BFI London Film Festival

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A rural Irish community in the 1980s is portrayed with quiet beauty in this heartfelt drama, based on acclaimed writer John McGahern’s novel.

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.

Le’Shantey Bonsu gives a stunning performance as a young girl deeply connected to her mother (Déborah Lukumuena) in Adura Onashile’s tender drama.

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

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.

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.

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

With his third feature, Hlynur Pálmason (A White, White Day) delivers a breathtakingly inventive and ambitious historical epic, set in mid-19th-century Iceland.

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

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

French debut director Lola Quivoron revs up with a ferocious tale of a woman kickstarting a new life in the world of guerrilla motocross racing.

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.

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.

One dress changes everything for a family in Dionne Edwards’ brilliant debut. Defiant, uplifting and with music at its core.

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

This strikingly original and enthralling feature debut from Laura Samani details the odyssey of a young mother as she tries to save her baby’s soul.

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

Edgy, darkly funny and claustrophobic comic thriller, in which a hapless government whistleblower and his partner hide out in a remote Belgian cottage, accompanied by two eccentric bodyguards.

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.

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

The psychedelic physicality of this mortal coil – journey into the systems that comprise the human body in this fascinating sensory experience.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

A closeted PE teacher reckons with her identity during Thatcherite Britain in Georgia Oakley’s delicate yet gripping BAFTA-nominated debut.

A frustrated Peckham youth turns to crime to finance his music career in Newton Aduaka’s highly charged feature debut; once acclaimed as 'the British La Haine'.

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

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

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

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

Tilda Swinton stars in the first English-language feature from master filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul; a mesmerising and beautifully immersive work.

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

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

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.

A fisherman’s son is offered a place at a prestigious Islamic school in Cairo and finds himself drawn into a religious and political power struggle.

A conservative family in Pakistan is torn apart when a son falls in love with a transgender erotic dancer, in Saim Sadiq’s riveting queer drama.

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

Winner of Best Film at the 2014 London Film Festival, the latest film from Andrey Zvyagintsev (Elena) is a gripping study of corrupt politics in modern Russia.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

A hard-hitting and often graphic documentary about the 'chemsex' sub-scene in London’s gay community.

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

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

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.

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

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.

This riveting feature debut from Makbul Mubarak patiently details the journey of a young man as he begins to taste power for the first time.

Set in Donetsk against the backdrop of the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 in 2014, a Ukrainian family attempts to live a normal life amid the absurdity and futility of conflict, in Maryna Er Gorbach’s visually striking film.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Starring Tom Hiddleston, a family holiday to the Isles of Scilly sees fractures emerge in this sun-filled drama from Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir).

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

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.

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.

Fernando Trueba's deeply moving meditation on the artistic process and the nature of humanity, with Jean Rochefort as an ageing artist inspired to paint once more.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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