Revealing the stories behind the films

Fernanda Torres ignites this Oscar-winning drama from Walter Salles, a triumph of hope over tyranny.

Melvin Van Peebles’ seminal, taboo-breaking Blaxploitation thriller about a young Black man on the run from corrupt cops in 1970s Los Angeles.

Michael Haneke’s drama explores a teenager’s obsession with screen violence, and his inability to distinguish between reality and fiction.

Michael Mann’s chilling and stylish adaptation of Thomas Harris’ bestseller introduced Hannibal Lecktor to cinema audiences for the first time.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a crime journalist scouring the streets of after-dark LA in a stylish thriller that examines the morals of mass media.

Jane Campion’s feminist erotic thriller starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo adds a frisson of dangerous sex to a murder investigation.

This incendiary Glam-rock cult classic is described by critic Mark Kermode as ‘the Citizen Kane of British pop movies’.

A grieving man becomes convinced he is being framed for murder in Guillaume Canet’s gripping thriller, adapted from the Harlan Coben bestseller.

Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning ensemble drama explores America’s war on drugs at the start of the 21st century.

Jack Nicholson excels in Bob Rafelson’s vivid study of a middle-class musician rebelling against his family – and himself.

Samantha Morton plays the enigmatic title character in Lynne Ramsay’s dreamy and atmospheric road movie.

Nick Cave and Sarah Snook voice an Oscar-nominated stop-motion classic of divided twins, told with adult candour and uncanny warmth.

Hugely creative biographical film full of charm and intrigue, uncovering the remarkable story of Geraldine Flower and a suitcase of love letters.

A doctor in rural Georgia faces scrutiny after a baby dies during childbirth in this affecting and atmospheric abortion drama.

Mohammad Rasoulof's powerful, vital, Oscar and BAFTA-nominated thriller about a bureaucrat torn between loyalty to his family and the Iranian regime.

Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia's unsettling drama-documentary delivers a powerful commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

A woman’s blindness sharpens her capacity for imagination and fantasy in the Eskil Vogt’s inventive debut.

A seductive neo-noir and cult classic centring on lesbian desire in dangerous circumstances.

Human romance and a passion for horses intertwine in this wildly beautiful, darkly funny equine tale from Iceland.

A troubled young sheep farmer falls for a hired hand in this stunning debut from Francis Lee.

A housewife-turned-cop is sucked into a high-profile case that has polarised the local community in this taut, north India-set thriller.

A pair of detectives clash trying to solve the brutal murder of two women, in Bong Joon Ho’s masterful blend of true crime and dark social satire.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cannes prize-winning directorial debut offers a unique take on the classic vampire story.

Stranded in a surreal winter landscape, a drunken applejack salesman must become North America's greatest fur trapper in Mike Cheslik’s gloriously anarchic slapstick comedy.

On the Isle of Lewis, a passionate surfer and his sweetheart have dreams of escaping in this charming comedy with echoes of Bill Forsyth.

The importance of human connection lies at the heart of this powerful, nuanced portrait of a young Portuguese warehouse employee in Scotland.

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a career-best performance as a kindergarten teacher who finds herself in an ethical quagmire after discovering the poetic talents of a precocious student.

The allure of the serial killer is explored in this deeply unsettling and unforgettable exploration of the impact of extreme violence.

Adam Driver excels in this effortlessly charming tale of a bus driver poet in New Jersey, filmed with typically groovy elan by Jim Jarmusch.

The messiness of sex, the mysteries of birth and the moving spectacle of devoted parenting in the face of impending oblivion.

A British-Palestinian drag performer catches the eye of a strait-laced white man in Amrou Al-Kadhi’s stunning, semi-autobiographical debut.

A twelve-year-old boy befriends a mysterious girl with a dark secret, in Tomas Alfredson’s grownup tale of childhood vampirism.

After his mother wakes from a coma, a man goes to great lengths to pretend East Germany still exists in this wonderfully bittersweet tragicomedy.

Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren star in one of the most controversial films in cinema history, presented here in an entirely new cut compiled from the original rushes.

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning portrait of three women is a transcendent tale of love and sisterhood.

Tilda Swinton and Luca Guadagnino’s sumptuous, operatic vision of an aristocratic family disrupted by unstoppable forces of passion.

Three-time Oscar-nominee Agnieszka Holland returns with a powerful, timely and unflinching exploration of the current migrant crisis.

Teenage romance simmers in a strict Himalayan boarding school in this sublime coming-of-age tale. Winner of a 2024 Sundance audience award

Berlin Film Festival award winner Lois Patiño’s assured third feature transports us to magical places in Laos and Zanzibar, where the visible and the invisible merge.

Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain bring to life this extraordinary tale of ordinary madness.

An unemployed actor is drawn into a world of voyeurism, seduction, mystery and murder, in Brian De Palma's playful and satirical homage to Hitchcock.

An apocalyptic vision pushes a group of rabbits to abandon their warren in search of a new home, in this landmark British animation.

Jackie Chan's mind-blowing, high-octane extravaganza of death-defying stunts and action comedy.

Tom Tykwer’s breathtaking time-loop thriller, with a terrific Franka Potente as the titular runner attempting to save her boyfriend.

Cate Blanchett is mesmerising as a feverish nun, in Warwick Thornton’s striking tale of spiritual worlds colliding in 1940s Australia.

A witchfinder traverses 17th-century England executing those he suspects of witchcraft.

Sinister forces invade a couple’s home in this wildly eerie British folk horror, with unflinching performances from Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.

Billie Piper stars in her own directorial debut, a no-holds-barred, Fleabag-esque anti-romcom about a modern woman’s struggles in work and love.

A coming-of-age tale about a father-son relationship that might just be out of this world.

Imogen Poots grounds Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor's meditative portrayal of terrorist, disinherited heiress and expectant mother Rose Dugdale.

A riveting and all-encompassing portrait of the iconic German filmmaker.

Andrey Zvyagintsev delivers a caustic look at contemporary Russian society, a failed marriage and a child's disappearance.

Kitty Green's #MeToo drama is a sobering take on life as a film company assistant.

Six-year-old Cléo spends a final summer with her beloved nanny Gloria, in this profoundly moving story of chosen family, duty and innocence lost.

Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard find that fading memories can hurt and heal in this compassionate drama powered by its two blazing stars.

Hettie MacDonald’s 1996 comedy tells the story of two classmates and neighbours who fall in love over one summer in South East London.

Todd Solondz’s outstanding sophomore feature is a darkly comic portrait of suburban teen angst.

A retired legal investigator revisits an unresolved case that still haunts him, in Juan José Campanella’s taut, Academy Award winning, thriller.

Sacha Polak and Vicky Knight reunite for this daring drama about love, family and forgiveness, loosely inspired by Knight’s life.

A director struggles to film a difficult sex scene with two actors who hate each other, in Catherine Breillat's exploration of intimacy coordination.

In this razor-sharp black comedy featuring Sofie Gråbøl, Martin flees to the mountains in a desperate attempt to cure his midlife crisis.

Justin Kurzel's shocking dramatisation of Australia's most notorious serial killings.

Victor Erice’s second masterpiece, following The Spirit of the Beehive, is a meditation on memory, deception and Spain’s 20th-century history.

Fyzal Boulifa's (Lynn + Lucy) striking film about the perils of falling foul of community and social expectations.

Alfre Woodard is quietly devastating as a weary prison warden presiding over her twelfth execution, in this Sundance-winning death row drama.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as criminal brothers whose botched heist leads to escalating turmoil, in Sidney Lumet's twisty thriller.

David Thewlis stuns as the motormouth predator of Mike Leigh's divisive masterpiece.

This strange, enigmatic and engrossing thriller finds a troubled young man returning to his hometown in the wake of his mother’s disappearance.

Joanna Hogg's enthralling ghost story, featuring an astonishing performance by her regular collaborator Tilda Swinton.

This early masterpiece from Werner Herzog stars Klaus Kinski as a power-crazed explorer in sixteenth-century South America who leads a band of conquistadors through the Amazon in search of El Dorado.

Catherine Deneuve and Benoît Poelvoorde head the cast in this wildly inventive comedy, in which God’s daughter decides to rewrite the rules.

The ultimate depiction of coming-of-age awkwardness, Bill Forsyth’s comedy about a teen who falls for the new female footballer on the school team.

Breathtakingly inventive and ambitious historical epic about a young Danish priest travelling to a remote Icelandic outpost to establish a church.

Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic, nail-biting suspense thriller won both The Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or in 1953.

Denis Ménochet stars as a small-town farmer whose idyllic lifestyle turns into a living nightmare, in this rivetingly structured, slow-burn thriller.

Florence Pugh shines in this exceptional British debut of a young wife's need for freedom, whatever the cost.

Director Alan Clarke examines the grim reality of borstal life in this searing remake of his previously banned television play.

Edward Lovelace explores the power of communication and community with this rapturous portrait of a young deaf Kurdish boy.

You may never look at film the same way again after watching this illuminating journey, which deconstructs the male gaze in cinema.

Florence Pugh's first film teams her with Maisie Williams as teenage friends at a school cursed by mystery sickness.

Legendary film that brilliantly captures the cultural phenomenon that was the 2 Tone movement, and showcases the very best of the British Ska revival.

David Bowie’s image and music gives brooding energy to this tale of a junkie sex-worker in 70s Berlin.

Paul Mescal and Emily Watson star in this gripping Irish psychological drama that asks how far you might go to protect someone you love.

Abel Ferrara's disturbing character study of a corrupt N.Y.C. cop and his slide into insanity, starring Harvey Keitel in a career-best performance.

Twenty-five years old and newly restored, Gary Oldman’s BAFTA-winning debut as writer-director remains a magnificent achievement.

Mark Jenkin follows Bait with this chilling, endlessly mysterious folk horror tale, beautifully shot on grainy 16mm.

The joint winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, EO is a strangely wonderful tale where the dark and light of humanity is laid bare.

In this personal film, Richard Billingham delves into his upbringing to recreate family memories and desperate living in Thatcher’s Britain.

Three young women explore love and sex in this spirited coming-of-age drama, which won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance 2022.

The hunt for a Jersey serial killer sparks a dangerous awakening in a young woman in this astonishing psycho-sexual thriller.

Given extraordinary freedom by Hollywood studio RKO for his debut film, boy wonder Orson Welles created this notoriously brilliant portrait of a media giant.

François Truffaut’s French New Wave landmark is one of the greatest movies about adolescence.

BAFTA winner and coming-of-age story starring newcomer Katie Jarvis as disaffected teen Mia and Michael Fassbender in one of his earliest film roles.

Sight and Sound's 2019 film of the year is the compelling, semi-autobiographical drama from acclaimed writer-director Joanna Hogg.

A deliciously dark comedy about social paranoia that will have you joyfully squirming in your seat.

A young Rastafarian toaster (rapper) aims for success at a Reggae Sound System competition.

Berlin Golden Bear winner, Radu Jude’s scathing satire finds schoolteacher Emi threatened with dismissal when a private sex tape goes viral.

This Oscar-nominated, Almodóvar-produced anthology of six tales of ordinary madness is the most riotously enjoyable portmanteau film since Pulp Fiction.

Directed by Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider) this story of a blue-collar family coming apart features an astonishing performance from Linda Manz (Days of Heaven).

Ingmar Bergman’s Cannes prize-winning comedy assembles various couples in a country house in 1900.

In this knockout feature debut from Aleem Khan, Bafta-winner Joanna Scanlan is the woman who discovers her late husband’s secrets.

Technology and sexuality meet in head-on collision in David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s transgressive 1973 novel.

A gutless moment comes to define a man in this glorious comedy of unease from the creator of Triangle of Sadness.

Ruth Rendell provides the source novel for this delicious tale of deception and identity, from the master of mischievous melodrama, François Ozon.

Blistering thriller of a teen groomed to work for a brutal, organised drugs network.

Haneke’s Cannes award-winning masterpiece is both an enthralling thriller and a piercing analysis of colonial guilt.

Peter Strickland’s visually and aurally intoxicating tale of sadomasochistic power-play is a daringly erotic sensory feast.

Riotous urban comedy adapted from the hit Royal Court play, about a Peckham teen affronted by the arrival of his long-lost Nigerian sibling.

Mathieu Kassovitz’s landmark mid-90s drama throws a cinematic Molotov cocktail at structural racism, police brutality and media manipulation.

A lifelong friendship is tested by tragedy in this atmospheric and intense first feature from acclaimed British shorts director Fyzal Boulifa.

Bizarre and unsettling sex fantasy from Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo), about a woman blackmailed by a stranger into enacting his wildest fantasies.

Jessica Hausner’s cool, witty and unsettling sci-fi starring Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw.

Andrew Haigh's internationally acclaimed tale of a brief encounter between two gay men.

Christopher Walken is the dogged drug-lord determined to keep his empire together, in Abel Ferrara's brutally gritty crime thriller.

Shockingly explicit, Catherine Breillat’s critically acclaimed Romance is one of the most controversial films of modern cinema.

A teenager uncovers an elite ritualistic society in Brian Yuzna's stomach-churning mix of body-horror and social commentary.

Academy Award and Palme d'Or-winning adaption of the Orpheus myth, incorporating the music, costume and dance of Brazil’s Rio Festival.

The passengers on an interstellar space-liner are thrown into turmoil when their mission goes off course, in this compassionate and thought-provoking sci-fi drama.

Ken Russell's second Hollywood film is a deliriously excessive erotic thriller with Kathleen Turner as an imperilled prostitute.

The mythological past and a soon-to-be bleak future converge on the sparse, grey streets of London in Jarman’s personal vision of the punk movement.

Simmering tensions between locals and newcomers in a modern-day Cornish fishing village reach boiling point in this hugely acclaimed British independent film.

Fitzcarraldo tells the story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, a fortune hunter who dreams of bringing opera to the Peruvian jungle.

The long-awaited second feature from Lucile Hadžihalilović (Innocence) is a gorgeously surreal coming-of-age tale laced with bizarre body-horror.

In this stylish, dark crime thriller, a policeman’s complex web of underworld relationships is threatened by an internal affairs investigator.

Before Caligula, Italian provocateur Tinto Brass directed this controversial and transgressive drama, inspired by the true story of a Nazi-run brothel in 30s Berlin.

Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig star as artist Francis Bacon and his muse George Dyer in John Maybury’s darkly exquisite biopic.

Two self-confessed hedonists wreak wanton havoc in Věra Chytilová's visually spectacular neo-dadaist farce.

Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece about the last years of French colonial rule in Algeria, seen from the perspective of both the revolutionaries and the French authorities.

Derek Jarman’s unique biopic of the 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo da Caravaggio is a powerful meditation on sexuality, criminality and art.

Bergman’s magisterial and sumptuous portrait of a 20th-century Swedish family, presented in its full-length TV version.

Bernard Rose updates Tolstoy's tale about the corrupting power of sex and jealousy, with Danny Huston as the wealthy husband of a beautiful, famous pianist (Elisabeth Röhm).

Fellini triumphantly conjured himself out of writer's block with this magnum opus about a film director experiencing his own creative crisis.

Dario Argento’s phantasmagoric gothic nightmare blends operatic violence, disorienting dream logic and hyper-real visuals to create a horror classic.

This stylish, cult 1966 erotic thriller stars French New Wave icons Jean-Louis Trintigant and Marie-France Pisier.

Alain Robbe-Grillet’s serpentine erotic mystery presented as a surreal investigation into a woman with feared sexual powers.

From the directors of Good Time, this electrifying drama about a homeless addict on the streets of New York pulsates with a dark, raw energy.

Fritz Lang’s expressionist, dystopian vision is one of the first science fiction feature films, and is arguably the most influential.

Jean-Jacques Beineix’s story of a volatile, highly sexual relationship was one of the most successful French films of the 1980s.

Ingmar Bergman’s best-known film is a brilliant allegorical drama starring Max von Sydow as a knight trying to elude his own death.

Nominated for two Oscars (Best Actress – Melissa Leo - and Best Original Screenplay) Frozen River is a riveting thriller that raises questions about the borders we construct, between countries, communities and each other.

An enigmatic housemaid and her wealthy, totalitarian employer begin an affair that will have disastrous consequences for them both.

An incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema, Carl Dreyer's moving biopic features one of the most powerful performances ever captured on film.

The late, great Harry Dean Stanton's finest role came as the near-mute Travis, on a journey across America to reunite his family, in Wim Wenders' moving tale of loss and redemption.

The inspiring journey towards freedom of Raghda and Amer, a couple brought together by the turmoil of the Syrian Civil War.

Peter Lorre is unforgettable as the compulsive child murderer on the run from both police and criminals alike, in Fritz Lang’s seminal crime film.

A fixture in critics' polls, Yasujirō Ozu's most enduring masterpiece is a beautifully nuanced exploration of filial duty, expectation and regret.

Fassbinder’s international breakthrough, this unconventional love story combines lucid social analysis with devastating emotional power.

John Hurt stars in Richard Kwietniowski’s comedy of fame and obsession about an older man (Hurt) who becomes infatuated with a young Hollywood actor (Jason Priestley), and proceeds to track him down.

Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone are members of a criminal gang that tears itself apart after a heist goes wrong, in Antonia Bird’s stylish thriller.

The first part of Martin Scorsese's 'personal journey' through American Cinema.

Terence Davies' debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory.

Sally El Hosaini's feature debut tells of the love and disenchantment of two British-Egyptian brothers as gangs, drugs and sexuality come between them.

Ken Loach’s passionate war drama follows an idealistic young Liverpudlian (Ian Hart) who fights for the international brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

Andrea Arnold’s highly acclaimed film, winner of top prizes at Cannes and the BFI London Film Festival, is a haunting drama about a woman confronting past demons.

Yorgos Lanthimos' scary, witty tale of a dysfunctional Greek family is original, ingenious and sadly relevant as a study of parent-child relationships

Clio Barnard's film about Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar mixes reconstruction, interviews (performed by actors) and scenes from the plays.

Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit is an exhilarating combination of theatricality, paranoia and ‘la vie parisienne’, around an entrancing examination of making and watching films.

A fixture in the critical canon almost since its premiere, Eisenstein’s film about a 1905 naval mutiny was revolutionary in both form and content.

Roberto Rossellini’s landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made.

Different worlds collide when a chic young diplomat's wife meets an intriguing adventurer and his hippy friends in Barbet Schroeder's striking second feature.

Peter Greenaway became a director of international status with this witty, stylised, erotic country house murder mystery.

Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives.

A scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism - Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first film is a classic of Surrealist cinema.

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s beautifully photographed tale explores the religious intolerance and familial tensions within a Danish farming family.

James Franco and Travis Mathews recreate explicit footage cut, rumoured to be lost, from one of the most notorious gay features ever made.

Gerard Depardieu plays the young innocent who falls for the mysterious maitresse Ariane (Bulle Ogier), a leather clad dominatrix, in Barbet Schroeder’s controversial film.

A haunting blend of edgy mystery story and existential road movie.

Georges Franju’s gorgeous, poetic horror film about a surgeon’s dark obsession with restoring his daughter’s disfigured face.

The BFI’s HD remaster of the British sci-fi classic. A journalist discovers that the Earth has been knocked off its axis and is moving ever closer to the sun. Is the Earth doomed?

Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic.