David Lynch season announced for January 2026

Last night, the second edition of the BFI Film on Film Festival came to a close at BFI Southbank, with a screening of the pilot episode of David Lynch’s masterful mystery series, Twin Peaks, screening on a 35mm print for the first time ever in the UK. This closing night presentation, which marked the 35th anniversary of the show, was from the very same pristine print used for the original BBC TV broadcast in October 1990, which was later donated to the BFI National Archive. It was followed by a Q&A with special guest and star of the series Kyle MacLachlan.

During the Q&A, chaired by BFI Chief Executive Ben Roberts, it was revealed that the BFI would honour David Lynch’s remarkable legacy with a season dedicated to his work, taking place throughout January 2026.

Responding to the prospect of a forthcoming BFI season, and the need for audiences to continue to be able to experience Lynch’s work on the big screen, MacLachlan said: “It’s absolutely essential. There’s nobody like him and there will never be anyone like him. He saw the world in a very particular way. I had my personal relationship with him, and I love him dearly and I miss him dearly, and he really started me off. His message, his art – film, art, television, painting, sculpture, everything – is so special and I think speaks to a deeper part of us in a way that no one else does. He’s just magic.”

The BFI’s David Lynch season will include screenings of a wide spectrum of Lynch’s features, shorts, music videos and other works, celebrating him as an artist who, in addition to working in film and television, pushed boundaries in other creative mediums as well. The season will offer personal responses and reflections from those who both worked with him and were influenced by him at special Q&As, as well as a space for audiences to share their reflections 12 months on from his passing, through salon events, discussions and transcendental meditation sessions. Furthermore, the season will feature playful and engaging events, from DJ nights and VJ sets to quizzes and social mixers, complete with Lynchian cocktails. Full details will be revealed in the autumn.

This year’s BFI Film on Film Festival opened on 12 June with an unmissable treat for Star Wars fans, screening a precious dye transfer IB Technicolor print of Star Wars to two full houses of fans, many of whom had travelled from across the globe to be there, with large numbers queuing from the early hours of the morning for the chance of a last-minute ticket to this one-off historic screening. 

This remarkable and rare print was produced for the first British release in 1977, including the original opening crawl (before it was renamed for re-releases as Episode IV: A New Hope), and has been preserved in the BFI National Archive since the 1990s. The first screening was introduced by the President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, alongside BFI Chief Executive Ben Roberts and Executive Director of Knowledge, Learning and Collections Arike Oke, while Ann Skinner, script supervisor on the original film, was also present to show excited audiences material from the original continuity script for Star Wars, which includes rare on-set Polaroids, annotations and deleted scenes, which is also cared for by the BFI National Archive.

Elsewhere during the weekend, audiences flocked to the festival to celebrate the medium of ‘film’ itself, taking in a wealth of both familiar and rare, discovery titles, (almost) all of them taken from the vast collections of the BFI National Archive, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. From the oldest print ever projected to UK audiences, the 96-year-old print of Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, 1929) and unique prints of early Stanley Kubrick classics, Day of the Fight (1951) and The Killing (1956) loaned from Stanley Kubrick’s personal print collection, to a 15 perf/70mm IMAX print of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), created under the supervision of Christopher Nolan, and brand new 35mm prints created by the BFI including Local Hero (1983), Strongroom (1962), Journey to Italy (1954) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943).

 The programme spanned fiction features, documentaries, artists’ work, and much more in between, as well as workshops, talks and free events, including the chance to hear from expert voices from the BFI’s world-leading conservation, curatorial and projection teams.

The festival included 38 features, 36 shorts, and 1 television work, screening from 2 8mm, 20 17mm prints, 52 35mm prints (including 5 nitrate; 4 x scope formats) and 3 70mm prints; the combined length of these prints is around 380,000 feet.