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Exciting groups of films curated by our team of experts

This collection includes classics and award-winning films from acknowledged greats and more recent auteurs, from Robert Bresson and Jean-Luc Godard to Claire Denis and Céline

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Featured collections

BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents
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BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents

The home of LGBTQ+ film on BFI Player, with features, shorts and exclusives.

Based on the Book…
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Based on the Book…

Literature has inspired some of the greatest films ever made.

French Cinema
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French Cinema

France, the country where cinema was born, has given us some of the masters of cinema.

Carol Morley
The Falling from Carol Morley
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Carol Morley

Dreams, memories and reveries - the collected works of one of Britain's most distinctive filmmakers.

Oscars
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Oscars

Legends are minted and careers defined by the Academy Award, a tiny golden statue of incomparable significance.

Best Films of 2018
Best films of 2018
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Best Films of 2018

Cinema can be sharpest at its edge. This year’s chart has small stories told well, and grand adventures that magnetise…

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Women with a Movie Camera
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Women with a Movie Camera

Great films incite, others vex, a few elate. From pre-war to the present day, these remarkable works by international women directors do all that and more.

Documentaries
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Documentaries

Fresh perspectives on familiar themes give a new relevance, as proven by our choice of the best in modern documentaries.

Best of BAFTA
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Best of BAFTA

A selection from the nominees and winners, past and present, honouring the world’s most inventive storytellers.

Sight & Sound's Best Films
Apostasy SaS
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Sight & Sound's Best Films

Unmissable films from an essential source: the world’s wisest film magazine, whose annual list sets the standard.

Cult Rentals
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Cult Rentals

Camp controversies and obscure outsiders: Cult Cinema champions the underground unloved and the fervently rediscovered.

LGBTQ+ Best of 2018
Best of LGBTQ 2018
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LGBTQ+ Best of 2018

Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspire…

Working Class Heroes
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Working Class Heroes

 A collection of films lit up by the charisma  of working-class stars; a celebration of fine actors and remarkable leading roles.

Thriller
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Thriller

Who Can You Trust?

Trust few and fear all in a collection of films packed with paranoia and conspiracy.

American Indie
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American Indie

US independent films made away from the pressures and glitz of Hollywood have offered directors a greater creative freedom.

Coming of Age
Coming of Age
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Coming of Age

Filmmakers love it, audiences live it. The rites-of-passage film enables us the chance to relive the past with wisdom, but not angst.

Black Star
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Black Star

The UK’s biggest ever celebration of black screen talent, shining a spotlight on the charisma and creativity of trailblazing performers.

Women with a Movie Camera
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Women with a Movie Camera

Great films incite, others vex, a few elate. From pre-war to the present day, these remarkable works by international women directors do all that and more.

Sex
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Sex

How has cinema approached sex? Leave your inhibitions at the door and find out.

BFI London Film Festival Presents
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BFI London Film Festival Presents

A place to meet the world's top films and their creators, the BFI London Film Festival represents global cinema at its deep, diverse best.

Backed by BFI
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Backed by BFI

From the Free Cinema movement to today’s Lottery Film Fund, this collection is a selection of titles made by outstanding talent, and supported by UK public money.

Unavailable on DVD
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Unavailable on DVD

This collection showcases a selection of hard-to-see features that are unavailable to watch anywhere else (legally) in the UK.

Halloween
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Halloween

Uncommon terror – and a few laughs – links them, and they show vintage names such as Dario Argento and Hammer Films, alongside perverse visions minted much more recently. Served chilled.

Chinese Cinema
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Chinese Cinema

From the 1930s Golden Age to the urgent, socially conscious cinema of Jia Zhangke, Chinese cinema contains many riches to discover.

Sci-Fi - Days of Fear and Wonder
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Sci-Fi - Days of Fear and Wonder

Take a trip around the blazing worlds of sci-fi as we undock a blockbuster celebration of this most spectacular of movie genres.

Cannes Film Festival
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Cannes Film Festival

Celebrate the Cannes Film Festival with our collection of major prize-winners and contenders from previous festivals.

The Biopic
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The Biopic

Fascinating, diverse and frequently controversial, the biopic crosses genres to dramatise real lives in engrossing ways.

Ken Loach
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Ken Loach

Britain’s most garlanded working filmmaker has been an unyielding presence for half a century, rattling authorities and raging against injustice from the campaigning Cathy to Come to his two Palmes d’Or.

LGBTQ+ Best of 2017
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LGBTQ+ Best of 2017

Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspire…

Girlfriends
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Girlfriends

Let’s hear it for the badass buddies, inseparable gal-pals and the wisecracking girl gangs of cinema.

LGBT Britain
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LGBT Britain

This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.

German Cinema
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German Cinema

A country once divided produces filmmakers of uncommon talent, storyteller reflecting the human story through national identity.

South Asian Britain on Film
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South Asian Britain on Film

Discover a rich history reaching back over a century as we celebrate South Asian communities and culture across Britain.

The Arts on Film BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents
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The Arts on Film BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents

Behind the canvas with a movie camera: you can almost smell the turpentine in these fascinating portraits of artists at work. Behind the canvas with a movie camera: you can almost smell the turpentine in these fascinating portraits of artists at work. Test 2 Behind the canvas with a movie camera: you can almost smell the turpentine in these fascinating portraits of artists at work.

The Pleasure Principle
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The Pleasure Principle

From Victorian voyeurism to Soho striptease: how a hidden film industry emerged to satisfy the sexual appetites of (male) viewers.

Alan Clarke
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Alan Clarke

Described as 'the best of us' by Stephen Frears, Alan Clarke was the most radical and uncompromising of the generation of directors who forged their careers on British TV.

Jean-Luc Godard
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Jean-Luc Godard

Cinema’s perpetual provocateur has been inciting audiences for over half a century.

Pedro Almodóvar
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Pedro Almodóvar

Obscenity and poignancy fuse in the work of this Spanish legend, whom Pauline Kael declared was "Godard with a human face – a happy face."

Inside Film
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Inside Film

The camera flips inward to film the creative process. Watch rarities, exclusives, documentaries and special features from the artists and obsessives who make the films.

India on Film
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India on Film

Celebrating the diversity of Indian filmmaking and films about India.

Punk
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Punk

Punk’s mad parade burnt bright and quick, feeding on the public’s limitless love of disgust. Works from Julien Temple and Captain Zip immerse you in the movement, with music from The Undertones and more.

Soho Stories
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Soho Stories

Long linked to flesh and pleasure, London’s infamous district merits a closer look. Here you’ll find jazz clubs, garrets, lewdness and lidos.

Other Grooves
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Other Grooves

An eccentric excursion to the furthest fringes of youth culture and alternative lifestyles, as captured in archive film and TV.

Love
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Love

Films to fall in love with. Films to break your heart.

Best Films of 2017
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Best Films of 2017

Cinema can be sharpest at its edge. This year’s chart has small stories told well, and grand adventures that magnetise…

Best Films of 2016
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Best Films of 2016

Cinema's big beasts assemble in our most popular rentals of the last 12 months.

Best Films of 2015
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Best Films of 2015

If you seek lazy reboots and prequels, go elsewhere. These films dabble in the distinctive, be it real-life stories, potent dramas or history with a twist. They show the wild diversity of films and their creators, and they indicate a medium in rude health.

LOCO London Comedy Film Festival
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LOCO London Comedy Film Festival

Comedy gold from the UK’s only international comedy film festival.

Refugee Week
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Refugee Week

To mark this year's Refugee Week, BFI and Counterpoints Arts have compiled a collection of films that explore refugee experiences in the past and present and across different parts of the world.

Shakespeare on Film
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Shakespeare on Film

All the world's a cinema! How a century and more of filmmakers have raided, remade and refashioned the bard.

Cinema of WWI
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Cinema of WWI

A young film industry just settling into its own home - the cinema - found itself enlisted to record, report and dramatise a war unlike any other.

Sonic
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Sonic

Personal, powerful and lyrical, this is where music and film collide, a meeting place for rock biopics, probing documentaries, groundbreakers and old stagers.

Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival
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Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival

Europe’s largest South Asian film festival is now online. Discover the best independent Indian cinema, from features and documentaries to on-stage highlights from the festival itself.

Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film
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Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film

Gothic horror and romance tales feed on our darkest fears and desires, and conjure the creatures of the night into being.

Alfred Hitchcock
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Alfred Hitchcock

Bathed in blood and often shaded in blonde, the work of our most revered director is vivid proof of how film can awe.

Jewish Britain on Film
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Jewish Britain on Film

Jewish life on screen: a century of insights and hidden histories

Forgotten Features
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Forgotten Features

Mischievous mermaids, murderous minors and military mayhem are among the highlights of this collection of long hard-to-see titles.

Family Films
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Family Films

Films for kids have changed dramatically over the last 100 years, as seen in this family-friendly collection.