The BFI London Film Festival (LFF) returns for its 68th iteration this October and as usual, the film festival has a brilliant line-up of movies over its 12 days.
Taking place from 9-20 October in London and around the UK, this year’s festival includes genre movies starring Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, Tilda Swinton and many more.
Here are some of the top genre picks from this year’s London Film Festival…
All of You
Written and directed by Soulmates‘ William Bridges, and starring Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso) and Imogen Poots (Outer Range), All of You is near-futuristic romance where best friends harbor an unspoken love for one another even after a test matches one of them up with their supposed soulmate.
When/where
Thursday 10 October 2024 18:10 at BFI Southbank, NFT1 and on Friday 11 October 2024 20:30 at Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen
The Wild Robot
The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—named ROZZUM unit 7134, or “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.
Written and directed by Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, Disney’s Lilo & Stitch), the movie stars Lupita Nyong’o (The Black Panther franchise) as robot Roz; Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us) as fox Fink; Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek) as opossum Pinktail; Bill Nighy (Living) as goose Longneck; Kit Connor (Heartstopper) as gosling Brightbill and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) as Vontra, a robot that will intersect with Roz’s life on the island.
When/where
Sunday 13 October 2024 14:30 at the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall
Nightbitch
Amy Adams stars in Nightbitch, written and directed by Marielle Heller and based on the best-selling novel by Rachel Yoder. It follows a woman pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mom, but soon her domesticity takes a rather, erm, surreal turn…
When/where
Wednesday 16 October 2024 18:00 at Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, Thursday 17 October 2024 12:00 at Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall and Sunday 20 October 2024 15:00 at Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen.
2073
It’s the year 2073, and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free and hopeful existence. In this mixture of science fiction and speculative nonfiction, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia (Amy) transports audiences to a future foreshadowed by the terrifying realities of our present moment. Samantha Morton (Minority Report) plays a survivor besieged by nightmare visions of the past—a past that happens to be our present, visualized through contemporary footage interconnecting today’s global crises of authoritarianism, unchecked big tech, inequality, and global climate change.
When/where
Wednesday 16 October 2024 21:00 at the Curzon Mayfair, Screen 1 and Friday 18 October 2024 15:45 at the BFI Southbank, NFT1
Rumours
Directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, and starring Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, Rumours follows the leaders of seven wealthy democracies who get lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, and must face plenty of strange dangers (including… a giant brain?!) as they attempt to find their way out.
When/where
Sunday 13 October 2024 15:15 at the BFI Southbank, NFT1, Monday 14 October 2024 20:30 at the Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen and Sunday 20 October 2024 19:15 at the Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 1
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
Based on the book of the same name by Bruno Schultz, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass portrays a ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line that transports a man visiting his dying father in a sanatorium to the edge of a mythic forest.
When/where
Thursday 10 October 2024 18:30 at ICA, Screen 1 and Saturday 12 October 2024 16:00 at Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen
Bury Your Dead (Enterre Seus Mortos)
Directed by Good Manners’ Marco Dutra, Bury Your Dead is set in an apocalyptic rural Brazil, where roadkill collector Edgar plans an escape with girlfriend Nete, but suffers violent dreams. After Nete joins a cult, Edgar embarks on a perilous journey through ravaged roads to save her.
When/where
Friday 11 October 2024 17:45 at Vue West End, Screen 5 and on Sunday 13 October 2024 20:50 at Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen
Chain Reactions
Chain Reactions charts the profound impact and lasting influence of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on five great artists – Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama – through early memories, sensory experiences, and childhood trauma.
When/where
Sunday 13 October 2024 16:00 at the Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen and on Tuesday 15 October 2024 18:05 at the BFI Southbank, NFT3
Fréwaka
Written and directed by Aislinn Clarke, this Irish-language horror follows a student of nursing palliative care, who is plagued by a trauma from her past that has a disorienting effect on her present, her relationship, her career and her ability to function.
When/where
Friday 11 October 2024 20:30 at Vue West End, Screen 5, Saturday 12 October 2024 21:15 at Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 2 and Saturday 12 October 2024 21:30 at Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 3
Sister Midnight
Written and directed by Karan Kandhari, Sister Midnight is a a genre-bending comedy about a frustrated and misanthropic newlywed living in Mumbai who discovers certain feral impulses that land her in unlikely situations.
When/where
Wednesday 16 October 2024 18:00 at BFI Southbank, NFT1, Thursday 17 October 2024 20:45 at Vue West End, Screen 5, Sunday 20 October 2024 20:30 at Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 2 and Sunday 20 October 2024 20:45 at Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 3
The Wailing
This Spanish language horror is the feature debut from Pedro Martín-Calero and follows different generations of women haunted by a being that evades the human eye. Something’s stalking Andrea, but nobody, not even herself, can actually see it. Twenty years ago, 10,000 kilometres away, the same presence terrorised Marie. Camila was the only person capable of understanding what was happening, but nobody believed them…
When/where
Wednesday 16 October 2024 20:55 at the BFI Southbank, NFT2 and Friday 18 October 2024 18:00 at the Prince Charles Cinema, Downstairs Screen
The Assessment
Elizabeth Olsen, Himesh Patel and Alicia Vikander star in director Fleur Fortuné’s feature debut, The Assessment, which is set in the near future where parenthood is strictly controlled, and follows a couple’s seven-day assessment for the right to have a child which unravels into a psychological nightmare.
When/where
Monday 14 October 2024 20:40 at the BFI Southbank, NFT1 and Saturday 19 October 2024 17:55 at the Curzon Mayfair, Screen 1
The End
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act Of Killing) The End is a Golden Age musical about one of the last families on earth, starring Tilda Swinton as MOTHER and Michael Shannon as FATHER.
After the sudden arrival of a stranger, GIRL (Moses Ingram), threatens the family’s luxurious compound deep underground, SON (George MacKay) begins to question their seemingly perfect existence.
When/where
Friday 11 October 2024 20:45 at the Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 1 and Thursday 17 October 2024 12:00 at the BFI Southbank, NFT1
The BFI London Film Festival will be taking place from 9-20 October. Find out more and get your tickets here.
