The pioneers. The iconoclasts. The brave. From landmark LGBTQIA+ portraits to the next generation of queer classics. 383l32

Start streaming LGBTQIA+ cinema on BFI Player today.

• 20,000 Species of Bees
• 52 Tuesdays
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
• Aimée & Jaguar
• All About My Mother
• All of Us Strangers
• Amazing Grace
• Ammonite
• B.D. Women
• Beach Rats

...plus 188 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From restored film classics to new releases, we've released the following films in the UK and Ireland since 2018. How many have you seen?

In cinemas
La Haine
April
Slade in Flame
The Extraordinary Miss Flower

• The Extraordinary Miss Flower
• Flame
• April
• Four Mothers
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
• Architecton
• Rocco and His Brothers
• All We Imagine as Light
• Point Break

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Many great directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, from the 1930 to ’50s, radically changed course in the later years of their career – a theme that runs through the new season of the podcast You Must This and a BFI Southbank season (April 2025).

You Must This Presents... “The Old Man Is Still Alive”, curated by Karina Longworth, screens at BFI Southbank from 2-21 April 2025

• A Hole in the Head
• The Tiger of Eschnapur
• The Indian Tomb
• Cheyenne Autumn
• Red Line 7000
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• Frenzy
• Such Good Friends
• The Only Game in Town
• Avanti!

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A celebration of work by female directors past & present. Start watching today on BFI Player.

• Mädchen in Uniform
• Cléo from 5 to 7
• Daisies
• Fruit of Paradise
• Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
• Variety
• My Twentieth Century
• The Juniper Tree
• Daughters of the Dust
• Rosebud

...plus 65 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival showcases the best new queer cinema from around the globe.

The 39th edition of BFI Flare takes place 19-30 March 2025 at BFI Southbank. Explore the full line-up of features, shorts and events today bfi.org.uk/flare

• The Wedding Banquet
• Night Stage
• Dreams in Nightmares
• Winter Kept Us Warm
• New Wave
• Stephen
• Power Alley
• 30s Are (NOT) the New 20s
• Next Door
• J Is for Just an Afternoon Thunderstorm

...plus 95 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A love story for every mood - from sweeping love affairs, to quirky rom-coms and tales of obsessive desire.

• Gone with the Wind
• The Shop Around the Corner
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Lady Eve
• Casablanca
• Brief Encounter
• A Day in the Country
• Summer with Monika
• Roman Holiday
• Journey to Italy

...plus 68 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From homegrown filmmakers who’ve gone on to international acclaim to features that make evocative use of its towns, cities, communities and landscapes, Scotland’s cinematic output has always been particularly rich.

• The Edge of the World
• I Know Where I'm Going!
• Whisky Galore!
• The 'Maggie'
• Culloden
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
• My Childhood
• My Ain Folk
• The Wicker Man
• My Way Home

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The UK’s largest festival for emerging filmmakers, the BFI Future Film Festival, returns 20 Feb - 6 Mar.

At BFI Southbank, online and in venues around the UK. Explore the full programme.

• A Few More Minutes, Please
• A Hot Summer Night
• A Natural Saddest
• Almost Intangible
• Big Deal
• Blueprint
• By Heart
• Check Please
• Claws
• Don't Fall From Grace

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

African American westerns carved out a unique niche as revisionist films, mirroring the innovations of New Hollywood. The urbane East opposed a wild West. Americans fought Mexicans for Texas, and schoolmarms shamed saloon hall girls. Inspired by the 1960s counterculture, these films reimagined the West with more complexity and depth.

Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western, curated by Mia Mask, screens at BFI Southbank from 1 Feb — 18 Mar 2025.

• Sergeant Rutledge
• Duel at Diablo
• 100 Rifles
• The Learning Tree
• The Legend of Nigger Charley
• Skin Game
• Buck and the Preacher
• The Harder They Come
• Take a Hard Ride
• Posse

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Drop your suggestions in the comments below!

• 2046
• 3 Godfathers
• 8 Women
• An Affair to
• The Apartment
• Bad Santa
• Birdsong
• The Bishop's Wife
• Black Christmas
• Blast of Silence

...plus 98 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Sight and Sound's annual round-up of the best films, as voted for by over 100 contributors, is as eclectic and unpredictable as it has ever been – reflecting a year of remarkable cinematic achievements, from arthouse blockbusters to small-scale heartbreakers. Read more

See notes for where films are ranked simultaneously.

1. All We Imagine as Light

   What could the cinema do for us, in a year as violent and divided as 2024? It’s a lot to ask of art to save the planet, but it can at least, we hope, inform and educate, broadening our collective horizons – a salve in an age of misinformation, culture wars and starkly polarised political debates. The international diversity of this year’s winners and their subject matter, chosen by a global pool of critics, gives a heartening sense of broadened horizons. Cinema has always been the fastest way to travel.

   Our worthy winner is a film about love, but one that takes a clear stance against Islamophobia and other religious, caste and class prejudices that constrict real people’s lives. For its maker, love can be “both a form of resistance against society, but also [a step] towards having choice for women”. Such a feminist message sits comfortably at the top of this year’s poll. There are more female than male directors in the top ten, a feat that has only happened once before, in the pandemic year of 2020, when there were seven women listed – this year finds six.

   — Pamela Hutchinson

2. Anora
3. La Chimera
4. Dahomey
5. Hard Truths
6. Caught by the Tides
7. Love Lies Bleeding

   t 7th

8. The Substance

   t 7th

9. No Other Land
10. Nickel Boys

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Want more? Check out bfi.org.uk

Think something is missing? Comment below!

• The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
• The 47 Ronin
• 48 Hrs.
• The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Akira
• Aliens
• Antonio das Mortes
• The Assassin
• Assault on Precinct 13

...plus 213 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

We are proud to bold and original storytellers, awarding National Lottery funding to champion powerful debuts as well as established filmmakers. This breath-taking list of UK films, shows the range of stories National Lottery funding has financed over the last 30 years.

• On Falling
• Santosh
• Sister Midnight
• Bird
• Grand Theft Hamlet
• Doppelgängers³
• Timestalker
• Edge of Summer
• Sebastian
• Layla

...plus 282 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The story of action cinema – year by year, blow by blow.

List curated by Henry Barnes, Anton Bitel, Kambole Campbell, Elena Lazic, David Morrison, Hayley Scanlon, Gayle Sequeira, Timon Singh, Lou Thomas, Matthew Thrift, Chloe Walker and Sam Wigley.

Read more.

• The Thief of Bagdad
• Battleship Potemkin
• The General
• The Kid Brother
• Burning of the Red Lotus Monastery
• The Flying Scotsman
• The Dawn Patrol
• The Public Enemy
• The Most Dangerous Game
• King Kong

...plus 91 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The BFI London Film Festival Surprise Film is always one of the hottest tickets of the year! Kicking off in 1985 with A Chorus Line, we've screened everything from future classics to Oscar winners and featured introductions from some of the biggest directors and stars. In 1996, we even had two surprise films!

Unless otherwise stated in the notes, the film date corresponds with the year the film screened at LFF.

• Saturday Night
• Ferrari
• The Menu
• C'mon C'mon
• Uncut Gems
• Green Book
• Lady Bird
• Sully
• Anomalisa
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Want more?

Check out the following articles or Barry Keith Grant's BFI Screen Guides, 100 American Horror Films.
A great horror film from every year, from 1922 to now
10 great vampire films

• Longlegs
• The Substance
• I Saw the TV Glow
• When Evil Lurks
• Where the Devil Roams
• Abruptio
• Talk to Me
• Barbarian
• Skinamarink
• Nope

...plus 268 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

First launched in 2009, the BFI London Film Festival Official Competition showcases inspiring, inventive and distinctive international filmmaking.

• Memoir of a Snail
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Corsage
• Hit the Road
• Another Round
• Monos
• Joy
• Loveless
• Certain Women
• Chevalier

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Catch past festival winners at the BFI London Film Festival 2024. Taking place 9-20 Oct 2024 in London and across the UK.

Select List View to see the awards each film has won.

• All We Imagine as Light

  Cannes Film Festival 2024 (winner, Grand Prix)

• Anora

  Cannes Film Festival 2024 (winner, Palme d’Or)

• April

  Venice Film Festival 2024 (winner, Special Jury Prize)

• Bionico's Bachata

  SXSW 2024 (winner, Audience Award)

• Bird

  Cannes Film Festival 2024 (winner, Prix de la Citoyenneté)

• Chain Reactions

  Venice Film Festival 2024 (winner, Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema)

• Dahomey

  Berlinale 2024 (winner, Golden Bear)

• Dragfox

  Yugo BAFTA Student Awards 2024 (winner, Jury Prize)

• Ernest Cole: Lost and Found

  Cannes Film Festival 2024 (winner, L'Oeil d'Or)

• Familiar Touch

  Venice Film Festival 2024 (winner, Luigi De Laurentiis for Debut Film and Orizzonti Best Director)

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

See future Oscar nominees on the big screen this October at the BFI London Film Festival. Taking place 9-20 Oct 2024 in London and across the UK.

Select List View to see the submitting countries for each film.

• Dahomey

  Senegal

• Emilia Pérez

• Flow

  Latvia

• Grand Tour

  Portugal

• I'm Still Here

  Brazil

• Julie Keeps Quiet

  Belgium

• Santosh

  UK

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig

• Shambhala

  Nepal

• Sujo

  Mexico

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

What are your favourite films about the Black British experience?

• Jemima + Johnny
• Pressure
• Black Joy
• Babylon
• Burning an Illusion
• Playing Away
• Young Soul Rebels
• Babymother
• Bullet Boy
• The Stuart Hall Project

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Everyone is invited!

Discover the world's best new films, series and immersive storytelling in London and around the UK 9-20 Oct.

Explore the line-up bfi.org.uk/lff

Creating your own LFF list or logging films watched during the Festival? Tag lff to share with us!

• Blitz
• Piece By Piece
• Elton John: Never Too Late
• Anora
• The Apprentice
• Bird
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Hard Truths
• Joy

...plus 208 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The films and television that shaped many facets of Starve Acre, Daniel Kokotajlo’s adaptation of Andrew Michael Hurley’s acclaimed novel.

"This mix of cinema and television all have the uncanny ability to haunt and unsettle me. And yet they also bring a wry smile to my face. Each one is enshrouded by a distinct atmosphere, and lures you in with its charm while warning you of its danger. It’s the duality found in dark fantasy and folk horror that fascinates me — a time or place that beckons you to immerse yourself in its beauty, even as you sense its sinister agenda. It’s an incredible mood – a devilish place you can’t help but want to enter; folk horror is the hang-out horror movie. All of these films craft worlds of wild landscapes, ancient folklore and the fantastical, drawing you in with their hypnotic rhythm, only to gently sink their fangs into you… And when they do, you’re sort of okay with it, because you’re finally at one with your true nature."

Daniel Kokotajlo, filmmaker and season curator

Roots, Rituals and Phantasmagoria screens at BFI Southbank in September 2024. Starve Acre arrives in UK and Ireland cinemas on 6 Sep.

• Starve Acre
• Dead of Night
• Whistle and I'll Come to You
• Robin Redbreast
• A Warning to the Curious
• Don't Look Now
• Murrain
• Beasts: Baby
• Children of the Stones
• Eraserhead

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Stop-motion animations, both short and feature length, that we wouldn't recommend watching with the children! Most titles have been given a BBFC rating of 12A or higher, or contain adult themes.

Stop Motion: Celebrating Handmade Animation on the Big Screen continues until early Oct 2024 at BFI Southbank. Explore the programme!

• King Kong
• Dimensions of Dialogue
• Street of Crocodiles
• The Pied Piper
• Clothes
• Next
• Achilles
• Little Otik
• Peter & the Wolf
• Yours Truly

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

If it's weird, and forgotten, then it's Flipside.

BFI Flipside is dedicated to rediscovering the margins of British and Irish film, reclaiming a space for forgotten movies and filmmakers who would otherwise be in danger of disappearing from our screens forever. It is a home for cinematic oddities, offering everything from exploitation documentaries to B-movies, countercultural curios and obscure classics.

This list features all the titles that have been released on DVD or Blu-ray. Some titles have since been deactivated. Shop our Blu-ray collection.

• The Bed Sitting Room
• London in the Raw
• Primitive London
• Herostratus
• All the Right Noises
• Man of Violence
• Privilege
• That Kind of Girl
• Permissive
• The Pleasure Girls

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

In the past, the BFI London Film Festival has not had a consistent policy on identifying a ‘closing night gala’ and programmers were often at great pains not to focus on one film above the rest of the programme. In some cases films are identified as the 'closing night film' but may have simply been last film in the festival screened at 11.15pm. Since the 1986 festival there has been clearly defined opening and closing film.

How many have you seen?

• Daisies

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1967

• if....

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1968

• Boy

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1969 (1/2)

• Sweet Hunters

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1969 (1/2)

• Quiet Days in Clichy

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1970

• Trafic

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1971

• Ludwig – Requiem for a Virgin King

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1973

• The Fierce One

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1974

• The Middleman

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1975

• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

  BFI London Film Festival Closing Night film 1976

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Revenge, money, power and love. What else would you add?

Explore more at bfi.org.uk

• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
• Sherlock Jr.
• Piccadilly
• Dragnet Girl
• The Maltese Falcon
• Murder, My Sweet
• The Postman Always Rings Twice
• It Always Rains on Sunday
• Obsession
• The Asphalt Jungle

...plus 57 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films mentioned by Martin Scorsese during his 90 minute interview with fellow filmmaker Edgar Wright.

The Screen Talk is available to watch on YouTube.

• Accattone
• The Bad and the Beautiful
• Before the Revolution
• The Big Heat
• Bomba, the Jungle Boy
• The Brothers Karamazov
• Faces
• The FBI Story
• Fists in the Pocket
• The Heiress

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Travel back through the years with our list of the opening night films of the BFI London Film Festival!

During its 66 years, LFF has not had a consistent policy on identifying an ‘opening night gala’ and programmers were often at great pains not to focus on one film above the rest of the programme. In some cases films are identified as ‘opening night’ but in subsequent years the film listed may just be the first film in the programme. From the 1986 festival onwards there is a clearly defined opening and closing film.

Check our lists for every closing night film and every surprise film!

• Throne of Blood
• H-8...
• A Midsummer's Night Dream
• The Love Game
• Lola
• The Elusive Corporal
• Funny Side of Life
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• Loves of a Blonde
• The Shameless Old Lady

...plus 61 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From terrifying tales of vengeful female ghosts to haunting explorations of economic inequality, colonialism, xenophobia, geopolitics and gender dynamics, South Korean horror films have carved out a distinct niche in the global genre landscape.

Read more

• The Housemaid
• A Bloodthirsty Killer
• Suddenly in the Dark
• Whispering Corridors
• Phone
• A Tale of Two Sisters
• Into the Mirror
• Acacia
• R-Point
• The Red Shoes

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Most people are familiar with the ‘comfort movie’; the feel-good, film equivalent of comfort food. Viewing that is pleasurable, familiar or undemanding. Films that offer us precious escapism or a soothing balm from our own realities. But what about the films that make us feel bad?

Discomfort Movies, curated by Kim Sheehan, takes place at BFI Southbank from 1-31 July 2024.

What are your Discomfort Movies?

1-15 - Discomfort Movies programme
16-54 - Staff picks
55-150 - Your picks

1. Eraserhead
2. The Lost Weekend
3. They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
4. A Woman Under the Influence
5. Possession
6. Threads
7. Funny Games
8. Audition
9. Requiem for a Dream
10. Bug

...plus 140 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From our vantage point in 2024, we sit one quarter of the way through the 21st century. To acknowledge this milestone, Sight and Sound have enlisted the help of 25 critics, asking each to nominate a film that is significant within our cinematic era – the kind of film that could be put into a time capsule for the cinephiles of the 22nd century and beyond to marvel at, a movie that is both representative of and a high watermark of the years 2000 to 2024.

From the Sight and Sound Summer 2024 issue

• The Gleaners and I
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Divine Intervention
• Oldboy
• Anatomy of Hell
• A History of Violence
• Inland Empire
• Unrelated
• La Rabbia di Pasolini
• Everyone Else

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Undead princesses, murderous mermaids and scarecrow-based folk horror. We place new supernatural drama A House in Jerusalem within the rich tapestry of horror and fantasy films from the Arab world. Read more

• A Thousand and One Nights
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
• Arouss el Nil
• The Lady of the Black Moons
• Ballad of Tara
• Tall Shadows of the Wind
• Fangs
• Pegasus
• Kindil
• Dachra

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Life after the end of the world doesn’t look pretty in these post-apocalypse films!

What else would you add?

• Things to Come
• La Jetée
• The War Game
• Planet of the Apes
• The Omega Man
• A Boy and His Dog
• Dawn of the Dead
• Stalker
• The Last Battle
• Threads

...plus 18 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

One of the most significant post-war developments in cinema, Italian neorealism rejected traditional cinematic canons.

Neorealism came to exist out of a moral necessity, following the urgency, as Cesare Zavattini, one of the movement’s architects, put it, to ‘find the hidden drama in everyday life’. When the subject of art becomes ordinary life, reality becomes spectacle.

This decisive decade is ripe for rediscovery; it’s been 80 years since Rossellini started work on Rome, Open City and 70 years since the ‘official’ end of the movement, yet it remains relevant to our current times in its ability to teach us the importance of freedom and to reinforce our capacity for comion. - Giulia Saccogna, season curator

Chasing the Real: Italian Neorealism plays May-June 2024 at BFI Southbank.

The first three films on this list are considered as ‘proto-neo­realist’, with traces still remaining of the sentimentality that marked films of the fascist era, alongside the first manifestations of a new kind of cinema.

• Four Steps in the Clouds
• Obsession
• The Children Are Watching Us
• Rome, Open City
• Shoeshine
• Paisan
• The Bandit
• Tragic Hunt
• , Year Zero
• La Terra Trema

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From Oscar-winning British classics to Hollywood musicals and Westerns, from Soviet epics to Bollywood thrillers, Shakespeare has inspired an almost infinite variety of films. Directors as diverse as Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Franco Zeffirelli, Kenneth Branagh, Baz Luhrmann and Julie Taymor have transferred Shakespeare's plays from stage to screen with unforgettable results.

Explore the full selection in Daniel Rosenthal's 100 Shakespeare films.

• The Tempest
• The Life and Death of King Richard III
• Hamlet
• Othello
• Once Upon a Time
• The Jew of Mestri
• The Taming of the Shrew
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Romeo and Juliet
• As You Like It

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Meta is murder: Tie yourself in knots with these movies about fictional movies. Read more.

• The Cameraman
• Sullivan's Travels
• Singin' in the Rain
• Cléo from 5 to 7
• 8½
• Contempt
• Day for Night
• The State of Things
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• The Player

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'Different rules apply when it gets this late, you know what I mean? It’s like, after hours.'

Stay up late watching these gems, all set over the course of one night. Read more.

• That Night's Wife
• Rope
• People in the Summer Night
• The Set-Up
• All Night Long
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Night of the Living Dead
• American Graffiti
• Assault on Precinct 13
• Mikey and Nicky

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From H.G. Wells to Philip K. Dick, the titans of sci-fi literature have been keeping filmmakers busy for decades.

• Metropolis
• Frankenstein
• The Invisible Man
• Things to Come
• The Thing from Another World
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Forbidden Planet
• The Time Machine
• Planet of the Apes
• 2001: A Space Odyssey

...plus 24 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Read more on bfi.org.uk

• Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
• Blood Quantum
• Broken Arrow
• Cheyenne Autumn
• Geronimo: An American Legend
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Powwow Highway
• Prey
• Slash/Back
• Smoke Signals

All the films mentioned in the documentary Scala!!! 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.

Available to watch now on BFI Player.

• Aguirre, the Wrath of God
• Alice
• Antonia and Jane
• Apocalypse Now
• Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
• Bad Taste
• Barbarella
• The Beast
• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
• Blade Runner

...plus 114 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival showcases the best new queer cinema from around the globe.

The 38th edition of BFI Flare took place 13-24 March 2024 at BFI Southbank and on BFI Player. Explore the full line-up of features, shorts and events today!

• Layla

  2024 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival Opening Night Gala

• Lady Like

  2024 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival Closing Night Gala

• Close to You

  2024 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival Special Presentation

• Crossing

  2024 BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival Special Presentation

• Aligned
• Incomplete
• Chasing Chasing Amy
• Isla's Way
• Lesvia
• Old Lesbians

...plus 89 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Few countries can rival the UK when it comes to making great and diverse queer films. This may come as a surprise from a country where male homosexuality was illegal until as recently as 1967, and where gay marriage continues to ruffle feathers. Yet despite their often taboo nature, films with queer characters have been around since the silent era.

• All of Us Strangers
• Femme
• Blue Jean
• In from the Side
• Benediction
• Rebel Dykes
• Sweetheart
• Ammonite
• The Favourite
• Tucked

  Watch on BFI Player

...plus 41 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The UK’s largest festival for young, emerging filmmakers, the BFI Future Film Festival 2024 returns 15-18 February.

This year’s festival will take place at BFI Southbank, online and in venues around the UK. Explore the full programme.

• 36,000 Words For Love
• All Up There
• And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil
• Anna McGee’s Wild Ride
• Appetite
• Are You Okay?
• Away from the Fields
• Bird Drone
• Blood from a Stone
• Cariad Brawdol

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

As more and more films are turned into stage shows, these stage versions are being turned back into movies. With Mean Girls and The Color Purple coming up, we chart a growing trend. Each musical in this list is preceded by the original film.

By Richard Pickard

• The Trapp Family
• The Sound of Music
• Nights of Cabiria
• Sweet Charity
• Smiles of a Summer Night
• A Little Night Music
• The Little Shop of Horrors
• Little Shop of Horrors
• The Producers
• The Producers

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Dark, twisted or just plain maverick, these are some of the 1980s’ most deliciously offbeat movies.

• Inferno
• Saturn 3
• Bad Timing
• City of the Living Dead
• The Night of the Hunted
• The Elephant Man
• Scanners
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne
• Burning an Illusion
• Fitzcarraldo

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From recent hits to cult classics, these are BFI Player subscribers' most watched films of 2023.

• Scrapper
• I Am Weekender
• Pretty Red Dress
• Name Me Lawand
• Love Life
• Blue Jean
• Godard Cinema
• LOLA
• The Beasts
• Chile '76

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Before Michael Mann’s Ferrari speeds into cinemas, we test drive some of its fiercest competitors in the car-racing movie stakes. Read more

• Kid Auto Races at Venice
• Speedway
• The Crowd Roars
• Speed
• Genevieve
• The Racers
• Red Line 7000
• Winning
• Le Mans
• Two-Lane Blacktop

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Sight and Sound's annual round-up of the best films, as voted for by over 100 contributors, is as eclectic and unpredictable as it has ever been – reflecting a year of remarkable cinematic achievements, from arthouse blockbusters to small-scale heartbreakers. Read more

See notes for where films are ranked simultaneously.

• Killers of the Flower Moon
• The Zone of Interest
• Past Lives
• Poor Things
• Barbie

  t 5th

• Oppenheimer

  t 5th

• ages
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• May December

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Tired of your usual Christmas viewing? Check out these festive films available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BFI Player and elsewhere this December! Updated for 2023

• The Mistletoe Bough
• The Little Match Girl
• Santa's Workshop
• My Favorite Wife
• Meet John Doe
• The Curse of the Cat People
• Dead of Night
• A Guest Is Coming
• The Bishop's Wife
• Holiday Affair

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

From The Shining to The Lobster, hotels on film are the perfect settings for crime, sex, farce, horror and all kinds of subterfuge. As The Eternal Daughter checks in to cinemas, we celebrate some of the most memorable! Read more

• Brief Encounter
• Key Largo
• Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
• Ashes and Diamonds
• Last Year at Marienbad
• The Silence
• The Graduate
• Death in Venice
• Daughters of Darkness
• What's Up, Doc?

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

How do you plan a retrospective around a filmmaker with a limited body of work? This question lies at the heart of Wanda and Beyond: The World of Barbara Loden, a new season screening at BFI Southbank this June. Many fans of feminist and US independent cinema will have heard of Wanda, a low budget 1970 US indie road movie, and the sole directorial feature of actor turned filmmaker Barbara Loden. A loose, semi-improvised story of an aimless divorcee who drifts into the orbit of an unstable bank robber, on the surface Wanda is a modest proposition. But the film has acquired a special status over the decades and is now celebrated as a cult classic and a lodestar of feminist filmmaking. 

The case for screening Wanda is clear, but for Wanda and Beyond season curator Elena Gorfinkel, there’s a wider story here than one standout feature. Gorfinkel, a film scholar and critic, has been watching and rewatching Wanda for 20 years. In the process of writing a new BFI Film Classic book about the film, she uncovered an abundance of material that challenged some of the assumptions surrounding Loden, whose death in 1980, at the age of 48 years old, cut her filmmaking career short. 

“There’s this discourse of lack that circulates around Loden, which comes from the fact that she made an ‘only’ feature,” says Gorfinkel. “Yet when I was researching, I came across so much material attesting to Loden’s historical presence and so many ways of thinking with and alongside the film. I wanted to approach the curation from a position of abundance and to counter the idea that one couldn’t stage a programme around Loden because she had ‘too little’ work.”

Drawing on this spirit of abundance, Wanda and Beyond offers a refreshing approach, which reframes Loden’s minimal filmography as a portal into a wider cinematic cosmos, a constellation of films that speak to and overlap with Wanda’s production and afterlife. A focus on Loden’s career as a Hollywood actor, and screenings of her educational shorts, offer wider perspective on the filmmaker, while a strand exploring other “mad housewives and wayward women” of 1970s cinema gives social and political context to Loden’s proto-feminist anti-heroine. Elsewhere, the season examines the classic cinema that influenced Loden, and traces her later influence on filmmakers such as Nina Menkes and Kelly Reichardt. And, of course, at the season’s centre lies Wanda, its singular, dazzling star.

In this interview Gorfinkel discusses the challenges of curating the season, the fascination surrounding Wanda, and Loden’s cinematic legacy. 

When did you first encounter Wanda? 

I first saw Wanda 20 years ago. I was writing about 1960s sex films, so I was gathering work about gender and sexuality from that period. I watched Wanda on a bootleg that I bought off the internet. Shortly afterwards, I read Bérénice Reynaud’s essay [“For Wanda”, in The Last Great American Picture Show], so my encounter with Wanda was mediated by the voices of other feminist scholars and thinkers.

At that time, I had just begun teaching a course on women directors, so I began to show the bootleg to my students. I was really struck by how bracing, surprising and powerful Wanda is, how modern it feels, partly because of its smallness. Here was this person who was just trying to express themselves in a distinct way. As I continued teaching Wanda, over the years, I was always carrying the film with me. Its images leave this indelible mark. 

Why do you think Wanda is so deeply loved (and fetishised) compared with other landmark women-authored films?

I don’t think it’s entirely treated differently. There’s fetishisation too of, for instance, Agnès Varda, but because she’s so prolific it’s different, a kind of meme-ification or cardboard-cutout-ification. But there is a specificity to Loden’s biographical narrative and how it gets affixed to Wanda. As different generations have re-encountered the film, there’s been a lamination of Loden on to the character of Wanda. That collapse is troubling, but it’s also part of the reason why the film holds this potent charge. 

Loden died young, and Wanda captures something about the injustices women face when they attempt to make work within the inhospitable structures of mainstream film industry. Loden has become an emblem for other women who couldn’t make work or whose work was unfinished. Also there’s the fact that Loden stood both before and behind the camera. She was a beautiful, glamorous figure, with a relationship to Hollywood via her relationship with Elia Kazan [Loden’s second husband]. All these factors play into it.

Then there’s film itself, which is perfect in many ways. With the season I wanted to argue that Wanda constitutes an entire world, that a single film can present a whole constellation or cosmos. The brilliance of Wanda is also bound up in the film’s narrative. It’s the story of a woman who, as Bérénice Reynaud says, “could be Barbara Loden, or you or me”. There’s also a very tantalising dimension to the “what if?”, this counterfactual question: what if Loden was able to make more work? What if is intoxicating, but it’s also melancholy. Loden didn’t necessarily see herself as mediated only through her death. She was making and trying to make work her entire life. That tension is something the book and the season addresses. 

Wanda was once difficult to access and screen, but is now widely available. How straightforward was it to access other, lesser known films that are part of the season?

Loden’s 16mm short educational films, The Frontier Experience and The Boy Who Liked Deer, are an important case in point. They are part of a project that I’m working on with restorationist Ross Lipman. The original negatives appear to be lost, but because these were classroom films, a lot of worn prints are in circulation. The ideal would be to make restored prints of these films, but it’s difficult without the original negatives. Lipman will be speaking about the work he has done so far on digital upgrading of prints, at the symposium. 

The shorts raise questions about how film culture values “minor works”. Wanda has been legitimised, but these films are easier to discount. Yet I think it’s important to look at this area of “useful films”, where women filmmakers were making work in the 1970s, not just Loden but also contemporaries like Joan Micklin Silver. One can imagine that in many classrooms in America, there was a point when someone was watching a Loden film without knowing it. This is a different way of thinking about encounters with women’s cinema that are neglected, but which raise important questions about what kinds of film culture is valued. 

How do you think Wanda’s influence has resonated across cinema history?

The question of influence is hard to pin down, but I do think it’s productive to trace affinities. With the strand entitled All The Wandas, I wanted to imagine who the contemporary inheritors might be of Loden’s ethos and aesthetic. That led me to filmmakers who may or may not have been aware of Loden, but who I think are in dialogue, overtly or not, with her legacy. 

Part of Wanda’s enduring brilliance is how it speaks to modes of making and aesthetic strategies that continue into the present. We see this, for instance, in Nina Menkes’s Queen of Diamonds, which, like Wanda, engages with endurance and with a refusal of the capitalist exploitation of ordinary women. Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass offers a similar genre-scrambling to Wanda in its approach to the outlaw couple narrative. There’s also the recent ascendance of the “difficult” woman which Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin talk about. We see this in films like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, or in Claudia von Alemann’s Blind Spot, which is about a woman who abandons her family to chase the traces of a French socialist feminist. Loden’s legacy moves in many directions. I am less interested in suggesting a one-to-one relationship, and more about where the glimmers of Loden’s imagination lead the audience. That’s the real premise of the season.

Wanda and Beyond: The World of Barbara Loden is at BFI Southbank until 29 June 

This June, it’s time for the big beasts, led by an elephant you’ll never forget, with some of the best new releases to celebrate Pride Month and unmissable world cinema – all coming to BFI Player.

2 June 2025 

Sebastian
2024, UK/Finland/Belgium

Subscription exclusive: In Mikko Mäkelä’s gripping psychological drama, a young London-based writer begins a double life as a sex worker in order to research his debut novel.

Who We Love
2021, Ireland.

Subscription exclusive: Dublin schoolgirl Lily turns to her gay best friend for in this vibrant coming-out, coming-of-age drama from Graham Cantwell. Nominated for six Irish Film and Television Awards including best director and film.         
             
Punch-Drunk Love
2002, USA.

Adam Sandler is a beleaguered businessman who finds romance with a mysterious woman, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s award-winning comedy.     
               
An Elephant Sitting Still
2018, China.

The lives of four desperate people unfold over the course of a single day, in this melancholy masterpiece about the human condition. An electrifying directorial debut from Hu Bo.

9 June 2025 1l3o4z

2073
2024, UK/USA.

Subscription exclusive: Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia delivers a powerful commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

The People vs. Larry Flynt
1996, USA.
Milos Forman’s provocative biopic starring Woody Harrelson as the notorious pornographer and free-speech champion.

Blind
2014, Norway/Netherlands.
A woman’s blindness sharpens her capacity for imagination and fantasy in the Eskil Vogt’s inventive debut. 

16 June 2025  4l4sm

Four Mothers
Darren Thornton, 2024, Ireland.

Subscription exclusive: Winner of BFI London Film Festival 2024 Audience Award for Best Feature, Darren Thornton’s wonderfully accessible riff on Gianni Di Gregorio’s Mid-August Lunch is a hilarious, moving and perceptive look at mother and son dynamics, queer identity and singledom.

Of Horses and Men
2013, Iceland//Norway.

Benedikt Erlingsson’s darkly funny tale about the lives of a quirky, remote Icelandic community sees human romance and a ion for horses intertwine in this wildly beautiful story presented in a series of six interwoven vignettes.

Last Exit to Brooklyn
1989, USA/West /UK.

Jennifer Jason Leigh stars in Uli Edel’s controversial drama about 1950s Brooklyn misfits, from the pen of Hubert Selby Jr (Requiem for a Dream).

23 June 2025  3z4m18

Treading Water
2024, UK.

Subscription exclusive: Set against the backdrop of the iconic Manchester skyline, Gino Evans’s impressive feature debut offers a brutal and fascinating portrait of the realities of addiction, mental health issues and contemporary British life.

I Am Curious — Yellow
Vilgot Sjöman, 1967, Sweden.

Vilgot Sjoman’s provocative classic following one woman’s exploration of national identity and her own sexuality in 1960s Sweden. Seized by customs upon entry to the United States, subject of a heated court battle, and banned in several cities, it remains one of the most controversial films of all time.

I Am Curious — Blue
Vilgot Sjöman, 1968, Sweden.

The companion film to I Am Curious – Yellow continues to follow young Lena on her journey of self-discovery.

The film that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 25 years ago, on 20 May 2000, was not the one that Wong Kar Wai had envisaged when he set out on the project sometime around 1997. Far from it. In the Mood for Love emerged from a succession of rapidly evolving projects. One was called Summer in Beijing – it was a comedy. And there was a triptych movie about food. Wong particularly wanted to make a segment about the 1960s Hong Kong of his parents’ generation, something centred around the rice cooker and the liberating impact it had on domestic women. But there was also a novel by Liu Yichang that fascinated him. It had the theme of adultery, but he knew he didn’t want to make a typical adultery movie – too boring, too done. There was also something in Vertigo (1958) that intrigued him – a darkness in male desire – and perhaps the film could also reunite characters from his 1990 film Days of Being Wild?

In the Mood for Love would eventually grab its title from a Bryan Ferry song (Why not? The title of Wong’s previous film, 1997’s Happy Together, came from The Turtles). But even once the project had locked on to the idea of a romance between two lonely neighbours who realise their respective spouses are having an affair, there was whittling, sculpting, experimenting to be done to try to find the edges, the form of the story. A sex scene was shot between Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung but rejected in the editing: how would this have changed our perception of this most poised and reserved of screen romances? A 1970s sequence was shot, in line with Wong’s idea that the film would tell the story of a hidden affair across several time periods – but that was left out too. Instead, a coda set in 1966 and at Angkor Wat would end the film, breaking step with the hermetic intensity of the 1962 sections and changing the air.

Many of these decisions were made at the 11th hour, in a rush to edit the film to meet the deadline for Cannes, the pristine movie that premiered belying the late-in-the-day rush and the apparently brutal choices that left so much material on the cutting-room floor. But though Mulholland Dr. (2001) – another film that had to be radically reformulated from original conception – has been its only serious rival in polls of films of the decade or century ever since, there’s a sense that In the Mood for Love remains a naggingly unsettled project for Wong himself. He made a new millennium-set short film called In the Mood for Love 2001 in 2001, which reunited the characters, but it’s been impossible to see. His 2004 film 2046 was another sequel of sorts. Then, in 2021, he oversaw a remastering of his work in which the yellow-leaning colour grading freaked out many fans as a kind of desecration. This was the way he’d always wanted his films to look, he said, including In the Mood for Love. A disclaimer was issued: “I invite the audience to me in starting afresh, as these are not the same films, and we are no longer the same audience.”

Along with Maggie Cheung, editor and production designer William Chang, cinematographer Christopher Doyle, composer Umebyashi Shigeru and subtitler and critic Tony Rayns, Wong generously agreed to be interviewed for an oral history celebrating the 25th anniversary of this special film for the May 2025 issue of Sight and Sound magazine. But an oral history format required its own kind of paring back, so here’s our discussion with Wong in full.

You began working on what would become In the Mood for Love during the time of the handover of Hong Kong. To what extent did this political shift shape the film you wanted to make, or send you back to thinking about Hong Kong’s past?

The film was made at the turn of the century. It has nothing to do with the handover. The Y2K bug – whether the world would end at the last moment of 1999 – was the hottest topic. Instead of worrying about the future, I envisioned a triptych spanning different decades of the century that was about to , each centred around a revolutionary invention that changed domestic life in Asia: the 60s rice cooker which liberated women from the stove and reshaped domestic routines, instant noodles in the 90s, and the 24-hour convenience store – both erased boundaries between day and night, hunger and satisfaction. 
The 1960s segment was meant to be just one part of this larger mosaic, but like many things in Hong Kong, it took on a life of its own. What began as A Story of Food became, in the end, a story about a secret.

The film is set in 1962, which is around the time your own family moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai. Are any of the characters in the film derived from people from your own memories?

When my family arrived from Shanghai in 1963, Hong Kong was a collision of dialects and customs. What struck me most was how living spaces forced people together. We shared flats with strangers. There was no such thing as privacy; your life was an open book that everyone read over your shoulder. Today, we barely know who lives next door. But in those days the walls were thin and the connections were thick. The characters in In the Mood for Love are inventions, but the world they move through came straight from my childhood memory. 

The film reunited you with Maggie Cheung in a starring role for the first time since Days of Being Wild (1990). How was the dynamic of your collaboration different this time?  

Maggie starred in my first film, As Tears Go By [1988] – we began together. She was a newcomer then, a Miss Hong Kong winner still finding her craft. By the time we reunited for In the Mood for Love, she had become an accomplished actress who carried herself with a quiet certainty. The challenge was no longer about guiding her but about creating a space where she could surprise even herself.

There were reports that she was frustrated by the open-endedness of the project and the lack of a finished script. How did you manage her expectations of the process? 

Maggie is a professional. She understood that the film was evolving. I told her, “We’re not making a movie about what’s said – we’re making one about what’s hidden.” That tension is what makes her performance powerful.

You’ve said that Tony Leung’s character has a dark side which reminds you of James Stewart’s character in Vertigo (1958). Could you expand on how you see the character having a dark side, and Vertigo as a reference point? 

The original idea was to have Tony’s character less soulful and more revengeful. Devastated by his wife’s betrayal, he began as a wounded man consumed not by heartbreak but by spite. He didn’t seek revenge on the spouses – he wanted to dismantle Maggie’s character, to prove she was no different from his own wife. There’s a cruelty to it, like Jimmy Stewart’s obsession in Vertigo. We softened that edge eventually, but the shadow remained.

What gave you the idea to have Tony and Maggie’s characters role-play her conversations with her husband, rather than showing the husband and her talking? What does this doubling bring?

The novel Dui Dao [Intersection, 1993] – Tête-Bêche in French, which means head to tail – written by writer Liu Yichang, gave the film its spine. Two stories, mirror images. It inspired me to tell the story with parallel lives in opposite directions. The rice cooker – a mundane appliance – became the first domino which set everything in motion. The husband brought it back from Japan like a trophy, without realising it later became a cause of his infidelity. 
But what fascinated me wasn’t the betrayal itself so much as the reenactments: like both sides of a coin, the pair who were betrayed playing betrayers, dissecting infidelity like a crime. By the end, even they couldn’t separate performance from truth. Life imitates art until art becomes life.

You’ve said that you found the idea of making a film about adultery boring, as there are so many of them. But were there any romantic films that did provide reference points for you?

I ire Brief Encounter [1945] – the longing and restraint. But most adultery films are about guilt or ion. I wanted to explore something different – the complicity, the shared secret. In a way, it’s like Hitchcock’s Rear Window [1954], where the neighbours aren’t just background but active participants in the drama. Their presence, their watching eyes, become part of the story. They’re accomplices but, unlike Rear Window, what they witnessed was not a murder but instead an affair. The real crime isn’t the betrayal; it’s being seen.

As the film grew out of a project called A Story of Food, can you talk about the use of food in the final film? What meaning are Western viewers potentially losing from not being familiar with the food we see in the film?

The idea of the film started over breakfast in Paris. Maggie had just finished Irma Vep [1996] and was living there with Olivier [Assayas]. We hadn’t worked together since Ashes of Time [1994], and she said, “we should make another film together.” I proposed a triptych as I’d been reading Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste – “Tell me what you eat, I’ll tell you who you are.” That sparked the initial ideas about three stories connected through food. 

But my intention was not about the food itself. What interested me were the revolutionary inventions that changed how and when people ate, which in turn changed how they lived, how they related to each other. The rice cooker, for instance, is perhaps the most quietly revolutionary object in Asian homes, which liberated housewives. Instant noodles erased meal times. Convenience stores created breathing space for any soul in any time. These inventions created new possibilities for connection, and changed Asian intimacy more profoundly than any love letter. That’s what interested me more than the food itself. 

There is a focus on hands throughout the film. What gave you the idea for this motif, and do you specific directions to the actors regarding their hands?

Hands betray what faces hide. A touch, a hesitation. I told Tony and Maggie to let their hands speak. The cigarette, the letter, the hem of a dress… desire lives in those details, and hands don’t lie like faces do. 

Once Mark Lee Ping-bin took over from Chris Doyle as cinematographer, you were no longer working with your regular close collaborator. What did Mark bring to the film that was different from Chris’s footage, and how did you manage to assimilate their two different styles? 

Chris was like jazz – improvised, explosive. Mark was classical, precise. The film needed both: Chris’s energy in the corridors, Mark’s stillness in the close-ups. They balanced each other. Chris finished 80% of the film and set the tone. Mark followed his path and managed to leave his own traces. 

At what point in production did ‘Yumeji’s Theme’ and the Nat King Cole songs become intrinsic parts of the film? Did you pick these yourself? What did you like about the plucked string motif of ‘Yumeji’s Theme’?

Shigeru Umebayashi’s theme came to me early in the process – that plucked string motif felt like a heartbeat, something primal and essential. The Nat King Cole songs brought this layer of exoticism, of longing for somewhere else. Together, they created this emotional landscape that the film could inhabit. Music always leads the way for me – for instance, guiding my cameras to do Swan Lake in a 10x10 square-foot room. 

Could you talk about your use of repetition in the film. The repeated use of ‘Yumeji’s Theme’ and repeated angles, shots of clocks etc. What were you trying to express?

Repetition is how memory works. The same song, the same stairs – each time, the meaning changes. It’s not nostalgia; it’s haunting.

You had to rush to finish the film to make the deadline for Cannes, and you excluded several scenes that you shot, including a sex scene and a sequence set in the 1970s. If you were editing the film again today, would you make the same exclusions?

Even now, I’d cut those scenes. The film is about absence. What’s missing is as important as what’s there.

At the point at which it first played on screen at Cannes, how satisfied were you with it as a finished film?

We barely made the deadline – we arrived at Cannes with a print of mono sound. Our Italian distributor was furious and threatened to sue me. “Where are the love scenes?” he demanded. The night before the premiere, everyone was convinced it would be a disaster. But Cannes taught us films are alive – they grow with the audience. The long applause after the first press screening next morning saved the film. The same distributor who threatened to sue me embraced me in tears. That’s when I knew the film had found its audience. 

In China, In the Mood for Love has been re-released for its 25th anniversary with the short film In the Mood for Love 2001, which hasn’t been seen since 2001. Will this short film also finally become available in the West, and what do you think it adds to the feature film?

This short film has been like a shadow following the feature all these years. It’s not an epilogue exactly, more like a letter I wrote 25 years ago – finally delivered. I’m curious how audiences today will read it. We are planning to release the extended version for the international audience. However, we wish it to be only shown in cinemas, for the audience to have a better reading on the big screen. 

In the Mood for Love was voted 5th place in Sight and Sound’s 2022 Greatest Films poll – the highest place for any 21st century film. What is it about the film that you think viewers respond to and keeps drawing them back to it?

Perhaps it’s because the film isn’t really about 1960s Hong Kong, but about something more fundamental – how we connect with each other, how we navigate desire and restraint, how we construct narratives to make sense of our lives. These are questions that don’t date, that every generation has to answer for itself.

Given it recreates the Hong Kong of your childhood, is it a film you return to watch often yourself? When was the last time you saw it?

Rarely. Like not digging up old ports – the stamps prove you lived, but no need to revisit daily. The last time I watched it was before the premiere in China. 

At the time you said it was the most difficult shoot of your life, but does the production period hold any nostalgia for you now we’re 25 years on?  

At the time, it was one of the most difficult productions I’ve ever done. But now when I think back, what I are the small moments. Time has a way of softening the edges of memory. 

You’ve been interviewed by AI for the Chinese re-release. What are your thoughts on the use of AI in filmmaking? Will you use it?

Technology is just a tool. AI can replicate, but can it yearn? Can an algorithm understand the weight of a glance between two people who can’t express their feelings? Can code capture the way memory distorts and reshapes our past? These are the questions that interest me, and I don’t think machines have the answers yet.

What are you working on at the moment? 

Always working. But if I tell you, it might not happen. 

Winner of the BFI London Film Festival’s Audience Award, Four Mothers is Irish director Darren Thornton’s long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed ex-con drama A Date for Mad Mary (2016). Co-written with brother Colin Thornton, it’s a loose adaptation of Mid-August Lunch (2008), Gianni Di Gregorio’s comedy about a man living with his mother in a small apartment, only to get saddled with three additional old women – all of them strangers – during an Italian holiday.

The Thorntons’ reworking finds anxious Irish novelist Edward (James McArdle) unexpectedly having to supervise the eccentric elderly mothers of three pals who’ve impulsively headed to an overseas Pride event, in addition to caring for his own impish mum (Fionnula Flanagan). And all while trying to juggle promotional commitments for a potentially career-making US book tour.

Josh Slater-Williams spoke to Darren Thornton about the personal circumstances that informed his charming movie, plus his slightly David Fincher-esque approach to shooting comedy.

Four Mothers is more of a riff on Mid-August Lunch than a direct remake, but it struck me as an ideal version of what a remake of a film from another country should be: you expand the potential of the premise without overcomplicating things and you meaningfully root the story in the cultural milieu of the new setting. Were these ideas about upbringing and caring in Ireland on your mind before finding the template of the earlier Italian film?

Probably from before. And it’s interesting you say that because Colin and I are big fans of The Beat That My Heart Skipped [2005] and Fingers [1978], the James Toback film [it was a remake of]. In talking with the producers, we would say Four Mothers is to Mid-August Lunch what The Beat That My Heart Skipped was to Fingers. Mid-August Lunch is a fantastic film that I don’t want to try to recreate. I want to use it as a way into things that are interesting for us right now.

We’d been going through a very painful period with our mum where she was unwell and needed care. By the time we got an email from producer Jack Sidey, with a DVD for Mid-August Lunch in the post, we were sort of living a version of what Gianni Di Gregorio had done with his film. It was a conversation that we really wanted to get into and share our point of view on what was funny, absurd and heartbreaking to us about the situation.
When our mum ed away, the feeling around it was so raw that we just needed to explore all of that. We needed to write about that period we had shared with her before we lost her, as some kind of healing or to find some kind of catharsis. We had to follow that impulse.

Why did you make the lead character a novelist?

Part of what we went through in the period that we were at home with Mam was that [A Date for Mad Mary] had come out and we were supposed to be promoting that film. We were trying to have these [interview] conversations while at the same time, like in Four Mothers, dealing with someone whose capacity is diminishing and trying to help them – literally that scenario at the start of the movie where he needs to do a radio interview while bringing Mam to the toilet. 

So many different, crazy things are happening while you’re trying to speak in an articulate way about this thing that you made. Having to be a salesman for your own work, that’s the most difficult part of the job for us. We’re always filled with self-doubt around those things. And just like in the film, our mum lost her voice and was reliant on a voice app. The loss of a voice and what that means to both of them in different ways was a compelling starting point for us with the film.

Were there any major lessons learned on A Date for Mad Mary that you brought to this production?

Particularly with the broader aspects of the comedy and the sometimes darker aspects of the drama, you’re trying to find that perfect flow where you can move in and out of comedy and tragedy in a fluid way. In the edit, it’s finding that point at which the rhythm of the story is right and all of those elements work harmoniously. That can take quite a while, and on A Date for Mad Mary I think we really went, 'Fuck, did we completely mess this up?'

And then we realised that, at a certain point, it does kick in. With Four Mothers, we felt a little more confident when we hit that same tricky period. It feels like shit right now, but it’s going to get to the point it did with the last one where it starts to flow in just the right way.
We have a pretty specific approach to comedy where we want the actors to just play the truth. Usually with comedy, even the greatest, most subtle actor will want to lean into the comedy. We’re always trying to get them to not lean into the comedy, to just trust it, because there’s nothing worse than when you’re on set and the actors are having a good lark and the crew are chuckling and you kind of know you’re going to get into the edit room and it’s not going to be funny at all. 

The more craic that people are having on the shoot, the less funny and interesting it’s going to be when you get there. So, I usually want to shoot it in such a way that they’re just fucking bored with it. And then when it gets to the cutting, it comes to life.

Does making the cast and crew bored of it involve a David Fincher level of takes?

It does to the extent where enough of the crew and cast will get frustrated that you’re shooting more takes than you would expect to be on an indie film. I try to shoot to the point where the text will feel spontaneous. People ask us if a lot of it is improvised. And that’s great because it means that it’s working properly. The answer is no, it’s not improvised, it’s very heavily scripted, but we shoot it to the degree that it really feels lived in.

We always talk about the loaded gun aspect with actors where they’ll come to set primed and sharp, and they’re attacking the scene just a little bit too much and it feels a little performed. For us anyway, if it’s too sharp, it’s not quite as funny. They’re all great actors, and it’s never a case of specific adjustments to make. It’s just waiting for a little air to come out of the tires and then it’ll start to hum.

For some in the film industry, there’s a belief that comedies are secretly the most difficult movies to make.

I do agree with that to a certain extent. With comedy, I have to shoot a lot more takes to get it to the place that I want, whereas if it’s a straight, dramatic scene, they tend to be much easier to achieve photographically. And then with the actors, to bring them to boiling point in the way that you want tends to be much simpler. 

With comedy, in getting the particular rhythm, cadence and nuance from the actors, there’s a measure of trust that you have to get from them when you’re asking them not to be broadly comedic – there’s more negotiation. Whereas with drama, it’s easier for everyone to see the colour that you’re going for.

Four Mothers is in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from 4 April 2025.

Everyone is invited to discover the world's best new films, series and immersive storytelling at the 68th BFI London Film Festival 9-20 October in London and around the UK.

Discover the line-up at bfi.org.uk/lff and starting building your watchlist!

Tickets from £10 on sale 17 September - BFI book early.

BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival is thrilled to announce a Screen Talk with the award-winning actor, writer, director, and producer Elliot Page, alongside a Special Presentation feature of Close to You, written and directed by BAFTA-winning Dominic Savage and starring, produced and co-written by Page.

BFI Flare will welcome Page onstage at BFI Southbank, on 15 March, to talk about his remarkable career and latest film Close to You, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Close to You receives its European premiere at BFI Flare as a Special Presentation feature on Thursday 14 March with Elliot Page, Hillary Baack and Dominic Savage in attendance.

Based on a story by Dominic Savage and Elliot Page, Close to You sees simmering apprehensions surround a family get-together, as Elliot Page’s Sam returns home for the first time since transitioning, in this highly collaborative feature. Sam moved to Toronto from his small town on Lake Ontario, Canada and finally decides to return home to visit his family for his dad’s birthday as the grown-up children are gathered back into the fold. On his journey, Sam has a chance encounter with a close friend from high school, Katherine (Hillary Baack) with whom he had lost touch, a moment that sparks old feelings. It is on this trip home where Sam can finally confront long-buried feelings, a first love that was never properly resolved, his relationship with his family, and a newfound love and confidence in himself.

Many in the LBGTQIA+ community will be familiar with the particular sense of dread that can come with such emotionally charged occasions. Although warmly welcomed, misgendering and misunderstandings are only a breath away. Close to You is an intensely naturalistic drama that’s become the hallmark of director Dominic Savage’s previous work Love + Hate and The Escape and most recently in the double BAFTA winning I Am Ruth starring Kate Winslet.

Close to You was produced by Krishnendu Majumdar and Richard Yee of Me + You Productions, along with Daniel Bekerman and Chris Yurkovich of Good Question Media in Canada. Savage and Page also produced after developing, conceiving and co-authoring the story together. Kindred Spirit co-financed the film, with Anita Gou and Sam Intili exec producing alongside Rolling Dice’s Nia Vazirani. Pageboy Productions’ Matt Jordan Smith, Andrew Frank and Francine Maisler also executive produced.

Elliot Page made his screen debut in Pit Pony (1997), followed by his feature debut in Marion Bridge (2002). But it was his standout performance in the provocative chamber thriller Hard Candy (2005), playing a teen who entraps a suspected sexual predator, that he scored his first international breakthrough. Page’s standout central performance in Juno (2007) was not only regarded as one of the best of the year, it saw him receive an Independent Spirit and Genie Award, and nominations for BAFTA, Oscar, Golden Globe and People’s Choice Awards. 

Further success came in Drew Barrymore’s roller derby comedy Whip It (2009) and as an aspiring dream architect in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010). Subsequent appearances include Freeheld (2015) Tallulah (2016), and My Days of Mercy (2017). He hosted the documentary series Gaycation (2016 to 2017), earning two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Since 2019, Page has starred as a series regular in the globally successful Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, which is gearing up to launch its fourth and final season.  

Page directed the documentary There’s Something in the Water (2019), and with his production company Pageboy Productions, he develops and produces entertaining, original, and socially responsible stories.  

A New York Times and Sunday Times instant bestseller, Page’s memoir, Pageboy was published to international acclaim in 2023.

BFI Flare Festivals Event Manager, Darren Jones said: “We’re honoured to have Elliot Page us this year at BFI Flare for this special Screen Talk and to present the European premiere of Close to You. It is exciting for us to introduce Flare audiences to this incredible film and welcome one of the most dynamic performers in contemporary cinema to BFI Flare to discuss his career and the creative process behind Close to You.”
Elliot Page said: “I am thrilled that UK audiences will be introduced to Close to You at BFI Flare. The experience of collaborating with Dominic, Hillary, and the whole team was magical, and I am honored to be a part of this film.”

Dominic Savage, Close to You director said: “I’m so excited that Close to You is having its European premiere at BFI Flare. It has been a real privilege to create this unique film about love, identity and family with Elliot Page and the incredible cast of actors. I’m looking forward to UK audiences feeling and appreciating the important themes and emotions that the film expresses.”

The full programme line up for BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival will be revealed on Tuesday 13 February at 11am. 

Part of the enduring majesty of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's cinema comes from their ability to undercut the prim and proper sensibility of war-time filmmaking with moments that are deeply strange, sometimes even disturbing.

In this video essay director Will Webb highlights scenes from Powell + Pressburger films - including The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going! and Black Narcissus - that tilt us off-balance, shaking what we thought we knew about the world's that one of cinema's greatest filmmaking partnerships created.

This video essay is part of an ongoing season celebrating Powell + Pressburger's work, Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger.

Writer-directors Alfonso Cuarón (Roma, Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void, Love, Irreversible) talk about Cuarón's 3D sci-fi masterpiece, Gravity, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

Writer-director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years, Lean on Pete) attends the red carpet for his new film, All Of Us Strangers, a Headline Gala at the BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express.

All of Us Strangers stars Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal and is a superb and unsettling adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s book, Strangers.

How do you follow a kick-ass revisionist Western? By offering up a blistering take on the Gospels, of course! Director Jeymes Samuel brings his follow-up to The Harder They Fall to the BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express.

Unlike some of the Jerusalem community in AD33, Clarence is not the most spiritual of citizens. Seemingly unmoved by Jesus Christ’s message of peace and brotherly love, Clarence sees a perfect window of opportunity to take advantage of a nascent celebrity culture. But at what cost to his eternal soul?

Following his kinetic, hugely enjoyable all-Black frontier action drama The Harder They Fall, Jeymes Samuel returns with the most original take on the story of Christ since Monty Python’s Life of Brian. And playing Clarence, LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Judas and the Black Messiah, Sorry to Bother You) delivers a star performance cementing his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most compelling performers.

A work of huge ambition and style, The Book of Clarence wins hands down as the most punk, political, and hugely fun film you’ll see this year.

Writer-director Molly Manning Walker and actors Mia McKenna-Bruce, Shaun Thomas, Lara Peake and Samuel Bottomley talk about their startlingly frank film, about a wild teen holiday gone awry, which tackles thorny issues of coercion and consent head on.

The legendary director behind classics such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and The Wolf of Wall Street talks to fellow filmmaker Edgar Wright about his career.

It is impossible to talk about cinema over the last 50 years without mentioning Martin Scorsese. The world of film preservation is no less indebted to him, for his championing the medium’s rich and storied past.

As he unveils his latest opus, the epic historical drama Killers of the Flower Moon, the director explores a body of work that is as daring as it is beautiful, and ground-breaking as it is thrilling. From Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull to The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence and The Irishman, Martin Scorsese has investigated masculinity, honour, the tenets of faith and the forces that shape the world around us. He has done so with a virtuosity that is rarely short of breathtaking.

Three hot tickets from the Nordic selection at this year’s festival, including a reunion for Lukas Moodysson’s classic commune tale Together and a scorching Mediterranean noir.

By Sarah Lutton

Together 99 (Tillsammans 99) 1so2d

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What’s it about? a215z

It’s 1999. Göran and Klasse – the two remaining, rather lonely, of the once vibrant Swedish commune ‘Together’ – decide to host a reunion with their former collective friends. Needless to say, some 24 years down the line since the commune’s inception, time, money, success, mental health – you name it – have taken their toll on their ideals.

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Who made it? 67633i

This is writer/director Lukas Moodysson’s eighth feature film. Moodysson’s first feature Fucking Åmal (aka Show Me Love) was an immediate indie hit in 1998, beloved by youth and adult audiences alike. Moodysson is one of Sweden’s most important and influential directors – his films have been recognised and celebrated internationally. His last major opus was the magnificent 12-part series Gösta (LFF 2019), and Together 99 is his first feature film since the riotous We Are the Best! in 2013.

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What’s special about it? 3h1q4u

One of the most enduring and moving features of Moodysson’s work is the love and empathy he exhibits in his quirky (and often flawed) characters. There’s a gorgeous sense of tenderness and hope in Together 99, and although many of the characters can be inconsistent, and even infuriating, Moodysson’s sensitive script and gentle humour ensure we get why they are how they are. 

The cast is overflowing with quirky charm, with notable turns from Clara Christiansson Drake (who was so marvellous as Saga in Gösta) bringing a grounding spirit and fresh modern edge to the ‘Together’ world, and David Dencik as the sweetest interloper you could ever hope to stumble into your world. This film is a sequel to Moodysson’s much-loved 1975-set Together (Tillsammans; LFF 2000) and there is much joy to be had in revisiting familiar faces and ing in the feelgood sadness that things can never be the same as they were. And, for those not yet familiar with that earlier film, there’s the huge delight of discovery of this warm-hearted, yet eyes-wide-open world.

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See this if you like… 3y3o4j

The Big Chill (1983), Together (2000), The Commune (2016)

Paradise Is Burning (Paradiset Brinner) 3y6z3q

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What’s it about? a215z

Three sisters – Laura (16), Mira (12) and Steffi (7) – live ‘home alone’ in a small apartment on the poor side of town. The sisters haven’t seen their mother in months and have to rely on ever-more elaborate (and always fun) shoplifting scams to feed and clothe themselves. Life is actually pretty sweet – they spend their time hanging out with their friends and breaking into houses in the posh district to access their pools. But when Laura takes a call from social services demanding a meeting with their mother suddenly their ‘idyll’ of freedom is under threat.

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Who made it? 67633i

This is Swedish director/co-writer Mika Gustafson’s first dramatic feature. She previously directed the award-winning documentary biopic Silvana about the uncompromising Swedish female rapper Silvana Imam. Gustafson co-wrote Paradise Burning with actor/writer Alexander Öhrstrand, who also has a small role in the film. Gustafson always knew she wanted to use non-professional actors in the main roles – she found Dilvin Asaad who plays Mira in a school, and spotted Safira Mossberg (Steffi) in a subway. It was Öhrstrand who found their lead Bianca Delbravo (Laura), when he heard her yelling into a mobile phone. The film is produced by Nima Yousefi, one Sweden’s most exciting producers, whose credits also include Clara Sola (LFF 2021).

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What’s special about it? 3h1q4u

Paradise Is Burning is a fresh and lovely celebration of sisterhood and female friendship. Gustafson captures beautiful, fleeting moments in the sisters’ lives with great clarity and lightness. Each of the sisters is on a cusp: Laura longs for romance or at least some kind of intimate connection; Mira is becoming a woman and is getting fed up with being bossed by Laura; Steffi’s no longer a baby and wants to hang out with her own friends. Music also plays an important part in the sisters’ lives: there’s dancing and some seriously competitive karaoke.

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See this if you like… 3y3o4j

Fucking Åmal (1998), American Honey (2016), Maya Nilo (Laura) (2022)

Shame on Dry Land (Syndabocken) 6t4614

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What’s it about? a215z

This cunning, twisty thriller sees exiled conman Dimman arrive in Malta seeking forgiveness from his soon-to-be-married, ex-partner-in-crime Frederik. But there’s not much chance for absolution in the unflinching glare of the island’s scorching sun…

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Who made it? 67633i

Shame on Dry Land is writer/director (and sometime actor) Axel Petersén’s fourth feature. His previous feature The Real Estate, which he wrote and co-directed with fellow Swede Måns Månsson premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018.

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What’s special about it? 3h1q4u

Petersén calls the film “a redemption drama stuck inside a Mediterranean noir” – there’s a real low-key, gumshoe feel to it, including a downbeat low-fi jazz score, which fits the mood of the film perfectly. Most scenarios are dedramatised, but punctuated to great effect with a few shocks. And, although it is a ‘thriller’, much of the film’s strength lies in what is held back. That said, watch out for a truly chilling crooner version of Cher’s ‘Do You Believe in Life After Love?’.

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See this if you like… 3y3o4j

Chinatown (1974), Blow Out (1981), Blue Ruin (2013)

The 67th BFI London Film Festival takes place 4-15 Oct. Tickets on sale now! bfi.org.uk/lff

Explore films for the young and young at heart at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival (4-15 October).

Deep Sea (3D)

Underneath the ocean lies a magical world, in a film of unrivalled beauty that combines the latest 3D animation with traditional Chinese ink-brush painting styles.

The Sacred Cave
La Grotte Sacree

This wonderful animated tale features a quest for an antidote to cure a king, but its success depends on overcoming magical obstacles.

Animated Shorts For Younger Audiences

This wonderful animated tale features a quest for an antidote to cure a king, but its success depends on overcoming magical obstacles.

Before Warp Films there was Warp Records, a Sheffield-born music label that made an immediate impact on British culture with their experimental electronic music. The name Warp was synonymous with low budgets, working quickly and spontaneously, and a fierce commitment to talented and innovative artists. Founding partners Rob Mitchell (who sadly died in 2001) and Steve Beckett, enlisting the help of producer Mark Herbert, founded Warp Films with the same pioneering principles.

Since then, Warp has played an essential part in energising and invigorating the resurgence of an increasingly vibrant and successful British cinema. With their films, like their music, they have brought what once was considered underground into the mainstream.

Warp Films quickly expanded in 2006 and set up Warp X, a sister company dedicated to digital, low-budget filmmaking driven by creativity and independence, established with the backing of a consortium of industry bodies. Employing Robin Gutch to produce six low-budget films in three years, Warp X redefined the industry rulebook for the way in which such productions could be approached in the UK.

Written to honour of Warp Films' 10th anniversary in 2013, here are some highlights from its first decade.

Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) 74u6v

After winning a BAFTA for his debut short My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, directed by Chris Morris and starring Paddy Considine, producer Mark Herbert – working out of his garden shed – encouraged Considine and director Shane Meadows to develop a feature film. The result was Dead Man’s Shoes, a brutal and unnerving fable that transposes the revenge sagas of westerns like Bad Day at Black Rock (1954), Hang ’em High (1968) and High Plains Drifter (1972) to the pastoral outskirts of the East Midlands.

Considine, who co-wrote the script, plays ex-squaddie Richard, returning to his hometown to punish a local gang for abusing and humiliating his younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell). As they move through the village, Richard hunts down each member individually, while a series of flashback in grainy sepia reveals what happened to Anthony some years before.

Made on a shoestring budget, Meadows combines superbly gripping genre moviemaking with the social realist aesthetics of Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Alan Clarke. The commercial and critical success of Dead Man’s Shoes was crucial in allowing Warp to develop their next project, This Is England (2006).

This Is England (2006) 4c3q1e

Much like the England that we saw in Alan Clarke’s pugilistic social realist drama Made in Britain (1983), Meadows’s and Warp’s next collaboration centres around a pack of skinheads in 1980s England. Set in the Nottinghamshire boondocks – where Meadows grew up – in his seventh film, and Warp’s second, both were demonstrating an attachment to the locality of small-town, working-class life.

This Is England begins on the last day of school, as 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), teased by bullies about his father’s death in the Falklands, discovers a sense of belonging that is missing at home by ing a skinhead gang. However, when National Front hard-case Combo (Stephen Graham) emerges from jail, the group become about more than dungarees, Ben Sherman shirts and Doc Martins.

The eventual and inevitable outbreaks of violence are earth-shattering. Unlike Dead Man’s Shoes, the violence has no direct or reasonable explanation beyond how youth had become susceptible to the extremist right in the years of Thatcher. The powerfully ambiguous final image, which captures Shaun on a beach, expressionlessly looking into the camera – an homage to the indelible freeze-frame that ends Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959) – emphasises the haunted disenchantment of the era.

Although this is a violent film, and these are violent people, there are touching and occasionally funny moments, especially between Shaun and his girlfriend, Smell (Rosamund Hanson). Meadows re being young, and the humour and innocence of growing up, and calls upon it to power This Is England’s emotional impact. Such was the homegrown success of this new, invigorated brand of social realism, it spawned This Is England ’86 and ’88 (2010 and 2011 respectively), two three-hour TV series, also directed by Meadows and produced by Warp.

Four Lions (2010) 63221y

Chris Morris has gained a reputation as one of the most uncompromising satirists working in the British entertainment industry, and with Four Lions, he took on a typically controversial subject: a group of self-styled mujahideen bombers, hilariously plotting martyrdom from their terrace houses in Doncaster.

Teaming up with Peep Show scribes Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, Morris’s first feature film has little to do with ideology and everything to do with comedy. As he did in his satirical news programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, Morris uses biting satire to expose the stupidity and petty disdain for authority endemic in terrorism.

While other production companies might have distanced themselves from the incendiary wit of Morris, Warp showed faith in his Dad’s Army vision of terrorism. They were rewarded with commercial and critical success, while Morris won the 2011 BAFTA award for outstanding debut film.

Submarine (2010) 1a1c12

Submarine, another directorial debut, this time from Chris Morris’s The IT Crowd co-star, Richard Ayoade, again shows Warp’s dedication to fostering new filmmaking talent. Based on the 2008 novel by Joe Dunthorne, this rudely updated Catcher in the Rye relocated to Swansea, is about fantastical, solipsistic 15-year-old schoolboy Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), whose chief concerns are trying to lose his virginity to his brusque girlfriend (Yasmin Paige) and keeping his parents from splitting up.

Ayoade absorbs the style of the French New Wave, Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry with distinctive visuals and deadpan humour, displaying the same maturity and confidence of his influences. Referencing Les Quatre Cents Coups explicitly, like This Is England, it captures the delicate moments of adolescence when idealism and truth collide. Stories of youth have played an important role in Warp’s own coming-of-age tale, and represent their commitment to independence, risk-taking and cultivating their own voice.

Tyrannosaur (2011) 12rf

A startlingly assured and emotionally devastating first feature film, written and directed by Dead Man’s Shoes star Paddy Considine – who, with appearances in Submarine and Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee (2009), is one of the stalwarts of Warp Films – Tyrannosaur revisits the interlocking themes of flawed friendship and male rage from Shane Meadows’ films.

As in Dog Altogether, Considine’s 2007 award-winning short, Peter Mullan plays lonely, rage-filled widower Joseph, who seeks refuge from his inner pain in a charity thrift store managed by committed Christian Hannah (Olivia Colman). Drawn together in a symbiosis of misery, they develop a mutually damaged relationship that offers the possibility of far-off redemption.

The first film on this list from Warp’s sister company Warp X, Tyrannosaur is an imioned and unrelentingly bleak examination of abuse and rage – without the conciliatory poetic dimension Meadows, Lynne Ramsay or Andrea Arnold might offer – but is too viscerally affecting to subscribe to any obscure concept of British miserabilism.

Kill List (2011) 31a2z

After his feature debut, Down Terrace (2009), Ben Wheatley was predictably compared to Mike Leigh for his uncannily precise suburban observations. His second film, Kill List, features the same semi-improvised dialogue, naturalistic performances and documentary style photography, but is more reminiscent of The Wicker Man (1973) or The Blair Witch Project (1999).

Eight months after a disastrous – and unexplained – job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier turned contract killer Jay (Neil Maskell) is pressured by his former partner, Gal (Michael Smiley), into taking a new assignment. What starts as a harrowing portrait of male inner torture and domestic distress turns into an occult, ultra-violent nightmare, and one of the most genuinely disturbing British thrillers in years.
Wheatley is not content to wallow in cheap shock tactics. Instead, his film pulverises the senses with a haunting score and claustrophobic visuals that exceed the capacity of most big-budget productions.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012) 5k354

Totally original and all but unclassifiable, Berberian Sound Studio is a metafictional and metaphysical horror based almost entirely within a 1970s Italian sound studio. Toby Jones plays mousey sound engineer Gilderoy, who has taken a job away from home in Dorking to post-synch an unidentified giallo film.

Although director Peter Strickland riffs on the lurid, semi-erotic fantasies of Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci, this is more of a persuasive study of breakdown – personal, professional and technological – from someone who is privy to the artifice and manipulation of horror movies yet incapable to resist their affective power: an intriguing metaphor for the filmmaker/viewer relationship.

Set almost entirely within the secretive indoor space of the sound studio – which draws comparison to Mark Lewis’s deathly screening room in Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) – it’s more interior than most of Warp’s output, but creates the familiar feelings of claustrophobia and alienation that are present in the small towns of nearly all of Warp’s productions.

Like Warp Films itself, Berberian Sound Studio wants to recalibrate how we think about the movies, and create a world rich with the suggestive possibilities of the medium, taking inspiration from cinema history, exploring new ideas and altering the landscape of fiction.

By Chris Fennell

'Hey, what’s going on?'

'Nothing.'

'Not much?'

'Nothing at all.'

When Dazed and Confused opened in theatres 30 years ago, it arrived in the wake of a teen movie golden era defined by the likes of The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986).

But this John Hughes model, of upper-middle-class teens trying out rebellion and reinvention in a poppy, PG-13 suburbia, was the antithesis of what writer-director Richard Linklater had envisioned when he began developing his own high school film in the late 1980s.

Linklater didn’t want to see another teen drama where 'the girl gets pregnant and there’s a car crash and somebody dies', so he decided to make one about the largely uneventful small-town youth he ed instead.

It wouldn’t deliver the instant sugar high that the popular high school movies of the previous decade had.

Following various intersecting groups of Austin teens on the last day and night of school for the students of Lee High, in May of ‘76, Dazed and Confused is never about anything more dramatic than its characters trying to organise a start-of-summer rager after the last one got busted.

Welcomed at first by polite reviews and half-empty theatres, a quarter-century on Linklater’s anti-drama is considered a landmark high school film.

Quentin Tarantino has dubbed it the ultimate ‘hangout movie’: a film you’ll return to ad infinitum because the experience is akin to catching up with old friends.

Dazed’s young boomers aren’t high school movie types. They can’t simply be reduced to 'a beauty, a jock, a rebel': nominal protagonist Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd (Jason London) is as at home with the jocks as he is with the burnouts.

So authentic are Linklater’s high schoolers that, even if you had caught Dazed back when then-fresh-faced cast including Ben Affleck, Parker Posey and Matthew McConaughey were strangers to the audience, they still would have felt familiar.

It’s down to the anthropological script written by Linklater, ever the curious humanist, and his ensemble of hungry future stars. Cast chemistry was proof-tested on and off set, reshaping the film as it shot.

While Shawn Andrews and Milla Jovovich’s roles were reduced after Linklater saw they weren’t ‘gelling’ with the other actors, McConaughey’s natural bonhomie expanded his initial cameo as predatory space-age philosopher Wooderson into a fully-fledged ing role.

In jettisoning the ‘pregnancies and car crashes’, Linklater gave his actors room to breathe as regular kids in regular situations. It’s in the ordinary, and not in the heightened drama that movies typically locate characters in, that Dazed and Confused finds its real people.
The film’s kinda-sequel, the less specific and more idealised college comedy Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), is almost the rose-tinted, everything-happens-in-one-weekend of young adult life that Linklater wanted to avoid with Dazed.

Made 28 years and 18 films into Linklater’s filmmaking career, Everybody Wants Some!!, raucously entertaining though it is, comes precariously close to being middle-aged nostalgia for a never-been age. Dazed and Confused in contrast was made when Linklater was just 32, young enough for high school to be fresh in the memory and for his latest film to recall what being a teen was really like.

In Dazed and Confused, high schoolers are hyper, horny and perpetually anxious about a fast-approaching future.

Sometimes, they’re impossibly cool, strolling through pool halls in slo-mo as Bob Dylan blares on the soundtrack. More often, they’re a little lame (some of the mid-70s music tastes, clothes and attitudes are observed by Linklater with eyebrow firmly arched).
Mostly, though, they’re just bored. Two of Linklater’s touchstones on Dazed were the sobering American teen flicks Over the Edge (1979) and River’s Edge (1986). This being a Richard Linklater t, Dazed is naturally a warmer film: with its reliably good-natured characters and marijuana-cured dialogue, it might actually be his most entertaining.
What Linklater took from those considerably more downbeat high school movies was the characters’ sense of longing, of waiting for something to happen.

Dazed and Confused’s high schoolers have fun, holding impromptu drag-races in their prized muscle cars and ‘welcoming’ freshmen in bizarre hazing rituals, but for the most part they drink, smoke and shoot the breeze in the anticipation of fun.

It takes skill for a filmmaker to make a deliberately constructed film feel this easy-going, especially when they’re making the leap from a $23,000 indie to a $6.9m studio movie. (Dazed and Confused’s opening and closing track, Aerosmith’s ‘Sweet Emotion’, alone cost four times the budget of Slacker, Linklater’s previous film.)

Even rarer is the ability to make a film so free of conflict and obvious drama compelling.
That Linklater ignores the Hitchcock maxim to keep the dull bits in is what sets Dazed and Confused apart from other high school movies. It’s also what makes the film feel so genuine.

In recalling the tedium of teenage as well as the glorious, sporadic highs, Linklater’s is an anti-high school movie that ironically gets about as close to a real high school experience as a film can.

By Brogan Morris

Across the past 15 years, Koji Fukada has steadily become one of the most celebrated independent filmmakers working in Japan. Many of his films are characterised by a family unit’s illusion of stability being completely overturned by one major event, which he has explored through very different tonal s: his second feature, Hospitalité (2010), is largely played for laughs, while Harmonium (2016), perhaps his most internationally renowned film, takes a haunting detour into thriller territory.

Fukada’s latest feature as writer-director, Love Life, operates somewhere between the two extremes of those earlier films. While the plot-instigating tragedy is truly horrific, its melodrama narrative unfolds at a gentle pace, with plenty of moments of tension-breaking levity.

Directly inspired by ‘Love Life’, a song by singer and composer Akiko Yano, the film follows Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and her husband, Jiro (Kento Nagayama), who live with her young son, Keita (Tetta Shimada). When an accident occurs at a birthday party, the superficially peaceful existence the couple had built comes to an abrupt end, something only exacerbated by the reemergence of Taeko’s Korean ex-partner and Keita’s father, Park (Atom Sunada).

Deaf and now homeless, Park, who had suddenly disappeared many years ago, becomes the focus of Taeko’s attention and emotional attachment, instead of the man she has since married.

Read the full interview on bfi.org.uk

Everyone is invited to the 67th BFI London Film Festival, taking place 4-15 October in cinemas around the UK and on BFI Player!

Discover the line-up and get your tickets from 12 September (BFI book early).

The 67th BFI London Film Festival (4 to 15 October) in partnership with American Express is delighted to announce that the world premiere of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget has been added to this year’s programme. From the multi-Academy and BAFTA award-winning Aardman (Creature Comforts, Wallace & Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep), and Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated director Sam Fell (ParaNorman and Flushed Away, respectively), the film is the eagerly anticipated sequel to the beloved and highest-grossing stop-motion animated film of all time, Chicken Run.

Starring Thandiwe Newton (Ginger), Zachary Levi (Rocky), Bella Ramsey (Molly), Imelda Staunton (Bunty), Lynn Ferguson (Mac), David Bradley (Fowler), Jane Horrocks (Babs), Romesh Ranganathan (Nick), Daniel Mays (Fetcher), Josie Sedgwick-Davies (Frizzle) and Nick Mohammed (Dr Fry), Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget will receive its world premiere on Saturday 14 October at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall; the gala screening is ed by the Mayor of London and Film London. There will also be simultaneous preview screenings of the film taking place at multiple cinemas across the UK. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget debuts globally on Netflix on 15 December 2023.

Having pulled off a death-defying escape from Tweedy’s farm, Ginger has finally found her dream – a peaceful island sanctuary for the whole flock, far from the dangers of the human world. When she and Rocky hatch a little girl called Molly, Ginger’s happy ending seems complete. But back on the mainland the whole of chicken-kind faces a new and terrible threat. For Ginger and her team, even if it means putting their own hard-won freedom at risk – this time, they’re breaking in!

Sam Fell, the director of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, said: 'What an honour to world premiere our film on home turf at the London Film Festival this year. Dawn of the Nugget showcases the amazing talent and ingenuity of the crew at Aardman backed by the enduring ion of the team at Netflix. We’ve poured everything we’ve got into making this a treat for both die-hard fans and the new generation of families discovering Chicken Run for the first time.'

Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival director, said: 'We are so excited to be sharing the magic and artistry of the Aardman studio and their favourite feathered friends with audiences this October with a film that’s brimming with fun and has such enormous heart.'

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: I am delighted that Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget will receive its world premiere at the gala screening at this year’s BFI London Film Festival. This highly anticipated sequel to the hugely successful Chicken Run features an all-star cast and shows off Aardman’s award-winning creativity in a family film that is packed with fun and laughter. London’s annual film festival shows why our capital is a global hub for film and television, and, after a hugely successful summer for our big screens, I’m determined to continue doing all I can to the growth of the industry as we build a better London for everyone.'

The 67th BFI London Film Festival (4 to 15 October) in partnership with American Express is thrilled to announce that this year’s closing night gala, ed by BMW, will be Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya’s The Kitchen starring Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Hope Ikpoku Jr, Teija Kabs, Demmy Ladipo, Cristale and BackRoad Gee.

Exploring themes of community, inequality, family, resilience, defiance and care in a dystopian London, The Kitchen is directed by British filmmakers Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya, the latter of whom also screenwrites with Joe Murtagh. The film will receive its world premiere on Sunday 15 October at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, ahead of its release into UK cinemas and subsequent launch on Netflix. The Kitchen was made in association with Film4 who also ed the film’s development and is produced by DMC Film and 59% Productions.

In a dystopian London, the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits. All forms of social housing have been eradicated and only The Kitchen remains. A community that refuses to move out of the place they call home. This is where we meet a solitary Izi (Kane Robinson), living here by necessity and desperately trying to find a way out, and a 12-year-old Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who has lost his mother and is searching for a family. We follow our unlikely pair as they struggle to forge a relationship in a system that is stacked against them.

Tavares and Kaluuya, said: “We both grew up in London, and The Kitchen is a love letter to our city, so it’s a true honour to premiere it here, in our hometown, on the closing night of BFI’s London Film Festival. Starting a decade ago as a workshop in a local barbershop, the film’s journey from script to screen has been a continued collaboration between us, and the community of cast and crew that came to make up our ‘Kitchen’, including our two amazing leads Kane Robinson and Jedaiah Bannerman whose performances anchor the heart of our story. Together we have aimed to make something fresh, thoughtful and cinematic – an allegory and homage to the residents of ‘The Kitchen’ in every city in the world.”

Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival director, said: “Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya have made a film that totally explodes our expectations of contemporary UK cinema. The Kitchen offers such scope for audiences – the essential social politics and high-octane energy gel perfectly to create an electrifying big screen experience. We could not be more excited to close the festival with this inventive film set in a near future London that showcases this incredibly talented team who call this city home.”

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After 30 years, we’re welcoming audiences back to Jurassic Park. Just imagine, the size of those dinosaurs on the UK’s largest screen!

In Steven Spielberg’s dino classic paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.

Celebrate this milestone anniversary with us and relive this larger-than-life thrill ride and its Academy-Award® winning visual effects in spectacular 4K for the first time ever on the big screen. Booking now at BFI IMAX

‘I tried to represent the collapse of the Japanese family system through showing children growing up.’

 
This year marks the 120th anniversary of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu’s birth. It’s also 70 years since the release of his masterpiece Tokyo Story and 60 years since his death. He has been feted by critics around the world, influenced filmmakers, interpreted in myriad ways by academics and beloved by audiences.

Although his early work spanned a variety of genres, including student comedies and crime thrillers, this season focuses on the theme that dominated his finest films: family life. From his early silents and sound films, through to his limited output during the Second World War and his acclaimed late period, beginning with 1949’s Late Spring, Ozu perfected a style that stripped away unnecessary plot mechanics and camera movement. In doing so, he produced a cinema whose surface simplicity belies character studies of depth, warmth and, on occasion, humour.

Showing at BFI Southbank in September 2023 and UK-wide on BFI Player.

From the Cannes award-winning director of Harmonium and Goodbye Summer comes a beguiling, beautifully paced portrait of a family navigating the aftermath of a tragedy.

Inspired by Japanese singer and musician Akiko Yano's song Love Life, Kôji Fukada’s Love Life tells the story of Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and her husband Jiro (Kento Nagayama) who are living a peaceful existence with her young son Keita (Tetta Shimada), when a tragic accident brings the boy’s long-lost father, Park (Atom Sunada), back into Taeko’s life.

Arrives in UK and Ireland cinemas from 15 Sep 2023.