BFI London Film Festival

An enchanting, otherworldly coming-of-age drama about a teenage girl who enters her unwilling family into a TV talent show.

Tobias Lindholm’s thriller refreshes the genre as a ship's cook, Somali pirates and a CEO negotiate an endgame.

A teen seeks meaning as an East Anglian summer and a violent outsider threaten to overwhelm.

Viggo Mortensen is a distraught Danish military man searching his fugitive daughter in Lisandro Alonso’s visually breathtaking drama.

The inspiring and fascinating story of two child-trafficking survivors who form Nepal’s first and only circus; an ode to survival and the healing power of performance.

A gritty journey through the sexual underbelly of Buenos Aires, with graphic depictions of the highs and lows in one man’s quest for intimacy.

Inspiring true story of a Kenyan man who returned to school aged 84. With Oliver Litondo and Naomie Harris.

Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning star in a taut political thriller about radical environmentalists planning to commit an act of eco-terrorism.

Jean-Luc Godard’s acerbic and disorienting essay on the decline of Western civilisation, shot aboard the famously grounded cruise ship, the Costa Concordia.

Mads Mikkelsen stars in a distressing examination of a false indictment, and the collective hysteria that ensues, in this electrifying drama from Festen director Thomas Vinterberg.

Mark Cousins’ dreamlike evocation of his home city discovers a capital of rich history and startling beauty.

A suspected Nazi collaborator and his Partisan abductors join forces to escape pursuing German forces, in this vibrantly shot war drama.

French gay men and women in their 60s and 70s talk about their lives in Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary.

Agyness Deyn stars in a powerful story seen through the eyes of a young woman whose epilepsy brings extraordinary hallucinations.

A care-worker is confronted by a troubled teen whose case history provokes an unwelcome reminder of her own concealed and traumatic past.

Pat Collins' film, following a sound recordist around western Ireland in an intriguing mix of fiction and documentary, makes us really look and listen

Jia Zhangke mixes reminiscence and performance in his cool, measured, moving look at the changing fortunes of a Chinese factory-turned-shopping mall

A wealthy film executive reconnects with the nanny who raised him, in a touching drama from the great humanist of the Hong Kong New Wave, Ann Hui.

One of the most original British features in recent years follows a Scottish couple’s bizarre underground existence in a French forest.

Tilda Swinton narrates the extraordinary journey of Gertrude Bell, a singular woman who played a significant – often unrecognised – role in British imperial policy making in Iraq.

Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless) relates a taut, caustic tale of need and greed leading to desperate deeds; a bleak and brilliant study of contemporary Russian mores.

The unconventional life of Jake Williams who lives in isolation in the Cairngorms, Aberdeenshire.

John Akomfrah mixes archive material, literary and musical quotations and newly shot silent footage in a wry, rapt meditation on memory and migration.

A multi-layered melding of fiction and fact, about Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and his Istanbul Museum of Innocence.


Alexei Popogrebski's taut psychological drama depicts two Arctic meteorologists (a veteran and a novice); secrets, lies and isolation take their toll

Pablo Berger’s imaginative black-and-white ‘silent’ movie relocates the story of Snow White to 1920s Spain – complete with bullfighting dwarfs

Andrew Bujalski’s hilarious and surreal comedy about the birth of computer culture, set in an early 1980s conference where primitive programmers take on chess masters.

Hailed as a modern classic channelling the spirit of Satyajit Ray, Chaitanya Tamhane's film is an absurdist portrait of injustice in contemporary India.

Willem Dafoe plays the controversial filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini in this dark, daring drama about the director’s final days, from Abel Ferrara.

Disturbing but deeply stylish South African drama about a teacher who becomes obsessed with an under-age pupil in his class, with tragic consequences.

In a remote part of Scotland, teenager Shell develops an intense relationship with her reclusive father.

Lav Diaz’s epic drama follows the contrasting stories of two men, a law school dropout who descends into criminality and the humble family man wrongly accused of his crimes.

Australian director Kim Mordaunt’s award-winning film about the nomadic struggles of a Laotian family, and the boy who tries to restore their fortunes by building a giant rocket.

A former child soldier in Congo, now living in London, witnesses a crime and is drawn into a violent world he'd hoped to leave behind.

Russell Brand ponders his political awakening and messianic tendencies in Ondi Timoner’s perceptive and very funny documentary.

A graduate in a dead-end office job searches for happiness in this fresh and funny British comedy.

Sergei Dvortsevoy's feature debut is a deliciously droll tale of a Kazakh sailor out to win a wife and set himself up as a shepherd on the steppes.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the great Iranian filmmaker, directs this provocative and disquieting parable about a deposed president.

Pablo Giorgelli's debut is a slow, touching Argentinian road-movie about a quiet trucker warming to a woman and child he reluctantly gives a lift to

Elliott Gould joins Ingmar Bergman regulars Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow in this neglected classic from the great director, about infidelity and a toxic love triangle.

The ravishing, romantic story behind the Taj Mahal, has been newly restored with a sumptuous new score from Anoushka Shankar.

This dramatic reconstruction of two decisive naval battles from the First World War is one of the finest films of the British silent era.

The BFI National Archive restoration of one of Anthony Asquith's finest silent films set in London's Underground, with a new score.

Gleeful and hypnotic, Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s phantasmagoric opus reworks improvised rushes into a demented homage to B-movies.

In a post-apocalyptic world, a forest-dwelling loner is forced to reckon with two women in order to survive.