Matthew Sunderland

Acting

Matthew Sunderland

Matthew "Matt" Sunderland  (born c.1972) is a New Zealand actor. He performed the lead role of David Gray in the feature film Out of the Blue, based on the events of the Aramoana Massacre. At the New Zealand Screen Awards in 2008 he won Best Actor Award for this role. Sunderland was also nominated for a Best Actor Award in the 2006 NZ Screen Awards for Natures Way, which screened In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. His other feature film roles include A Song of Good, Christmas, Stringer and Woodenhead as well as more than twenty short films. Sunderland graduated from The New Zealand Drama School Toi Whakaari in 1997 and has concentrated on New Zealand film work with numerous theatre excursions also. He has appeared at the Silo Theatre (Fool for Love, Blasted), and the Herald Theatre (Trainspotting) in Auckland, and the Court Theatre in Christchurch (Peninsula) . Sunderland appeared in the New Zealand soap opera Shortland Streets first official 90 minute episode as White Dragon in a storyline concluding the 3 year Kieran Mitchell story arc. Description above from the Wikipedia article Matthew Sunderland, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Acting credits

Pearl poster
7.2

Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions collide.

Pearl

2022

The Lost City of Z poster
6.4

A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.

The Lost City of Z

2017

The Stranger poster
6.2

Two strangers strike up a conversation on a long journey. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them — and in the background, one of the nation's largest police operations is closing in.

The Stranger

2022

6 Days poster
6.0

London, England, April 1980. Six terrorists assault the Embassy of Iran and take hostages. For six days, tense negotiations are held while the authorities decide whether a military squad should intervene.

6 Days

2017

The Nightingale poster
7.0

In 1825, Clare, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

The Nightingale

2018

Cellar Door poster
5.7

Looking for a fresh start after a miscarriage, a couple find themselves being gifted the house of their dreams with one caveat – they can never open the cellar door. Whether they can live without knowing triggers shocking consequences.

Cellar Door

2024

A Mistake poster
6.3

In the midst of a new scheme to publicly report surgeons’ performance, a gifted surgeon’s life is thrown into disarray as her colleagues begin to close ranks, and even her partner, a nurse at the hospital, turns her back on her.

A Mistake

2023

The Little Death poster
6.7

A comedy film that looks into the loosely connected lives of people with strange sexual fantasies.

The Little Death

2014

Bloody Hell poster
6.5

A man with a mysterious past flees the country to escape his own personal hell... only to arrive somewhere much worse. In an effort to survive this new horror, he turns to his personified conscience.

Bloody Hell

2020

Backtrack poster
5.8

Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.

Backtrack

2015

Under the Mountain poster
4.5

Teenage twins battle dark forces hidden beneath Auckland's volcanoes.

Under the Mountain

2009

Out of the Blue poster
6.4

Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.

Out of the Blue

2006

Seeds poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Seeds

No artwork available
NR

A miserable fishing enthusiast must overcome the darker creature that lives inside him to reconnect with his wife.

A Moray

2019

Savage poster
6.8

Inspired by the true stories of New Zealand's street gangs across 30 years, we follow Danny at three defining moments in his life as he grows from a boy into the violent enforcer of a gang.

Savage

2019

Freedom Fighter poster
NR

There is no safe place to hide when the desire to dance calls Iuli'a, an overstayer, to choose between her own freedom and the safety of those she is responsible for.

Freedom Fighter

2023

Poppy poster
6.0

Poppy is a Performance-Captured CGI drama set on France's western front in World War One. Two New Zealand soldiers are trapped behind enemy lines and are trying to find their way to safety. They find an orphaned baby under it's dead parents in a ditch. One of the men wants to save it, the other does not.

Poppy

2009

The Devil's Rock poster
5.6

Set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D Day, two Kiwi commandos, sent to destroy German gun emplacements to distract Hitler's forces away from Normandy, discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash demonic forces to win the war.

The Devil's Rock

2011

Tales from the Apocalypse poster
5.1

This gripping sci-fi anthology film features five thrilling stories about space travel and black holes, family and loss, and artificial intelligence.

Tales from the Apocalypse

2022

Kiss Me Deadly poster
4.8

Settled into a cozy home life in Milan with his boyfriend Paolo and his daughter Julia, photographer and ex-spy Jacob Keane is suddenly drawn back into the espionage world when his old partner Marta reappears with her memory erased.

Kiss Me Deadly

2008

No artwork available
NR

A troubled missionary, led by a rough Pākehā guide, treks through the forest of 1820s Aotearoa. On a journey to deliver a musket to a distant leader, they are surprised by the appearance of a young Māori man who proclaims he’s been sent to guide them. After joining their party, it is not long before the cultural differences of the trio divide them, and the missionary is forced into an awful revelation of his true nature

Saviour

2022

Desperate Remedies poster
5.6

In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?

Desperate Remedies

1993

Woodenhead poster
6.1

An innocent rubbish tip assistant, Gert, is given the task of escorting a beautiful mute "princess", Plum, on a perilous journey to meet her prospective husband. Their journey is fraught with danger, challenges, romance and discovery. In surreal action, they encounter a menagerie of characters and animals in far-flung corners of New Zealand.

Woodenhead

2003

Woodenhead poster
6.1

An innocent rubbish tip assistant, Gert, is given the task of escorting a beautiful mute "princess", Plum, on a perilous journey to meet her prospective husband. Their journey is fraught with danger, challenges, romance and discovery. In surreal action, they encounter a menagerie of characters and animals in far-flung corners of New Zealand.

Woodenhead

2003