Kermode introduces

A revenge mission leads two young women to the heart of a deranged cult, in Pascal Laugier’s notoriously brutal and unflinching horror.

A woman battles addiction and abuse in Kristen Stewart’s uncompromising depiction of love, trauma and artistic self-expression.

Emergency workers receive a call from five-year-old Hind Rajab. Using real-life audio recordings, this film recreates the desperate mission to save her.

Rose Byrne gives a mesmerising, Oscar-nominated performance as an overwhelmed mother, in Mary Bronstein’s nerve-shredding comedy-thriller-horror.

Cronenberg directs Ralph Fiennes in this chilling psychological drama about a mentally-disturbed man confronting his horrifying childhood memories.

Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winning tale of two brothers joining the fight for Irish independence in the 1920s, starring Cillian Murphy and Pádraic Delaney

Benedict Cumberbatch gives a powerful performance in this visually striking fantasy drama about grief, family, and healing.

An impressive ensemble cast populate Ang Lee’s riveting portrait of family life in 1970s America.

A homeless addict (Denis Lavant) and a young painter (Juliette Binoche) with failing eyesight forge a bond on the streets of Paris.

Marina de Van’s deeply personal debut about a young woman's addiction to self-mutilation stretches the body horror genre in new ways.

When newly-wed housewife Hunter becomes pregnant, her cravings threaten to destroy her perfect life in Carlo Mirabella-Davis's psychological thriller.

Steve Coogan and John C Reilly give delightful performances as Laurel & Hardy - comedy’s most famous double act - as they enter their twilight years.

A newlywed couple is entangled by the spellbinding aura of a vampire in Harry Kümel’s seductive horror.

Marion Cotillard brings a thrilling magnetism to this snowbound tale of obsession and wish fulfilment between an actress and a young runaway.

A genre-bending comedy about a frustrated and misanthropic newlywed who discovers certain feral impulses that land her in unlikely situations.

An ungainly cockney chauffeur navigates the seedy streets of London, gradually falling for the elegant and mysterious prostitute who is his passenger.

Reviled upon its release, now reclaimed as a cult classic - one can only submit to the trash-tastic delights of Paul Verhoeven's erotic disasterpiece.

The debut feature from actor Harris Dickinson sees a homeless addict get a shot at recovery and redemption.

Hirokazu Koreeda's modern masterpiece is a dark yet touching account of an unorthodox family that relies on shoplifting to make ends meet.

Anora director Sean Baker's visionary portrait of life in America’s underbelly, featuring an Oscar-nominated turn from Willem Dafoe.

Bong Joon Ho's Oscar®-winning box-office sensation is a darkly comic, twisty rollercoaster ride.

A teenager is taken to a Corsican villa where her fugitive mob boss father is hiding, before an assassination attempt forces them to go on the run.

Gaspar Noé's visually dazzling feast of music and mayhem reveals a director at the height of his provocative filmmaking powers.

Agyness Deyn stars in Terence Davies’ moving drama about a strong young woman facing many adversities in the run up to WWI.

Six friends on a caving expedition get trapped deep underground and discover they are not alone in this visceral, claustrophobic horror.

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.

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 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 murders 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 starring Jessie Buckley.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pulsating with a dark, raw energy, this electrifying drama from the Safdie brothers follows a homeless addict on the streets of New York.

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.

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.