Prime Minister

Prime Minister (2025)

To rule is easy. To lead is hard.

A view inside the life of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, capturing her through five tumultuous years in power and beyond as she redefined leadership on the world stage.

Date of release
2025-06-13
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (14)
Runtime
1h 41m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz

Casting

Interesting facts

Prime Minister is a 2025 documentary film about Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand from 2017 to 2023. The film is directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025.

Production and release

After Ardern resigned from her role as prime minister in 2023, Dark Doris Entertainment asked Ardern for permission to create a documentary about her. Ardern agreed and Dark Doris Entertainment was given Gayford's recordings for use in the film. She later said that "I was sometimes a reluctant participant". Ardern has said that she supports the film because it did not use funding by the New Zealand Film Commission.

The film was co-produced by the companies MWM and Dark Doris Entertainment. It was directed by New Zealander Michelle Walshe and American Lindsay Utz and produced by Cass Avery, Leon Kirkbeck, Clarke Gayford, Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane and Katie Peck. Gayford has also been named a director of photography but was not involved in the directing or the editing.

In May 2025, Magnolia Pictures, HBO Documentary Films and CNN Films acquired distribution rights to the film, setting it for a 13 June 2025 release in the United States. It was screened for the New Zealand International Film Festival in August 2025, becoming one of the best-selling films in the history of the festival, before receiving a wider release in New Zealand on 25 September.

On 5 December 2025, the film released in the United Kingdom.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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