Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) is Taika Waititi's adventure comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Ricky Baker, a defiant city kid who's run out of foster homes, lands with his last chance: a remote farm on the edge of the New Zealand bush, with warm-hearted Aunt Bella and her gruff husband Hec.

Just as Ricky settles in, Bella dies. Child services wants to pull him back into the system, so he bolts into the wilderness instead. Hec goes after him, and when a zealous welfare officer named Paula decides the antisocial old man has kidnapped the boy, the whole country gets dragged into the chase. A chubby misfit and a grumpy hermit end up at the center of a national manhunt, hiding out in the hills with a dog, a rifle and a mutual irritation that slowly hardens into something like family. Sam Neill plays Hec dry and exact; young Julian Dennison carries half the film on pure stubbornness.

Waititi adapted Barry Crump's novel Wild Pork and Watercress, blending a road movie, a survival escape and his own brand of deadpan absurdity. The bush itself becomes a character — fog, ferns and endless green ridges. The film became the highest-grossing New Zealand release of its day and opened Waititi's path to Hollywood. Stream Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) online on iFILM.