Collections

From established classics to new discoveries, from the mainstream to the bizarre, we celebrate the breadth and diversity of British cinema.

Only available on BFI Player subscription

Learn from cinema’s best with this collection shaped for students. No lectures, no essays, just proof of what a camera and an idea can do.

BFI Player is the home of BFI London Film Festival all year round. And with Subscription you have a festival pass - allowing unlimited screenings of favourites from festivals past.

Meet the elite: hand-picked highlights from the 2022 Sight and Sound 100 Greatest Films of All Time Poll.

Your time is precious, so we've done some of the hard work for you.

3 of the best from the world's greatest filmmakers, themes and cinematic movements.

Striking, ambitious and delicious: the best indie films from the UK & around the world are showcased in this eye-popping collection of nominees & winners from the British Independent Film Awards.

Consider these films as milestones on a long and winding road. 

This collection explores representations of working-class masculinity in British cinema from the Thatcher era to the present day.

Tales of terror have been embraced by cinema since its birth, and horror remains one of the most popular genres in world cinema.

Meet the elite: hand-picked highlights from the 2022 Sight and Sound 250 Greatest Films of All Time Poll.

Few genres stretch like science fiction, a marketplace for idle prediction, utopia, apocalypse and wonder.

Celebrating a world of side-splitting cinema, from slapstick legends to today's anarchic voices.

Our Love collection highlights the range of cinematic romance from sweeping love affairs to quirky rom-coms and tales of obsessive desire.

Who Can You Trust?

Trust few and fear all in a collection of films packed with suspense, paranoia and conspiracy.

Documentaries can be as expressive, surreal and experimental as any work of fiction. This collection explores a world made up of people and places.

Despite the accessibility of erotica, audiences still seek out the more substantial approaches to sex that only narrative cinema can offer.

The red carpet remains forever unfurled in this selection from the world’s most famous film festival.

Here are the pioneers, the iconoclasts, the brave - from landmark LGBTQIA+ portraits to the next generation of queer classics from the BFI Flare festival.

Showcasing independent Australian cinema in all its diversity: friendly, strange, black, queer, bad, mad and beautiful.

Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Rossellini, Argento – the melodic names that conjure up the best of Italian cinema.

From the New Wave to poetic realism and cinéma vérité, French cinema takes many forms and offers endless delights.

Chaos, hostility and murder are, said one of these directors, our common denominator. Another had scandal as a hobby and human nature as a focus. 

From the samurai thrillers of Kurosawa to Koreeda's beautiful domestic dramas, this collection celebrates the extraordinary diversity of Japanese cinema.

Cinema's ultimate prize, the Academy Awards. These nominees and winners show the medium at its electric best.

Reclaiming the history and identity of British South Asians - through film.

When time is of the essence.

Feel the warmth of the sun and dip into our selection of summer films.

A celebration of work by female directors past and present.

We celebrate the music of a country that has continually punched above its weight on the international stage.

Inspired by an anarchist catchphrase, a collection of provocative films exploring the relationship between queerness and crime.

Personal, powerful and lyrical, this is where music and film collide, a meeting place for rock biopics, probing documentaries, groundbreakers and old stagers.

Bringing together films and videos by artists that have transformed our experience of the moving image. Our collection includes films from outside the sphere of experimental filmmaking, including the celebrated surrealists and challenging works of narrative fiction.

Along with Kurosawa, the director Yasujirō Ozu is a true master of Japanese cinema whose work has its place among the all-time greats. 

The films of Nina Menkes are a kind of haunting – mysterious, disturbing and potent, they need to be felt rather than understood.

Delve into a world of dreams and disorientation from the Italian horror maestro.

This is a man who brought Asian cinema to the world with the release of Rashomon, and was named 'Asian of the Century' by AsianWeek magazine. Discover his astonishing range of works, from early classics to avowed masterpieces such as Seven Samurai.

A rare opportunity to see the work of one of the world’s most remarkable filmmakers.

Film is the medium for Mark Jenkin, the filmmaker who has championed celluloid throughout a highly distinctive career.

Singular, uncompromising, visionary. John Cassavetes was the pretty-boy actor who left it all behind to focus on his guerrilla filmmaking. In doing so he near singlehandedly established the American independent film scene.

Our online tribute to a leading figure of the nouvelle vague.

The leading light of New German Cinema who has progressed to become something of an international treasure, Herzog is famed for making all types of films - in all sorts of strange places.

One of the key figures in cinema history, Rossellini initiated a new movement and evolved the language of film.

Celebrating the master of contemporary Japanese cinema and his diverse, beautiful and human stories.

Ten classics from cinema’s master of humanity and compassion.

Tales of carnal bargaining, conspiracy, subversion and rage. Peter Greenaway's maverick work embodies all of these and more.

Witness a grand career take shape, as Park Chan-wook evolves into a master filmmaker…

Cinema's master of sensory art; creator of haunting and dreamlike works that cling and linger.

A selection of penetrating masterworks from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

Celebrating the extraordinary, convention-defying career of the chameleonic performer.

Explore the films of one of Britain's leading contemporary filmmakers.

Celebrating the actor who played an essential role in the history of Japanese cinema.

Dead by 37, openly bi-sexual, constantly controversial: Rainer Werner Fassbinder was arguably post-war Germany’s greatest filmmaker.

Defiance and compassion: celebrating the work of a true original and a pioneer of Czech cinema.

Startling and subversive works from an inspirational figure in British cinema.

The restless and the curious are Wim Wenders’ congregation, and they gather to play out some of best stories we have, told on the road or in the city, but always from the heart.

A collection of films exploring the great American director’s connection to a rich vein of cinema history...

The extraordinary performer selects the films that inspire her from BFI Player Subscription.

Strange odysseys, straw bears and swan-shaped pedalos suffuse these singular works from Britain’s cinema’s most celebrated surrealist.

Exploring the northern talent and creativity that drive such distinctive storytelling.

With garlands and glamour, cinema’s spirit of self-congratulation has long fascinated, allowing great works to gain recognition and reach wide audiences.

Filmmakers love it, audiences live it. The rites-of-passage film enables us the chance to relive the past with wisdom, but not angst.

Celebrating the young women who are reclaiming their coming-of-age stories in cinema.

A collection of the bold and the banned; causes célèbre and succès de scandale to incite, provoke and arouse.

When asked what a government most fears, one prime minister declared, "Events, dear boy. Events". These films chart events and people, real and imagined, who dared to ask for change, for power and for more.

Our subscription selection celebrating black stardom, focusing on British talents and pioneering performers.

Exploring the films and filmmakers that broke the rules of cinema in the 1990s.

Through five mythical archetypes – the zombie, vampire, witch, ghost and beast – we trace how monstrous bodies have been represented and reclaimed by new voices in horror.

 A collection of films lit up by the charisma  of working-class stars; a celebration of fine actors and remarkable leading roles.

Showcasing the best of Black culture in film and TV history.

Incorporating fantasy, horror and science fiction, the French fantastique genre offers many weird and wonderful delights.

Ghost cats, killer children and cursed videotapes comprise just some of the terrors that Japan has gifted our nightmares.

Charting the wilder extremes of Japanese cinema: twisted visions, deranged erotica, and badass women.

Celebrating the renegade spirit that powers the most exciting Japanese cinema.

Consider these films as milestones on a long and winding road. 

In this major season we spotlight Japanese filmmakers who have inspired admiration and fascination around the world

Celebrating the outsiders and mavericks whose independent methods rewrote the rulebook for American cinema.

The first three decades of cinema gave us some of the greatest films ever made, which had to tell their stories purely visually, giving us countless unforgettable images.

First impressions count. These features launched some of cinema's highest achievers, showing the themes and techniques to which many would return.

Internationally acclaimed films, with success at the box office, festivals and awards ceremonies, the BFI is proud to support the breathtaking range of the UK’s filmmaking talent.

Filmmaking is a team sport, and these creative partnerships have proved consistently rewarding.

Contemporary women documentarians tell a vibrant story.

The camera flips inward to film the creative process. Discover the lives behind the artists and obsessives who make movies what they are.

Literature has inspired some of the greatest films ever made.

Perverse fairytales and wayward visions meet, as Pasolini, Rivette, Cocteau and their fellow dreamers create films that burrow into memory.

From the seedy streets of '60s Soho to the city's metropolitan sheen.

Welcome to the London collection.
 

Be beguiled by cinema's smooth talkers and teasing temptresses.

With garlands and glamour, cinema’s spirit of self-congratulation has long fascinated, allowing great works to gain recognition and reach wide audiences.

The red carpet remains forever unfurled in this selection from the world’s most famous film festival.

Journey across the planet’s most challenging terrain in this ode to exploration and endurance.

Dionne Edwards and Georgia Goggin select the inspirations behind their acclaimed debut feature, Pretty Red Dress.

Exclusive releases and cult classics that cut through in 2022 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.

Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspire…

The most watched LGBTQIA+ films in 2022.

Exclusive releases and cult classics that cut through in 2021 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.

Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspire…

The most watched LGBTIQ+ films in 2021.

Lies, ties and samurais: the films that rang out from the last 12 months...

The classics that cut through in 2019 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.

The classics that cut through in 2018 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.

The classics that cut through in 2017 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.

The classics that cut through in 2016 – here are the year’s most popular subscription titles.