Full programme announced for 69th BFI London Film Festival

The 69th BFI London Film Festival (LFF) in partnership with American Express today announces the full programme line-up, presented in cinemas and online across the UK. Over twelve days from 8 to 19 October, the LFF invites audiences to return to its fantastic flagship venues in the heart of London, BFI Southbank and the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. The LFF Gala programme will screen at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, while BFI Southbank alongside many of Central London’s iconic cinemas will host Special Presentations, Official Competition titles and films and series from all Strands of the Festival, with global film talent from behind and in front of the camera in attendance. A curated selection of features will also be showcased at 11 partner venues across the UK.

The LFF will present a captivating and diverse programme of 247 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 79 countries playing across the 12 days of the festival. This includes 103 works made by female and non-binary filmmakers (42% of the programme) and 27 World premieres.

The festival also announces Screen Talks with Yorgos Lanthimos, Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Linklater, Jafar Panahi, Lynne Ramsay, Tessa Thompson and Chloe Zhao, in person and also available online on BFI Player exclusively and BFI YouTube.

Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director, said: “This Autumn we invite audiences to craft their own festival journey across our programme of premiere screenings, dynamic interactive exhibitions and compelling talks programmes with some of cinemas leading practitioners. We look forward to you joining us this year to experience the incredible state of the medium in 2025 – brimming with formal innovations, provocations and essential roadmaps for navigating the world around us.”

Ben Roberts, Chief Executive, BFI said: “Audiences are at the heart of the LFF and the festival brings them an incredible breadth of stories from some of the most talented and creative filmmakers from the UK and across the world. Huge thanks to our Festival team for presenting a brilliant programme, American Express for its 16 years of headline partnership and all our other partners and supporters.”

An impressive number of major alumni filmmakers return to LFF including: Rian Johnson, Noah Baumbach, Julia Jackman, Yorgos Lanthimos, Richard Linklater, Julia Jackman, Lynne Ramsay, Michel Franco, Guillermo Del Toro, Jim Jarmusch, Chloé Zhao, Bradley Cooper, Edward Berger, Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Luca Guadagnino, François Ozon, Alexandre O. Philippe, Radu Jude, Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard, Christian Petzold, Raoul Peck, Ira Sachs, Derek Cianfrance, Lucile Hadžihalilović, Hlynur Pálmason, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Pablo Trapero, Rebecca Zlotowski, Cyril Aris, Julia Ducournau, Andy Serkis, Lois Patiño, Bretten Hannam, Gianfranco Rosi, Yemi Bamiro, Maryam Touzani, David Michôd, Laura Poitras, Christopher Petit, Alberto Vázquez, Alexandre Koberidze, Pietro Marcello, Robin Campillo, Trương Minh Quý, Aneil Karia, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, Jafar Panahi, and Ben Rivers.

The Festival is also delighted to introduce audiences to an incredible new generation of filmmakers from the UK and across the globe with debut feature directors in LFF 2025 including: Kristen Stewart, Ronan Day-Lewis, Bradley Banton, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Deming Chen, , Polen Ly, Yasuhiro Aoki, Janus Victoria, Georgi M. Unkovski, Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor, Jesse Brown, Mikayla Joy Brown, Annapurna Sriram, Sophie Somerville, Calif Chong, Imran Perretta, Ya-Ting Hsu, Anas Saeed, Ibrahim Snoopy, Ciro Durán, Shih-Ching Tsou, Mailys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang, Rochael Abigail Holder, Lloyd Lee Choi, Alex Russell, Joel Alfonso Vargas, Flora Gomes, James Lucas, Akinola Davies Jr., Vincho Nchogu, Brittany Shyne, Siobhan McCarthy, Hemen Khaledi, Zain Duraei, Anuparna Roy, Oscar Hudson, Ed Sayers, Maja-Ajima Yde Zellama, Ernesto Martínez Bucio, Ben Proudfoot, Sumitra Peries, Tatiana Fuentes Sadowski, Hasan Hadi, Stroma Cairns, Antoine Lanciaux, David Bingong, Cal McMau, Emilie Thalund.

Every feature and series will screen to audiences in the UK for the very first time, with many shown publicly for the first time anywhere in the world. As in previous years, the feature film programme is organised by strand to encourage discovery and to open up the festival to new audiences. These are: Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Experimenta, Family, and Shorts. Audiences can also find new and exciting Series programming in many of the strands, while LFF Expanded is represented in Create, bringing an immersive dimension to the strand’s celebration of creative expression. All features and series will screen to UK audiences for the first time, including 27 World Premieres (6 features, 1 series, 19 shorts, 1 immersive), 11 international premieres (10 features, 1 short) and 20 European premieres (11 features, 1 mid length, 7 shorts, 1 immersive).

World premieres from filmmakers and artists include: Rowan Athale’s British boxing drama Giant starring Amir El-Masry and Pierce Brosnan, James Lucas’ intimate portrait of Kate Moss and artist Lucien Freud Moss & Freud, spellbinding environmental documentary Super Nature from Ed Sayers, Yemi Bamiro’s touching tribute to an impactful photographer Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story, actor Bradley Banton’s fresh directorial debut More Life, Calif Chong’s riotous British-Chinese immigrant tale High Wire, and Isabella Eklöf’s new series, an adaptation of Nick Cave’s novel The Death of Bunny Munro starring Matt Smith, and Ahmed Alauddin Jamal’s Hotel London, newly remastered in 4K by the BFI National Archive.

International premieres include: Opening Night Gala Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Bradley Cooper’s third directorial feature Is This Thing On?, fresh gender-swap comedy She’s the He from Siobhan McCarthy, heartwarming childhood detective story Finding Optel from Jesse Brown and Mikayla Joy Brown, Majid Al Ansari’s chilling psychological horror The Vile, Vincho Nchogu’s story of a woman’s fight to keep her ancestral land in One Woman One Bra, frank examination of elder queer desire Maspalomas from Aitor Arregi, Hsu Ya-Ting’s profoundly moving documentary on Taiwan’s leprosy Island of the Winds, the restoration of Ciro Durán’s 1962 pioneering Colombian political film La Paga, and Rachel Abigail Holder’s dazzling ode to New York Love, Brooklyn.

Special presentations include: Documentary Special Presentation Broken English, Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth’s inventive and soulful portrait of Marianne Faithfull; Experimenta Special Presentation Afterlives, Kevin B. Lee’s unflinchingly complex and thought-provoking tapestry; Series Special Presentation The Death of Bunny Munro, Isabella Eklöf’s adaptation of Nick Cave’s novel starring Matt Smith; BFI Flare Special Presentation Maspalomas, a gripping and frank exploration of elder queer desire; LFF’s first-ever Immersive Special Presentation, Now Is When We Are (The Stars), Andrew Schneider’s breathtaking journey through light and sound; and Archive Special Presentation Sholay – Director’s Cut, the landmark 4K restoration of Ramesh Sippy’s beloved classic screening on the UK’s biggest screen.

As previously announced, this year’s Closing Night Gala is the UK premiere of Julia Jackman’s star-studded fantasy 100 Nights of Hero, and the American Express Gala is the UK premiere of Brendan Fraser-led Japanese drama Rental Family from Hikari. The Patron’s Gala is the UK premiere of H Is for Hawk, Philippa Lowthorpe’s adaptation of Helen MacDonald’s memoir starring Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson. This year’s Cunard Gala will be the UK premiere of Noah Baumbach’s comedy-drama Jay Kelly, featuring an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup and Riley Keough.

• The Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall hosts Galas, showcasing films on an 18-metre screen with full high-spec 7.1 channel surround sound, aiming to provide the best viewing experience possible for everyone in the over-2000-seater venue.

• BFI Southbank with four screens open seven days a week for the widest choice of great films. 

• The UK’s largest screen BFI IMAX will once again host LFF screenings with world-class sound and projection technology.

• London partner venues include Vue West End, the Prince Charles Cinema, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Curzon Soho, Curzon Mayfair and Rambert.

• UK-wide venues include Broadway Cinema in Nottingham, Chapter in Cardiff, Glasgow Film Theatre, HOME in Manchester, MAC in Birmingham, Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast, Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle and Watershed in Bristol with the new additions of Filmhouse in Edinburgh and National Science and Media Museum in Bradford (2025 City of Culture). 

Since its launch in 2020, LFF Expanded has showcased innovative immersive works that invite audiences to experience powerful new ways of telling stories on screen. This year, 11 projects spanning immersive art, virtual reality, AI, extended reality and video gaming are presented across the Festival – as an Immersive Special Presentation, within the Create strand and in Events. Opening from Friday 3 October, ahead of the Festival’s official launch, is the European premiere of N O W I S W H E N W E A R E (the stars), an interactive installation from Obie Award-winning artist Andrew Schneider. The work transforms Rambert Studio into a vast theatrical cosmos, placing visitors inside an evolving galaxy of light and sound where nearly 4,000 LEDs and a 496-channel soundscape respond to their movements in real time. A sensory, meditative journey through the stars, this powerful fusion of technology and theatre offers Festival audiences a rare opportunity to experience Schneider’s groundbreaking approach to immersive storytelling.

Presented in the Create strand is the UK premiere of Future Botanica at BFI IMAX, from acclaimed Dutch collective Polymorf. This AI-driven augmented reality experience merges digital innovation with ecological imagination, posing urgent questions about our planet’s future and technology’s role in reshaping it. In Events, the popular Games Lounge returns to BFI IMAX for a second year, showcasing five standout titles from international creators, while the VR Lounge at BFI Southbank spotlights four works pushing animation into new virtual frontiers, demonstrating how artists are harnessing immersive technology to redefine animated storytelling.

The LFF is excited to continue showcasing compelling series and episodic programming throughout the strands, with new work from some of the world’s most exciting film and TV creatives including taut new series The Deal, directed by Jean-Stéphane Bron, set against the tense Iran–USA nuclear negotiations of 2015; Isabella Eklöf brings her customary fearlessness to the small-screen adaptation of Nick Cave’s acclaimed novel The Death of Bunny Munro starring Matt Smith; as well as Marco Bellocchio’s bravura Italian TV biopic Portobello: The Fall of Enzo Tortora about the controversial arrest of a beloved TV-show host.

This exciting year’s shorts programme features Highway to the Moon written and directed by Letitia Wright, Party Animal directed by Ali Gill and starring Nabhaan Rizwaan, Dust to Dreams directed by Idris Elba and starring Eku Edewor, Dark Skin Bruises Differently directed by and starring Susan Wokoma, and 22 + 1 directed by Pippa Bennett-Warner and starring Harry Lloyd.

Additionally, prepare to abandon your expectations, for what begins as light-hearted and mischievous descends into darker, more absurd stories to twist and turn your perceptions of reality in the Are You Kidding programme. Whether trying to settle into a new country, seek familiarity while abroad or find escape from their houses, the Discovering Home programme examines how our sense of home shapes our identities. From war-torn homelands and displaced identities to livelihoods society has forced on them, the Mapped Out Futures shorts examine how people push beyond the futures that the world has already mapped out. The Roots and Branches programme explores the people we turn to when the traditional family isn’t there, and the power community can bring. Finally, in Show Me Who I Am, we see stories from girlhood to womanhood that battle the world’s expectations and preconceptions; tales of self-discovery, humour, heartache and pain which encapsulate femininity in all its forms.

• Nominated titles from the short film competition will be available digitally for free across the UK on BFI Player from 8 to 26 October

A full programme of events and screenings is available for press and industry delegates across the festival. Within a programme of Spotlight talks and panel discussions, global industry leaders, writers, directors and producers will be talking about urgent subjects that are top of the industry’s agenda, sharing their insights and experience with delegates.

New for 2025, the festival will also host an LFF Expanded Industry Day on 15 October, supported by Southbank Centre. The day will spotlight the latest in XR, immersive and gaming through a UK Works-in-Progress showcase, timely industry talks, and a networking event bringing together professionals from across the sector.

Full details of this year’s Industry Forum will be announced in the coming weeks.

LFF for Free offers audiences a fun and wide-ranging programme of talks, workshops, DJ Nights, exhibitions and filmmaker Q&As, in-person at BFI Southbank as well as short films online on BFI Player – all completely free of charge.

The festival aims to be inclusive, accessible and welcoming, and alongside the major LFF for Free programme, there will be a limited number of £10 tickets available to all London screenings and events, as well as £6 tickets for those aged 25 and under. Young cinema-goers and emerging professionals can also enrich their experience with the festival through our Family screenings (with tickets priced at £6 for children and from £10 for adults). Audiences receiving Universal Credit, Pension Credit or Jobseeker’s Allowance can book on-the-day tickets for £6 – subject to availability.

It’s a pleasure to welcome back our Principal Partner, American Express, and the continued support of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and The National Lottery which is pivotal to the festival. Their funding is essential to our work, and we could not do it without them.

We are thrilled to welcome back Cunard as a Main Sponsor of the Festival for another year, it’s great to have you onboard again.

The BFI is especially thankful to be expanding relationships with our Industry Supporters and welcome back Apple TV+, Netflix, NBC Universal Sky, Paramount Pictures, Prime Video, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery – your support is critical to the continuation of the work of the BFI.

We extend a warm welcome to Polestar, joining as our Official Car Partner for the first time this year, we are really excited to launch this partnership with you. And we welcome back Sea Containers London as our Official Hotel Partner – thank you for your generous hospitality.

We are delighted to welcome back Film London and the Mayor’s Office, who both return as a Main Funding Contributor.

A huge thank you goes to our fantastic in-kind sponsors: Birra Moretti, Christie Digital, Dalston’s Soda, Getty Images, Global and Ocean Outdoor.

The 69th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday 8 October to Sunday 19 October 2025.