--- name: "Geoff Murphy" canonical: "https://film.one/person/geoff-murphy" fi1m_id: "geoff-murphy" imdb_id: "nm0614276" tmdb_id: 32277 wikidata_id: "Q1350663" roles: ["Director"] born: "13 June 1946" died: "3 December 2018" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 76 average_as: "director" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-26T01:11:08.032614+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Geoff Murphy ## Identity Geoff Murphy - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/geoff-murphy - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** geoff-murphy - **IMDb ID:** nm0614276 - **TMDB ID:** 32277 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1350663 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Murphy, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1350663, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0614276/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/32277 Director. Born 13 June 1946 in Wellington, North Island, New Zealand. Died 3 December 2018. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 13 June 1946, Wellington, North Island, New Zealand - **Died:** 3 December 2018 - **Active:** 1983–2001 - **Also known as:** Geoff Murhphy - **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 2 directing, 1 crew - **Frequently works with:** [Anzac Wallace](https://film.one/person/anzac-wallace.md), [Bruno Lawrence](https://film.one/person/bruno-lawrence.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 76, as director, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1980s 76 (2), 2000s 90 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Murphy, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1350663, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0614276/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/32277 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Quiet Earth*](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-earth.md) (78) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Geoff Murphy > Geoff Murphy took the western, the road film and the last-man-on-Earth story and set them loose in New Zealand, where they looked new. The one to see is *Utu*, rough and fair and a little unruly; Hollywood later gave him bigger toys and less to say. Early in *Utu* (1983), Te Wheke comes back to a village the colonial army has burnt, and Geoff Murphy holds on his face while it is tattooed. A few scenes on, a colonel wheezes through a piece of farce. That is Murphy in one reel: a director who could carry a story in an image and could not resist a joke, and who would cut from a slaughter to a pratfall without warning. He came out of Blerta, a multi-media collective, self-taught, shooting shorts and television. The first film anyone noticed was *Goodbye Pork Pie* (1981), a car-chase comedy co-written with Ian Mune and shot by Alun Bollinger, and the first New Zealand feature to find a large audience at home. *Utu* came two years later and took the shape of a western into the bush of the 1870s. *The Quiet Earth* (1985) left one man alone in an emptied world and got him noticed abroad. Three films, three borrowed genres, one country, and Bruno Lawrence from the Blerta circle in front of the camera more often than not. Then Hollywood. After *Never Say Die* (1988) came a decade of assignments: *Young Guns II* (1990), *Freejack* (1992), *Under Siege 2: Dark Territory* (1995). They are action films made to order, and most critics have filed them as routine, and we are not going to argue. It is hard to find the man who made *Utu* in any of them. He went home in the early 2000s to shoot second unit on Peter Jackson's *The Lord of the Rings* films, made *Blerta Revisited* (2001) about the old collective, and *Spooked* (2004), a conspiracy thriller that could not settle its tone either. What he did best was fairness. Robert Aldrich's *Ulzana's Raid* (1972) kept its Apache a shape on the horizon; Murphy puts Te Wheke in the middle of the frame, gives him the best lines and lets us read every thought, and Anzac Wallace repays him. We came to *Utu* expecting a colonial adventure with a villain in it and found ourselves, twenty minutes in, on the side of the man with the tattooed face and the grievance, which unsettled us and was plainly meant to. The weaknesses are the ones his admirers already know. The tone lurches, Michael J. Horton and Ian John's cut loops back to the start and loses the long chase in the middle, and the love story has about a page of writing behind it. Murphy said his education as a filmmaker was made shooting silent films: "I still love those sequences where people don’t talk, and the whole story is carried in little actions and the attention of the camera on certain details." That is the director worth looking for. Start with *Utu*, and watch what happens when he trusts the picture and lets the joke go. He did not do it often enough. When he did, the films still hold. ## On Fi1m (3) ### Directed (2) — the average rests on these - *The Quiet Earth* (1985), Fi1m 78, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-earth.md) - *Utu* (1983), Fi1m 74, as Wagon Driver — [page](https://film.one/film/utu.md) ### Crew (1) - *The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring* (2001), Fi1m 90, Second Unit Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring.md) ## Complete filmography (30) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *xXx: State of the Union* (2005), Second Unit Director - *Spooked* (2004), Screenplay, Director - *The Land Has Eyes* (2004), Post Production Supervisor - *The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring* (2001), Second Unit Director — Fi1m 90, [page](https://film.one/film/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring.md) - *Race Against Time* (2000), Director - *Fortress 2* (2000), Director - *The Magnificent Seven* (1998), series, Director - *Dante's Peak* (1997), Associate Producer, Second Unit - *Don't Look Back* (1996), Director - *Under Siege 2: Dark Territory* (1995), Director - *The Last Outlaw* (1993), Director - *Blind Side* (1993), Director - *Freejack* (1992), Director - *Young Guns II* (1990), Director - *Red King, White Knight* (1989), Director - *Never Say Die* (1988), as Jack · Producer, Director, Screenplay - *Mauri* (1988), as Mr Semmens · First Assistant Director, Associate Producer - *Kaleidoscope* (1987), as Subject - *Mr. Wrong* (1986), Screenplay - *The Quiet Earth* (1985), Director — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/the-quiet-earth.md) - *Utu* (1983), as Wagon Driver · Director, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/utu.md) - *Goodbye Pork Pie* (1981), Author, Director, Producer - *The Last Outlaw* (1980), series, Special Effects - *Sleeping Dogs* (1978), Special Effects - *A State of Siege* (1978), Assistant Director - *Wild Man* (1977), as Printer · Writer, Director - *Dagg Day Afternoon* (1977), as Man in the Street · Writer, Director - *Uenuku* (1974), Director - *Tank Busters* (1970), Director - *Hurry Hurry Faster Faster* (1965), Writer, Director ## Awards ### Other awards — 2 won - honorary doctor of Massey University 2014: honorary doctor of Massey University (won) - Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit 2014: Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/geoff-murphy