From arthouse hits to breakout debuts, the London Film Festival has returned with one of its most dynamic lineups yet. With a packed slate of films to explore, we’ve narrowed it down to 20 standouts to watch for when the festival kicks off on October 8th.
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Tenderness is punk in Joachim Trier’s touching comedy-drama which follows an ageing filmmaker (Stellan Skarsgård) who, long estranged from his two daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ilbsdotter Lilleaas), tries to reconcile by casting one in what he claims is his next great film—when she refuses, he entrusts the role to a Hollywood star (Elle Fanning), forcing the sisters and him to confront long-buried grief and resentments. Won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival this year.
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Bradley Cooper, Is This Thing On?
There’s surprisingly little buzz around Bradley Cooper’s follow up to Maestro, which suggests that the actor-turned-auteur is trying something a little smaller scale than his previous features. Inspired by the life of British comedian John Bishop, the film follows a man (Will Arnett) who finds new purpose in stand-up comedy after separating from his wife (Laura Dern).
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Richard Linklater, Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague is your classic Richard Linklater hangout movie, except this time around he’s trading slackers for the cast and crew of Jean-Luc Godard’s beloved Breathless. Many will scoff at Linklater’s comedy about the making of the film that changed cinema forever, but there’s a delightful time to be had watching Godard (played here by Guillaume Marbeck) prove that in the game of making movies, rules are made to be broken.
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Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein
No filmmaker is better suited to reimagining Frankenstein than Mexico’s master of horror, Guillermo del Toro — and he proves it by doing the unthinkable: transforming Hollywood heartthrob Jacob Elordi into a grotesque yet deeply misunderstood monster. Elordi delivers a standout performance, infusing the creature with a haunting sense of humanity that leaves an impression long after the movie is over.
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Harry Lighton, Pillion
Equal parts tender and raunchy, Harry Lighton’s BDSM comedy—about Colin (Harry Melling), a young and timid gay man, living with his parents in Bromley, who enters into a submissive relationship with a brooding biker played by Alexander Skarsgård—is an unashamedly kinky delight from start to finish.
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Annapurna Sriram, Fucktoys
Word of mouth is strong for Annapurna Sriram’s Fucktoys. The proudly trashy 16mm dark comedy, which has been described as a “rude, crude and unhinged girlypop middle finger to filmic convention”, follows sex worker AP (Sriram herself) who sets out on an adventure through pre-millennium alternate reality city Trashtown, United States, to lift a curse that she suspects is plaguing her.
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Chloe Zhao, Hamnet
It’s comeback season for Chloe Zhao, who, after a small bump in the road with Marvel’s Eternals (a film which, in retrospect, caught more flack than it deserved), is back on form with her adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel Hamnet, a fictional telling of the life of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) as they mourn the death of their 11-year-old son. Bring tissues to this one.
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Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winning It Was Just an Accident features one of the great endings you’ll see all year. Made in secret, without official filming permission from the Iranian government, the film follows Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic who kidnaps family man Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi) after suspecting him of being the intelligence officer who tortured him during his time as a political prisoner of the Iranian regime.
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Park Chan-wook, No Other Choice
For three decades, South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook has remained a virtuoso of the form, and No Other Choice astonishes as the latest movement in his master symphony. It may have been snubbed at Venice this year, but make no mistake, this expertly crafted black comedy—about a middle-aged paper company worker (Lee Byung-hun) who, after being abruptly laid off, resolves to reclaim what he’s lost by eliminating (literally) his job‑seeking rivals—more than speaks for itself.
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Kelly Reichardt, The Mastermind
One of the great American filmmakers of our time, Kelly Reichardt is back with The Mastermind, a slow-burn heist movie set in the 1970s that stars Josh O’Connor as a family man doubling as an art-thief. Also starring Alana Haim and John Magaro (a Reichardt mainstay).
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Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, Human Resource
Out of Venice this year, we called Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit one of “contemporary cinema’s best kept secrets.” His latest, Human Resource—a wry comedy about a young HR manager (Prapamonton Eiamchan) who, after falling pregnant, must reckon with the reality of bringing a baby into a capitalistic, dissociative modern society—continues a winning streak by the Thai director that we don’t see signs of ending anytime soon.
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Hlynur Pálmason, The Love That Remains
Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason, who dazzled with his previous feature Godland, returns to LFF this year with a bittersweet comedy that charts a year in the life of a family navigating the divorce of their parents. Sharply written and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, the film is decorated by Pálmason with gorgeous images of rural Iceland. One of the year’s most comforting movies.
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Bi Gan, Resurrection
We called Resurrection, a six-part experimental epic about death, dreams and the prism of image-making from the mind of 35-year-old Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan, a masterful love letter to cinema and a deeply ambitious achievement. A film not to be understood but experienced, don’t feel daunted if you find yourself leaving the cinema after the credits roll with more questions than answers.
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Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, Cover-Up
We were blown away by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’ Cover-Up, their arresting new portrait of investigative journalist Seymour Hersch that details how the reporter broke the lock on some of America’s most tightly-kept secrets. Cover-Up is not to be missed, especially If, like us, you loved Poitras’ Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in 2022.
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Carolina Cavalli, The Kidnapping of Arabella
We’ve been following Carolina Cavalli since before her debut feature Amanda wowed critics at Venice Film Festival back in 2022. Now the Italian filmmaker is reuniting with Amanda star Benedetta Porcaroli for her sophomore feature about an aimless twenty-something (Porcaroli) who, after a chance meeting with seven-year-old Arabella (Lucrezia Guglielmino), convinces herself that the child is herself from a past life, and promptly kidnaps her.
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Ildikó Enyedi, Silent Friend
Tony Leung and Lea Seydoux star in Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend, which won the hearts of critics when it premiered late in the game at the Venice Film Festival last month. The film is a trip, set in a botanical garden in Marburg, Germany, and following three interconnected stories over a period of 100 years.
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Rachael Abigail Holder, Love, Brooklyn
A trio of Brooklynites explore love, loss, career and friendship in the directorial debut from Guyanese-American filmmaker Rachael Abigail Holder, who, along with cast members Andre Holland, Nicole Beharie and DeWanda Wise, interrogates the rapidly changing New York borough with wit and warmth.
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Sophy Romvy, Blue Heron
Sophy Romvy’s debut feature Blue Heron has been making waves after claiming Swatch First Feature Award at Locarno this year. The 1990s-set Canadian-Hungarian drama, which is based on Romvy’s childhood, is told through the eyes of eight-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), the youngest of a Hungarian family of six who relocate to Vancouver Island and must navigate their new life, which threatens to take a dangerous toll on Sasha’s older brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes).
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Lav Diaz, Magellan
Filipino auteur Lav Diaz, famous for his gorgeous, several-hour long black & white masterworks on local Philippine life, is taking a hard left with Magellan, a meditative historical epic that follows Ferdinand Magellan (Gael Garcia Bernal) as he takes part in the Portuguese and Spanish colonial campaigns in Southeast Asia in early 16th century. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours, this is one of Diaz’ shortest works.
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Annemarie Jacir, Palestine 36
Selected as Palestine’s entry for Best International Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, Annemarie Jacir’s historical drama Palestine 36 tells the story of Yusuf (Karim Daoud Anaya), who must navigate themes of home and identity as Palestinian villages revolt against British colonial rule in 1936.
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Cal McMau, Wasteman
After star turns in Rye Lane, Alien: Romulus and the newly released The Long Walk, British rising star David Jonsson has quickly become one of our favourite people to see on the big screen. In Cal McMau’s prison-set Wasteman, Jonsson plays inmate Taylor, whose chance for parole is jeopardized by the arrival of cellmate Dee (Tom Blyth).
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