Which 1994 Peter Jackson film is based on a true crime story?

Peter Jackson’s 1994 film based on a true crime story is Heavenly Creatures. The New Zealand biographical crime drama dramatizes the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case, in which teenagers Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme killed Pauline’s mother, Honorah Parker, in Christchurch.

Jackson co-wrote and directed the film with Fran Walsh. Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet made their feature-film debuts as Pauline and Juliet, whose intense friendship and elaborate fantasy world become increasingly important as tensions grow around them. The film uses stylized imagery to show how imagination and reality overlap in the girls’ lives.

Heavenly Creatures is based on real events, but it is a dramatized film rather than a documentary. Jackson drew on court records and contemporary accounts while shaping the story around the emotional relationship between the two central characters. The film was also notable for introducing audiences to Lynskey and Winslet, both of whom later became major international actors. Its true-crime foundation distinguishes it from Jackson’s horror comedy Braindead, fantasy comedy The Frighteners, and drama The Lovely Bones.