Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie has been labelled one to watch for a while now, but the Kiwi actress has just received her biggest acclaim yet.

The 17-year-old stars in Leave No Trace, a film by Debra Granik that also stars Ben Foster, in a role in which she’s been tipped as “the next Jennifer Lawrence."

The movie has just been announced as featuring in the New Zealand International Film Festival next month.

Vulture made the call after Granik’s last film, Winter’s Bone, launched Lawrence to fame, and Leave No Trace seems poised to do the same for McKenzie. 

The film is about a girl named Tom who is living off the grid with her father Will in a Portland park.

But after she and Will are discovered, she begins to re-evaluate her upbringing — and understand the PTSD from which her father is suffering.

Earlier this year the young actress talked to Herald on Sunday about going to the premiere of Leave No Trace at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

"It was amazing just to be in the audience seeing it on the big screen and seeing everyone's reactions to the film."

"It was the first red carpet I've ever walked on with people taking my photos and saying 'look over here', 'smile, smile at the camera'. That was exciting and crazy and scary."

McKenzie has previously starred in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and played Pixie Hannah on Shortland Street in 2015, but Leave No Trace (previously called My Abandonment) was her first American film.

She recently signed up to star in Taika Waititi’s next project, Jojo Rabbit, and will star in Netflix movie The King alongside Robert Pattinson and Timothee Chalamet.