry, plus rare reflections from two of Mune's key collaborators and friends — Sam Neill and Roger Donaldson.

“Ian is a total artistic chameleon,” says Donaldson. “He can draw, he can paint, he’s a brilliant sculptor, he can write and direct, and boy, can he act. His enormous body of work speaks for itself.”

Neill echoes that admiration. “I put his consummate skill as an actor down to not just technical expertise, but a profound and wise understanding of humankind. That is rare indeed.”

For Corry, Mune has been “a reliable and reassuring presence throughout pretty much the entirety of the existence of the New Zealand screen industry” — one of the few figures to have shaped it both in front of and behind the camera. His presence can be felt at nearly every major turning point in local screen history, from the birth of modern New Zealand cinema in the 1970s to contemporary film and television today.

The collection highlights Mune’s central role in Sleeping Dogs (1977), widely regarded as a cornerstone of New Zealand cinema. Mune co-starred in the film, helped adapt the screenplay from CK Stead’s novel Smith’s Dream, and worked as one of the film’s art directors — a reflection of the all-hands-on-deck approach that defined the industry’s early years.

From there, the collection traces a remarkable creative run. He collaborated with director Geoff Murphy on the screenplay for Goodbye Pork Pie, and as a director, Mune delivered defining works including Came a Hot Friday (1985) — New Zealand’s first major big-screen comedy hit — The End of the Golden Weather (1991), The Whole of the Moon (1997), and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1999), the country’s first feature film sequel, and NZ’s second-highest earning film of the 1990s (eclipsed only by Once Were Warriors).

Alongside these films sits a wealth of television work that reveals Mune's diverse creative interests and deep commitment to local storytelling. Included in the collection is his award-winning performance in the early drama series Moynihan, alongside groundbreaking anthology series Winners & Losers and confronting telefeature Derek — both collaborations with Roger Donaldson. Mune's writing for children is showcased over two telemovie-length adventures with The Mad Dog Gang, and he wears both writing and acting hats in the comedy series Letter to Blanchy.

As an actor, Mune became synonymous with an authentic, grounded Kiwi presence — playing jokers, gruff authority figures, and everyday New Zealanders. With over 70 screen roles and seven acting awards, he’s played everyone from Satan in short film D.S.B, to Prime Minister Robert Muldoon in Fallout.

Still active today, Mune appears in recent feature films The Rule of Jenny Pen and Pike River (2025), as well as the sci-fi comedy Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant, which premiered at Sundance in 2026. Knighted in 2024 and named a Television Legend at the 2022 NZ TV Awards, his contribution to New Zealand screen culture is ongoing.

The Ian Mune Collection brings together key works from across his career, alongside in-depth interviews, documentaries and background material — offering audiences the chance to revisit a body of work that helped build New Zealand’s screen industry from the ground up.

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