The New Zealand International Film Festival lineup is here

Elle Fanning in a scene from The Beguiled. Photo / AP

Kiwis are about to get the opportunity to see some of the world's biggest movies for the first time next month.

The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) has announced its full lineup today, including 21 offerings direct from the renowned Cannes Film Festival and a host of other critically lauded movies, documentaries and animations.

Sofia Coppola's hugely anticipated The Beguiled will make its NZ premiere at the festival, as will the much-anticipated horror flick It Comes At Night, which has been shaking up fans overseas with one reviewer calling it: "So dark it calls for the invention of a new colour".

There are also a host of documentaries coming to the festival including the Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro and homegrown documentaries such as Spookers, My Year with Helen and Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web.

A range of Kiwi filmmakers feature in the festival, including The Dead Lands director Toa Fraser who is back with another action film, 6 Days. And on Waru, a "sisterhood" of Maori female directors share a sequence of eight "hugely important" short films about child abuse in New Zealand.

Auckland cinephiles will also get extra treats in the form of several special events, including a screening of Jane Campion's Top of the Lake: China Girl series, and a live cinema performance by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra to accompany the 1927 film It, about jazz baby Clara Bow and the coining of the term "It girl".

And at the festival's end, crime caper Good Time - starring Twilight's Robert Pattinson - is confirmed to close both Auckland (August 5) and Wellington (August 13), with NZIFF director Bill Gosden guaranteeing it will "send festival goers back into the real world with a shot of pure adrenaline".

The NZIFF will run in 13 towns and cities around New Zealand, starting in Auckland on July 20 and Wellington on July 28.

The full film lineup and other information is now available to view at the NZIFF website.