UK | BFI London Film Festival 2025

Closing Night Gala

100 Nights of Hero

Julia Jackman’s second feature is a bold and beautiful fairytale based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel.

& Sons

Bill Nighy heads a stellar cast, which includes Imelda Staunton, Johnny Flynn and George MacKay, playing a Lear-like figure with a reputation for leaving destruction in his wake.

Animal Farm

Andy Serkis adapts George Orwell’s groundbreaking allegorical novel, creating a riveting animation about animals who take on their human oppressors in the desire to create an inclusive Utopia.

Bad Apples

Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan plays a primary school teacher striving to inspire her students in Jonatan Etzler’s darkly humorous and biting satirical comedy.

Ballad of a Small Player

Set in Macau, this hypnotic blend of ghost story and psychological thriller is a visually alluring and emotionally charged odyssey from the director of Conclave.

Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story

A touching tribute to a forgotten photographer, freedom fighter and activist, who helped popularise the transformative ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement.

Broken English

Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth deliver an inventive and soulful portrait of cultural icon Marianne Faithfull.

Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are reunited for a fourth time in this gripping, darkly funny and satirical environmental comedy-thriller.

The Choral

Ralph Fiennes leads an excellent ensemble of new and established talent in this funny and moving First World War drama by beloved writer Alan Bennett.

The Death of Bunny Munro

Isabella Eklöf brings her customary fearlessness, while Matt Smith swaggers and sparkles as the titular lothario in this no-holds-barred, small-screen adaptation of Nick Cave’s acclaimed novel.

Dreamers

Two Nigerian migrants dare to imagine a vibrant future outside of their confinement at a British immigration removal centre.

Giant

Amir El-Masry and Pierce Brosnan star in the thrilling real-life story of world champion boxer Prince Naseem ‘Naz’ Hamed and his trainer Brendan Ingle.

Good Boy

Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough excel in Jan Komasa’s dark, gripping and twisted thriller, where breaking the rules results in severe consequences.

BFI Patrons’ Gala

H Is for Hawk

Claire Foy stars alongside Brendan Gleeson in Philippa Lowthorpe’s beautifully realised and emotionally charged adaptation of Helen MacDonald’s award-winning memoir.

Hamlet

Following their Academy Award-winning collaboration The Long Goodbye, Riz Ahmed and director Aneil Karia reunite for this bold Shakespearian adaptation, set in contemporary London.

The Mayor of London’s Gala

Hamnet

Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel features mesmerising performances by Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.

High Wire

When a small circus arrives in a rural part of England, a young woman’s world is opened to the boundless possibilities of life, in this rollicking directorial debut.

Hotel London

A Bangladeshi family confronts the harsh realities of temporary unstable housing in London, in a newly remastered drama that blends fiction with video activism.

Ish

A racially profiled police stop-and-search sets two best friends on a collision course in Imran Perretta’s intimate and poetically rendered drama.

Mare’s Nest

Ben Rivers takes us on a playful and visually arresting journey into a dreamlike world populated by children with a liking for Don DeLillo’s plays.

More Life

Framed within the hyper-performative world of Instagram livestreaming, this is an impressive fresh and beautifully observed debut from actor-director Bradley Banton.

Moss & Freud

In James Lucas’ intimate and insightful journey of self-discovery, supermodel Kate Moss sits for acclaimed artist Lucian Freud as he paints her portrait.

My Father’s Shadow

Akinola Davies Jr’s intimate and resplendent film chronicles two brothers spending a rare day with their father in Lagos.

Pillion

A shy young man finds his place in the world as the submissive to a handsome biker, in Harry Lighton’s charming, sexy and tender debut.

Retreat

In Ted Evans’ gripping thriller, the arrival of an outsider at an isolated Deaf community forces one of its members to question this seemingly idyllic utopia.

Rose of Nevada

Mark Jenkin’s haunted time-travelling odyssey brings a long-lost ship unexpectedly back to harbour, only for a new crew to set sail and re-enter the past.

The Son and the Sea

BAFTA-winner Stroma Cairns blends personal experience and threads of familial history to question how boys become men if there’s no one to show them the way.

Straight Circle

Tensions escalate between two opposing soldiers manning a remote desert outpost, in award-winning director Oscar Hudson’s blackly comic and surreal feature debut.

Super Nature

A spellbinding visual and auditory experience, beautifully shot in Super 8, which invites you to marvel at nature and the wildlife around us.

The Thing with Feathers

Benedict Cumberbatch gives a magnificent performance in the highly anticipated screen adaptation of Max Porter’s award-winning Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

UK