The Most Famous People from New Zealand
Top 28 of 28 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
Crowe, Jackson, Rosé, Lorde: New Zealand's fame is screen and pop, not rugby
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
The August 2026 New Zealand list is led by an actor, a filmmaker and two singers, and no All Black makes the top fifteen.
Russell Crowe, born in Wellington and made in Hollywood, is the most famous person from New Zealand in the world for August 2026, with a fame score of 17.6. Peter Jackson, the filmmaker and visual effects pioneer, is second at 15.8. Rosé, the Blackpink singer who is both New Zealand and South Korean, is third at 15.3, and Lorde, the singer-songwriter from Takapuna, fourth at 14.9.
Screen dominates below them. Karl Urban is fifth, Taika Waititi sixth, Antony Starr, Homelander in The Boys, ninth. Anna Sawai, the Japanese actress born in Wellington, is eleventh, Lucy Lawless, Xena to a generation of television viewers, twelfth, Melanie Lynskey thirteenth, Cliff Curtis fourteenth and Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fifteenth. That is ten actors or filmmakers in fifteen places.
Sport gets two names, neither of them from rugby. Liam Lawson, the Formula One driver at Racing Bulls, is seventh at 10.6, and Chris Wood, Nottingham Forest's striker and the national football captain, eighth at 10.5. Jacinda Ardern, prime minister from 2017 to 2023, is the only politician, at tenth with 9.7.
Twenty-eight people were measured and all are living; no dead New Zealander scores high enough to appear. The ranking measures worldwide fame, and for New Zealand that attention is what the country exports through cameras and microphones. The game it is known for at home does not register here.
| Rank | Name | Score | Live |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Russell Crowe celebrityAlive | 17.6 | iFANN → |
| 2 |  Peter Jackson celebrityAlive | 15.8 | iFANN → |
| 3 |  Rosé celebrityAlive | 15.3 | iFANN → |
| 4 |  Lorde celebrityAlive | 14.9 | iFANN → |
| 5 |  Karl Urban celebrityAlive | 12.4 | iFANN → |
| 6 |  Taika Waititi celebrityAlive | 11.9 | iFANN → |
| 7 |  Liam Lawson celebrityAlive | 10.6 | iFANN → |
| 8 |  Chris Wood celebrityAlive | 10.5 | iFANN → |
| 9 |  Antony Starr celebrityAlive | 10.3 | iFANN → |
| 10 |  Jacinda Ardern politicianAlive | 9.7 | iFANN → |
| 11 |  Anna Sawai celebrityAlive | 9.5 | iFANN → |
| 12 |  Lucy Lawless celebrityAlive | 9.4 | iFANN → |
| 13 |  Melanie Lynskey celebrityAlive | 9.0 | iFANN → |
| 14 |  Cliff Curtis celebrityAlive | 8.7 | iFANN → |
| 15 |  Jemaine Clement celebrityAlive | 8.5 | iFANN → |
| 16 |  Thomasin McKenzie celebrityAlive | 8.4 | iFANN → |
| 17 |  KJ Apa celebrityAlive | 7.6 | iFANN → |
| 18 |  Dan Hooker celebrityAlive | 7.3 | iFANN → |
| 19 |  Temuera Morrison celebrityAlive | 7.0 | iFANN → |
| 20 |  Marton Csokas celebrityAlive | 6.4 | iFANN → |
| 21 |  Graham McTavish celebrityAlive | 6.3 | iFANN → |
| 22 |  Elijah Just celebrityAlive | 6.2 | iFANN → |
| 23 |  Martin Henderson celebrityAlive | 6.2 | iFANN → |
| 24 |  Rose McIver celebrityAlive | 5.8 | iFANN → |
| 25 |  Rena Owen celebrityAlive | 4.8 | iFANN → |
| 26 |  Tim Payne celebrityAlive | 4.7 | iFANN → |
| 27 |  Muttiah Muralitharan celebrityAlive | 4.3 | iFANN → |
| 28 |  Navajo Stirling celebrityAlive | 4.0 | iFANN → |
About this list
This list ranks people from New Zealand by their overall worldwide fame rather than local attention, as assessed for August 2026: the top 28 of 28 names, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 28 of the 28 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
Russell Crowe is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind Russell Crowe come Peter Jackson and Rosé.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About New Zealand
New Zealand is one of the countries and regions the journal ranks every month. Country lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared with its neighbours and against the world.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
Related searches: most famous people in New Zealand 2026, top celebrities in New Zealand August 2026, New Zealand fame ranking, most famous person in New Zealand.
"Russell Crowe, No. 1 on The Most Famous People from New Zealand", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org