Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
London
The first in Patrick Keiller’s highly imaginative trilogy of films is a photographic trip through London, recounted by our unseen narrator.
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1994 85 mins
Director: Patrick Keiller
Overview
The first in Patrick Keiller’s highly imaginative trilogy of psycho-geographic journeys charts a trip through (and history of) London, as undertaken by our unseen narrator (Paul Scofield) and his companion, Robinson.
Followed by two further voyages, Robinson in Space and Robinson in Ruins, Keiller's unique take on the essay-film format offers scathing reflections on the recent past, enlivened by offbeat humour and wide-ranging literary anecdotes. London is both a fascinating reflection on the diverse histories of Britain’s capital and an illuminating record of 1992, the year of John Major's re-election, IRA bombs and the first crack in the House of Windsor.
Accessibility
Related
Animation & Artists Moving Image
Lek and the Dogs
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2017 92 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.
In Absentia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2000 20 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay's powerful visualisation of a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A woman alone in a room repeatedly writes a letter with tiny broken off pieces of pencil lead. Outside her window, vistas of ever-changing light register her every emotion.
This Unnameable Little Broom
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1985 11 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay take on the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, presenting the character as a childlike figure who sets a series of vicious traps to catch Enkidu, the guileless forest creature.
The Comb
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1990 18 mins Director: Brothers Quay
A woman dreams of a fairytale landscape populated by ladders and sinister puppets.
Nocturna Artificialia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1979 21 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The debut film from the Brothers Quay follows a dreamer who's seduced by the mystery of the city at night. He leaves his room and goes into the street, where a tram-car carries him away.
Street of Crocodiles
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1986 21 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Quays' best-known (and highest budgeted) short takes place in nightmarish netherworld populated by strange and sinister puppets.
London
Welcome to Britain
Documentary 1976 73 mins Director: Ben Lewin
Ben Lewin’s 1976 film captures a moment in Britain's evergreen immigration debate, focusing on new arrivals at Heathrow as they wrestle with immigration law.
The Elephant Man
Biopic 1980 124 mins Director: David Lynch
David Lynch's moving true-life tale of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick and his rescue from the hell of a Victorian circus sideshow.
Face
Crime 1997 101 mins Director: Antonia Bird
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 Day the Earth Caught Fire
Science Fiction 1961 100 mins Director: Val Guest
The BFI’s new 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?
Quatermass and the Pit
Horror 1967 94 mins Director: Roy Ward Baker
One of Britain’s finest sci-fi films, based on Nigel Kneale’s masterful script, about the discovery of ancient alien craft beneath central London.
Nightbirds
Drama 1970 78 mins Director: Andy Milligan
Dark drama about the doomed relationship of two down-and-outers living in the squalid East End of London in the early 1970s.
New
Sunflower
Drama 1969 112 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren searches for the husband she lost at the Russian Front (Marcello Mastroianni) in this sweeping romance epic with echoes of Doctor Zhivago.
L'innocente
Period drama 1976 130 mins Director: Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti's final film is a brilliant and disturbing drama set against the opulent backdrop of decadent, late 19th-century aristocracy.
Two Women
War 1960 100 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Sophia Loren won an Oscar® for her performance as a mother trying to protect her daughter in wartime Italy, in Vittorio De Sica's neorealist classic.
L'avventura
Drama 1960 137 mins Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Antonioni’s masterpiece of modern alienation, with Monica Vitti as the young woman searching for her friend who's inexplicably disappeared.
La Dolce Vita
Drama 1960 175 mins Director: Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini’s masterpiece depicting seven hedonistic days in the life of a tabloid journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) as he searches for the sweet life.
The Battle of Algiers
Drama 1966 121 mins Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
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.
Extras
Robinson in Ruins (Q&A)
