BFI London Film Festival

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

Queer sisterhood and collective power lie at the heart of this arresting Brazilian debut, in which a promising volleyball player faces an unwanted pregnancy.

A fiercely independent woman’s tranquillity is disturbed by an unexpected affair, in this wry, tender and understated drama from Georgia.

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

Soulful story of the love and war between a queer woman and her mother, spanning across decades and continents.

French writer-director Robin Campillo offers a searching exploration of memory and politics, in this boldly conceived story of boyhood in 1970s Madagascar.

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

A deeply religious family must decide whether to stick by their relation or abandon her, in this striking debut from Daniel Kokotajlo - a prizewinner at BFI London Film Festival 2017

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.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car is a hauntingly enigmatic eco-thriller. Winner of Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival.

Radu Jude’s follow-up to the Golden Bear-winning Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a pin-sharp, caustically funny critique of workplace culture and oppression.

Radu Jude delivers on the promise of his first feature, The Happiest Girl in the World, with this superb black comedy.

Laure Calamy stars in this devious, involving French thriller by Sébastien Marnier, playing an outsider tangled in a web of upper-class family malice.

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

Not all is as it seems in Hirokazu Koreeda’s powerful drama told from shifting perspectives.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Greta Gerwig shines as a college student challenging the male dominated culture on campus, in Whit Stillman’s sweet, eccentric and frequently hilarious comedy.

A poignant birthday party exposes a series of family tensions in Lila Avilés’ outstanding follow-up to The Chambermaid.

In this compelling love story set in Senegal, Banel and Adama’s relationship is tested by a devastating turn of events that challenges their village’s way of life.

A couple find their relationship in a precarious state following a tragedy, in Kōji Fukada’s subtle portrait of the frailty of human relationships.

A big-hearted film shot on a small phone, this LA tale of two transgender working girls out for vengeance fizzes with wild energy.

Unforgettable account of an Afghan woman who reveals her deepest and darkest secrets in the most dangerous of places.

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

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

Engrossing tribute to London’s legendary Scala cinema, aptly subtitled: Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits.

The incredible story of a band you may never have heard of but whose sound has influenced generations with their irresistible rhythms and message of peace.

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

Andrey Zvyagintsev (Elena, Leviathan) delivers a masterpiece in this caustic look at contemporary Russian society, a failed marriage and the disappearance of a child. A major prize winner at both Cannes and BFI London Film Festival.

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

Sofía Otero ignites this warm, rich Spanish drama woven from a child’s probing question: who am I?

Wim Wenders' stately and beautifully scored study of Anselm Kiefer.

An unnervingly brilliant portrait of the ways in which the Pinochet dictatorship realised its brute force and pervasive influence, from debut director Manuela Martelli. Winner of the 2022 BFI London Film Festival First Feature Competition.

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 and Academy Award-nominated, EO is a strangely wonderful tale where the dark and light of humanity is laid bare.

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

Members of the beloved 70s commune reunite in the shadow of the new millennium, in Lukas Moodysson’s eagerly anticipated, warm-hearted sequel to Together.

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

Víctor Erice’s latest cinematic gem, at once a mystery about an actor’s sudden disappearance from a film shoot, and a meditation on memory, identity, friendship – and the power of cinema.

Simon Bird’s directorial debut is a warm and witty graphic novel adaptation about a single librarian trying to reconnect with her introverted, metalhead teenage son.

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

Amat Escalante follows Heli with a boundary-pushing, mind-blowing mix of sex, sci-fi and social drama.

A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.

Iceland’s finest actor Ingvar Sigurðsson gives a heart-breaking and Cannes award-winning performance as widowed cop who becomes increasingly obsessed with his wife’s death.

A lavish trip to the Turkish Riviera goes horribly awry in this disturbing tale of power, exploitation and complicity from the writer of Border.

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

Following a fatal car crash involving a swan outside a zoo, twin-brother zoologists Oliver and Oswald become fascinated by the processes of decay.

A young woman seeking her biological mother journeys into dangerous territory in this gripping psychological thriller from Irish directing duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor.

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.

Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker) channels Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, to create a sumptuous twisty psychological thriller full of erotic intrigue.

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

Kristen Stewart reunites with Olivier Assayas to play an A-List celebrity's personal shopper, who keeps receiving strange text messages from an unknown source.

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

A teenage tearaway is forced to face up to his actions and confront his burgeoning sexuality, in this provocative Slovenian coming-of-age tale.

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

Ming-Liang Tsai's outrageous blend of sex, comedy, musical and drama is a daring, controversial and hilarious smorgasbord from one of Taiwan's most acclaimed directors.

Desiree Akhavan directs and stars in this witty, razor-sharp and fearless comedy following the sexual misadventures of a bisexual Brooklynite.

Ivan Sen follows his acclaimed Australian thriller Mystery Road with another distinctive, 'outback noir', with troubled indigenous detective Joe Swan (Aaron Pedersen) again on the trail of murder and corruption.

Michael Haneke's Cannes prizewinner, set in a pre-WW1 German village, explores the oppressively strict social conditions that gave rise to Nazism

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

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

Paris in 1968 forms the backdrop for this romantic drama about an American student who bonds with a brother and sister over their love of cinema.

The Best Film winner at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival is an exquisitely shot, moving drama about a Polish nun exploring her family past, from UK-based director Pawel Pawlikowski.

The film that Martin Scorsese compared to ‘opening a door and walking into another dimension, where time has stopped and beauty has been unleashed’.

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

An Aboriginal cop returns to his hometown to solve the brutal murder of a teenage girl, uncovering a web of corruption and a growing body count, in Ivan Sen's acclaimed Australian riff on the Western genre.

The rarely seen debut by acclaimed director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) is a bizarre drama-documentary recreating a motiveless London murder.

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

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.

Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone presents a masterful tale of twisted friendship, not-so-petty crime and revenge.

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

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.

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

Juliet Bashore’s queer docufiction, starring Tigr and real-life girlfriend porn star Sharon Mitchell, was shot in and celebrates the heady days of the San Francisco underground in the 1980s.

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

In modern Liverpool, a couple meet and begin a transgressive, sexually charged affair set against a background of crime and encroaching danger.