BFI Player’s October 2025 line-up

Revolutionary voices and radical cinema arrive on demand, including Black History Month, Terence Davies, melodrama and more.

Sister Midnight (2022)

Thirty-eight films arrive in October, with an impressive range of themes. We celebrate Black History Month with some pioneering titles, and revisit two very different British contributors to cinema: Terence Davies and Laura Mulvey. We pay tribute to melodrama, and have some stunning exclusives, including Sister Midnight, Late Shift and Islands.

1 October

Bushman
1971/United States
Neglected since its release in 1971, Bushman follows a Nigerian student in San Francisco but is interrupted by the arrest of its leading man.

Hunger
2008/United Kingdom
Artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen made his cinema debut with this provocative portrait of Irish republican prisoners defying the British government.

2 October

Sister Midnight
2024/United Kingdom
Subscription exclusive
A genre-bending comedy about a frustrated and misanthropic newlywed who discovers certain feral impulses that land her in unlikely situations.

6 October

Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song (1971)

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song
1971/United States
Melvin Van Peebles’ seminal, taboo-breaking Blaxploitation thriller about a young Black man on the run from corrupt cops in 1970s Los Angeles.

The Long Day Closes
1992/United Kingdom
Terence Davies’ mosaic of childhood, imagination, time and memory is one of the greatest cinematic experiences.

The Deep Blue Sea
2011/United Kingdom
Buried passions boil over in a buttoned-up postwar Britain in Terence Davies’ acclaimed adaptation of Rattigan’s play, starring Rachel Weisz.

Sunset Song
2015/United Kingdom
Agyness Deyn stars in Terence Davies’ moving drama about a strong young woman facing many adversities in the run up to WWI.

Benediction (2021)

Benediction
2021/United Kingdom
Terence Davies’ devastatingly moving, lyrical portrait of the life of celebrated war poet Siegfried Sassoon.

9 October

Julie Keeps Quiet
2024/Belgium
Subscription exclusive
Psychological drama in which a talented young tennis player comes under pressure to talk when her coach is investigated for abusing his position.

13 October

Little Trouble Girls
Subscription exclusive
2025/Slovenia
A young girl experiences the turmoil of love and friendship in this nuanced coming-of-age tale with echoes of Céline Sciamma.

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons
1974/United Kingdom
The first collaboration of Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen is a radical reimagining of myth through the lens of feminist theory.

Amy!
1980/United Kingdom
Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s essay film commemorating pilot Amy Johnson’s pioneering solo flight to Australia in 1930.

Crystal Gazing
1982/United Kingdom
Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s 1982 film presents an at-once grounded yet heavily staged portrait of London, which was then in recession.

Dogtooth (2009)

Dogtooth
2009/Greece
Yorgos Lanthimos’ scary, witty tale of a dysfunctional Greek family is original, ingenious and sadly relevant as a study of parent-child relationships.

Hardcore 
1979/United States
Schrader’s neo-noir about a devout conservative businessman venturing into a sordid Californian underworld in search of his runaway teenage daughter.

16 October

Late Shift
2025/Switzerland
Subscription exclusive
Gripping drama in which a nurse finds herself caught in a race against time during an unrelenting night shift.

20 October

Sorcery
2023/Chile
Subscription exclusive
A richly rendered story of anticolonial score-settling in 19th century Chile that dabbles in magical realism, folk horror and fairytale iconography.

Within Our Gates 
1919/United States
Oscar Micheaux’s startling silent classic – the earliest surviving feature from an African-American director.

Body and Soul 
1925/United States
Paul Robeson’s remarkable film debut, the star playing dual roles in this key work of African American cinema from pioneering filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.

Aventurera 
1950/Mexico
Deliriously entertaining Mexican melodrama about an innocent young woman tricked into prostitution.

Victims of Sin 
1951/Mexico
Sizzling, feverish melodrama set amid Mexico City’s red-light district nightclubs.

Floating Clouds 
1955/Japan
Mikio Naruse’s masterpiece about a wandering woman trying to find her identity amid the devastation of post-war Japan.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs 
1960/Japan
Mikio Naruse’s best-known film is a masterful study of a Ginza hostess struggling under constant pressures to compromise her honour.

Cairo Station 
1958/Egypt
Youssef Chahine’s masterpiece holds a mirror up to toxic masculinity and Egyptian society.

Red Angel 
1966/Japan
A potent and blood-soaked tale of saints and sinners set at the height of the Sino-Japanese war.

Volver 
2005/Spain
Family secrets echo around a Spanish clan, ringing loud enough to rouse the dead, in Pedro Almodóvar’s assured melodrama.

Dancer in the Dark 
2000/Denmark
Lars von Trier’s unique and divisive dissection of the American Dream, featuring Björk as an immigrant worker finding escape in musical cinema.

Breaking the Waves 
1996/Denmark
A man is injured in an oil rig accident, leaving his wife wracked with guilt, willing to do anything to restore her marriage and relationship with God.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire 
2019/France
Céline Sciamma’s BAFTA-nominated film about the tentative love between a painter and her subject in 18th-century France.

The Damned Don’t Cry 
2022/France
Fyzal Boulifa’s (Lynn + Lucy) striking film about the perils of falling foul of community and social expectations.

Rouge 
1987/Hong Kong
Gorgeous romantic melodrama from queer cinema master Stanley Kwan about the haunting power of lost love starring the late Cantopop singer Anita Lui.

Center Stage 
1991/Hong Kong
Stanley Kwan’s rich and unconventional biopic of the tragic 1930s Chinese film star, Ruan Lingyu, starring Maggie Cheung.

23 October

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974)

Beauty and the Beast
1978/Czechoslovakia
Macabre and singular Czech reimagining of the classic fairy tale about a merchant’s daughter held captive by a mysterious winged beast.

Laurin
1989/Germany
Richly atmospheric, gloriously morbid and menacing Gothic chiller about a child killer in 19th century Germany.

The Descent
2005/United Kingdom
Six friends on a caving expedition get trapped deep underground and discover they are not alone in this visceral, claustrophobic horror.

Swallowed
2022/United States
It’s drugs, bugs and unrequited hugs in this deliciously grotesque queer body horror from Carter Smith.

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
1974/Italy
A chemical leak causes a zombie outbreak amid the picturesque landscapes of the Lake District, in this superbly chilling undead classic.

27 October

Islands
2025/Germany
Subscription exclusive
A mysterious disappearance sets off this noirish thriller with echoes of Hitchcock and Highsmith, starring Sam Riley and Stacey Martin.