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New Zealand keeps slipping into television as a place it is not, and sometimes as itself; a coastline that can pass for the Caribbean one week, or a black-sand ‘nowhere’ the next. The tells are small… a headland shape, a Pacific light, a familiar name in the credits.

Production notes and industry case studies sketch the pattern: Auckland soundstages doing heavy lifting, the South Island supplying scale, and crews moving between genres. The shows below are not always marketed as New Zealand shoots, but the record puts them there.

Cowboy Bebop: Auckland becoming a space western

Screen Auckland says Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop was filmed across Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland from July 2019 through to March 2021, a long shoot that scattered the show’s future-noir look across parks, streets, and industrial pockets.

RNZ reported 185 Auckland locations were used, and showrunner André Nemec pointed to the wider appeal of local crews, saying “Aotearoa is building an international reputation for the wealth of TV production talent available.”

Sweet Tooth: Sense of a real landscape

Sweet Tooth leans on softness, kids’ fantasy, quiet grief, yet its world is grounded in real places. Tourism New Zealand has highlighted locations from the Warkworth Cement Works to Te Henga Bethells Beach, and as far as the Tasman Glacier in Otago.

On Netflix’s Tudum site, showrunner Jim Mickle described one of the tougher shoots in plain language: “We shot that on a glacier in the South Island in New Zealand,” a line that doubles as a reminder that the series did not fake its extremes.

Our Flag Means Death: Built at Kumeū and dressed as the Caribbean

Our Flag Means Death looks loose on screen, rum and seawater, shouting, accidental romance, but its second season is documented as a major Auckland-based production. The New Zealand Film Commission lists it as based at Kumeū Film Studios with post-production in Auckland.

The same profile puts numbers on the footprint, 96% New Zealand film crew, 78% New Zealand cast, 67 shoot days, and 35 sets built, a reminder that a show set in the Caribbean can be assembled a short drive from downtown.

Between those set builds and location days, the behind-the-scenes life is ordinary, the weather calls, the coffee run, the in-jokes, and the kind of small talk that reaches everything from rugby to New Zealand’s top-rated online casino platforms when nights get long.

The Wilds: A ‘desert island’ made from black sand

Amazon’s The Wilds needed an island that looked inviting and unsettling at the same time. Auckland’s west coast has that reputation, and a Screen Auckland case study noted filming at Te Henga Bethells Beach and Karioitahi Beach, among other regional spots.

A visual effects case study described the series as filmed almost entirely in the Auckland region, with rugged black-sand beaches playing a central role, which fits the show’s tone, paradise with an edge, and a constant feeling that the landscape is watching.

Fantasy and Franchises: Shannara, Seeker, Spartacus, and Power Rangers

Long before streaming made location chatter a marketing tool, New Zealand was already a reliable home for television fantasy. The New Zealand Film Commission says The Shannara Chronicles was shot on location around Auckland and at Auckland Film Studios, wrapping in June 2015.

Legend of the Seeker, another American-led fantasy series, was shot entirely in New Zealand, based in Auckland, with filming that reached the Queenstown region, according to its production history, proof that the same country can supply forest gloom and alpine drama.

Spartacus represents a different use of that capability. The New Zealand Film Commission notes a $200 million investment, with post-production and visual effects done in Auckland.

Then there is Power Rangers, a franchise that has quietly banked years in the city. Screen Auckland marked the release of Power Rangers Cosmic Fury by noting more than two decades of filming in Auckland, a duration that speaks less to scenery than to a production base that keeps functioning.

Prestige Drama: Where NZ is Allowed to be Itself

Not every show tries to disguise the country. Top of the Lake was filmed for 18 weeks on location in Queenstown and Glenorchy, with Glenorchy doubling as the fictitious town of Laketop, according to the series’ production notes.

Jane Campion told Radio Times the landscape mattered to the feeling of the story, calling it “It really is a frontier and it’s gorgeous,” a phrase that sits close to what the camera records: cold water, hard mountains, a kind of isolation.

The Luminaries stayed even closer to the map. The New Zealand Film Commission describes it as a series where 100% of the story takes place and was shot in New Zealand, a prestige drama that did not need to hide the setting to travel internationally.

In a Radio Times interview about locations, director Claire McCarthy described the choice to film on the West Coast as deliberate, saying “We were really, really committed to wanting to shoot in Ngāti Waewae,” a line that points to place as more than backdrop.

Rings of Power, incentives, and the moving target of scale

The biggest productions can turn New Zealand into a headline, then move on. The Guardian reported in August 2021 that Amazon would shift The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, to the UK after its first season, even as post-production continued in New Zealand into 2022.

MBIE describes the New Zealand Screen Production Rebate as 20% for international productions, with 25% possible in certain circumstances, and the New Zealand Film Commission notes an additional uplift can apply when criteria are met.

Put alongside the credits above, the picture is less mystical than it looks on screen. Auckland can double as almost anywhere, the South Island can deliver scale, and the industry can keep turning out work that does not advertise where it was made.

Overview of TV Shows Filmed in New Zealand

A quick, high-level roll call of series that have put New Zealand locations on screen, with filming areas and principal production windows noted in brackets.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Auckland, Kumeū studios, 2020-2021)

• Cowboy Bebop (Auckland, 2019-2021)

• Sweet Tooth (New Zealand, 2019-2020)

• Our Flag Means Death (Season 2) (Auckland region (including Piha), 2022)

• The Shannara Chronicles (Auckland Film Studios, 2015)

• Legend of the Seeker (Auckland and Queenstown region, 2008-2010)

• Spartacus (Auckland, 2009-2013)

• Power Rangers (Auckland, 2003-2022)

• Xena: Warrior Princess (Auckland, Waitākere Ranges, 1995-2001)

• The Brokenwood Mysteries (Warkworth and Auckland region, 2014-present)

• Top of the Lake (Queenstown and Glenorchy, 2012)

• The Luminaries (West Coast and Northland, 2019)

• The Wilds (Auckland region, 2019-2020)

Final Thoughts

All in all, these series show a country that works as both a disguise and a destination. The surprise is how often the same patches of coast and the same studio corridors can be reshaped into entirely different worlds.

For viewers, the discovery arrives late, a location name in a production note, or a familiar beach hiding in plain sight. For crews on the ground, it is another day of turning New Zealand into television.