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
The Kreutzer Sonata
Drama 2008 96 mins Director: Bernard Rose
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).
Love Exposure
Comedy 2008 237 mins Director: Sion Sono
Japanese cinema's enfant terrible, Sion Sono, unleashes this demented, whirlwind tale of cults, love, violence and perversion.
The General
Comedy 1926 79 mins Silent Director: Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton's masterpiece is widely and rightly regarded as one of the greatest comedies ever made.
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Comedy 1928 71 mins Director: Charles F. Riesner
Waterway hi jinks abound in this Buster Keaton classic, in which he plays the reluctant heir to his father's paddle steamer business.
Sherlock Jr.
Comedy 1924 45 mins Director: Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton's superb, sophisticated silent comedy in which he dreams himself into the movie he's watching, in order to win back his girl.
A Gentle Creature
Drama 2017 143 mins Director: Sergei Loznitsa
A quietly determined woman undertakes a quest of Kafkaesque proportions as she tries to uncover the fate of her imprisoned husband, in this riveting, blackly comic masterpiece from Sergei Loznitsa (In the Fog).
Extras
Robinson in Ruins (Q&A)
