Big screen classics
The timeless films we urge you to see.
Tickets for these screenings are only £8
December
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Apocalypse Now: Final Cut
Coppola’s transposition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to war-torn Vietnam revels in hallucinatory spectacle.
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The Philadelphia Story
George Cukor’s evergreen comedy set at a society wedding has Hepburn, Grant and Stewart all on top form.
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The Deer Hunter
An epic account of the effects of the Vietnam war on three Pennsylvanian steelworkers and their loved ones.
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Tokyo Story
Ozu’s timeless classic about an elderly couple visiting their grown-up children remains emotionally powerful.
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Ordet
Dreyer’s masterpiece explores the tensions arising within a family due to different attitudes to religious faith – and earthly love…
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After Life
Koreeda’s warm, witty film has the recently deceased searching their memories and finding happiness through film.
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Black Orpheus
The myth of Orpheus and Euridice is transposed to Rio during Carnival, with lashings of music, dance, colour and heartfelt emotions.
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Black Orpheus + intro by broadcaster and writer Kevin Le Gendre
The myth of Orpheus and Euridice is transposed to Rio during Carnival, with lashings of music, dance, colour and heartfelt emotions.
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Rope
Hitchcock’s most experimental film has two murderers audaciously concealing their victim’s corpse at a dinner party.
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Rope + intro by Geoff Andrew, Programmer-at-large
Hitchcock’s most experimental film has two murderers audaciously concealing their victim’s corpse at a dinner party.
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The Ladykillers
This blackest of Ealing comedies features an innocent elderly landlady under threat from a gang of ruthless criminals.
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The Ladykillers + intro by Mark Duguid, BFI National Archive Curator
This blackest of Ealing comedies features an innocent elderly landlady under threat from a gang of ruthless criminals.
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Goodfellas
Scorsese’s dazzling depiction of organised crime from the 50s to late 70s contains some of his most memorably stylish set-pieces.
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The Wild Bunch
Sam Peckinpah’s famously violent but elegiac western centres on a band of outlaws undone by a changing world.
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The Leopard
This sumptuous, elegant epic looks at the declining fortunes of an aristocratic Sicilian family at the time of Garibaldi.
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The Magnificent Ambersons
Orson Welles’ masterly adaptation, about a well-to-do midwestern family getting its comeuppance in a rapidly industrialising America.
January
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The Women
A marvellous all-female cast animates Cukor’s evergreen film about women voicing their opinions on men.
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Husbands
Cassavetes’ warts-and-all portrait follows three middle-aged New Yorkers on a boozy binge to London.
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Smiles of a Summer Night + intro by Geoff Andrew, Programmer-at-large
Bergman’s sparkling comedy of marital manners takes place over an illuminating country-house weekend.
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Smiles of a Summer Night
Bergman’s sparkling comedy of marital manners takes place over an illuminating country-house weekend.
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To Sleep with Anger
Charles Burnett’s classic fable reveals tensions between tradition and modernity when a family is visited by an old friend.
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To Sleep with Anger + intro by BFI programmer David Somerset
Charles Burnett’s classic fable reveals tensions between tradition and modernity when a family is visited by an old friend.
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12 Angry Men
Henry Fonda heads a charismatic cast in Lumet’s landmark drama about conflict between jurors in a murder trial.
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Touchez pas au grisbi
Jean Gabin excels as an ageing Parisian gangster planning one last job.
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The Asphalt Jungle + intro by Dr Lucy Bolton, Queen Mary University of London
John Huston’s hugely influential heist movie charts the demise of a gang of thieves with a clear-eyed precision.
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The Asphalt Jungle
John Huston’s hugely influential heist movie charts the demise of a gang of thieves with a clear-eyed precision.
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Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray’s feminist/Freudian/Marxist western portrays deadly rivalries with a vivid, almost hallucinatory intensity.
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Rio Bravo + intro by Geoff Andrew, Programmer-at-large
John Wayne and Dean Martin star in this warm and witty western from Howard Hawks.
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Rio Bravo
John Wayne and Dean Martin star in this warm and witty western from Howard Hawks.
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Army of Shadows
Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece is a profoundly personal tribute to the French Resistance, stylistically reminiscent of his gangster movies.
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Day for Night
Truffaut’s touching and funny love-letter to the world of filmmaking.
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Freaks
Tod Browning’s subversive but tender fable of exploitation, trickery and revenge in a travelling carnival.
Calendar
Our two secondary entrances are now closed. Access to BFI Southbank will be through the Riverfront and Theatre Avenue entrances.
25 & under
If you're aged 16 to 25, you can get £3 cinema tickets at BFI Southbank to any film, any time.
BFI Southbank Guide
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January 2020 Guide
January 2020 Guide calendar
December 2019 Guide
December 2019 Guide calendar