Britain's largest public film event returns to the South Bank for a seventieth edition, twelve days of premieres and festival highlights every October.
The BFI London Film Festival, the largest public film event in Britain, holds its 70th edition at BFI Southbank from Wednesday 7 to Sunday 18 October 2026. Its galas play at the Royal Festival Hall.
The festival began at a dinner party in 1953, where the guests complained that London, alone among the great European capitals, had no film festival. James Quinn took the complaint away and staged the first festival at the newly opened National Film Theatre in October 1957.
That first programme ran to 15 to 20 titles already proven at other festivals. Today the festival is run by the British Film Institute, a charity founded in 1933 that holds the world’s largest film and television archive.
The festival is built for an audience. There is no competitive palme, the galas are open to anyone who books, and the programme draws on the year’s festivals as much as on premieres. A visitor sees in a fortnight what a critic chases all year.
Beyond Southbank, premieres, series and immersive work play at BFI IMAX, Curzon Soho, the ICA, the Prince Charles and Vue West End.
Programme
| When | Occasion | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 7 October | Opening Night Gala: Elsinore Simon Stone turned his theatre-directing method on a real life for the first time in Elsinore, which opened the BFI London Film Festival's seventieth edition at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 8 October | Gala: La Bola Negra Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo's La Bola Negra, a Lorca-inspired triptych with Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, had its UK premiere as a London Film Festival Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 8 October | Gala: The Beloved Rodrigo Sorogoyen's The Beloved, with Javier Bardem as a director who casts his estranged daughter, had its UK premiere as a London Film Festival Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 9 October | Gala: I Love Boosters Boots Riley, the musician-turned-director behind Sorry to Bother You, brought his fashion-world caper I Love Boosters, with Keke Palmer and Demi Moore, to a London Film Festival gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 9 October | Gala: Wild Horse Nine Martin McDonagh, the writer and director of In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin, brought his Easter Island comedy to a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 10 October | Gala: Bunker Florian Zeller, the Oscar-winning writer of The Father, premiered his psychological thriller Bunker, with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, as a London Film Festival gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 10 October | Gala: Paper Tiger James Gray returned to the New York crime film with Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson, at a Saturday gala in the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 10 October | Gala: Ray Gunn Brad Bird, the director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant, gave his animated detective story Ray Gunn its world premiere at a Royal Festival Hall gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 11 October | Gala: Artificial Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, with Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, had its UK premiere as a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall during the seventieth London Film Festival. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 11 October | Gala: Wildwood LAIKA's stop-motion adaptation of Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight with Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali in the voice cast, had its world premiere at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 12 October | Gala: Being Heumann Oscar-winning CODA director Siân Heder brought Being Heumann, her film about the disability rights activist Judith Heumann, to the Royal Festival Hall as a London Film Festival Gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 12 October | The Mayor of London's Gala, Ink Danny Boyle, who reinvented British film with Trainspotting, turned his account of a Fleet Street takeover into the Mayor of London's Gala at the 2026 BFI Festival. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 13 October | Gala: Prima Facie Cynthia Erivo led Susanna White's screen adaptation of Suzie Miller's play Prima Facie, a barrister's story that reached the Royal Festival Hall as a festival gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 13 October | Premiere: Frank and Percy Sean Mathias’s film of the stage comedy Frank and Percy, with Ian McKellen and Roger Allam as two Hampstead dog walkers who fall in love, had its world premiere at the festival. | BFI Southbank |
| 13 October | The BFI Patrons' Gala, Behemoth! Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter behind the Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton, returned to directing for the BFI Patrons' Gala's premiere of Behemoth! at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 14 October | Gala: A Long Winter Andrew Haigh, the director of 45 Years and All of Us Strangers, brought his adaptation of a Colm Tóibín story to the Royal Festival Hall as a festival gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 14 October | Gala: Fatherland Paweł Pawlikowski's Fatherland, with Sandra Hüller as Erika Mann travelling postwar Germany beside her father Thomas, screened as a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 15 October | Gala: Klara and the Sun Oscar winner Taika Waititi brought his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, with Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, to a London Film Festival gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 15 October | Gala: Tender Loving Care Mike Leigh, the director of Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake, brought his portrait of two London social workers to a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 15 October | Premiere: Heysel 85 Teodora Ana Mihai’s Heysel 85, a drama set around the 1985 European Cup final disaster in Brussels, had its UK premiere in the festival’s Thrill strand at BFI Southbank. | BFI Southbank |
| 15 October | VisionQuest UK Premiere Terry Matalas’s VisionQuest, the Marvel series that closes the trilogy begun by WandaVision, had its UK premiere at the BFI IMAX with Paul Bettany and James Spader on the carpet. | BFI IMAX |
| 17 October | Gala: Club Kid Jordan Firstman's Club Kid, a comedy about a New York party promoter who discovers he has a son, with Cara Delevingne in the cast, screens as a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 17 October | Gala: Fjord Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, this year’s Palme d’Or winner with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, reaches the Royal Festival Hall as a London Film Festival gala. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 17 October | Gala: Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother Two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali plays an assassin and widowed father in Bassam Tariq's thriller, a Gala at the Royal Festival Hall. | Royal Festival Hall |
| 18 October | Closing Night Gala: The Debut Jesse Eisenberg, once known only as Mark Zuckerberg on screen, closes the BFI London Film Festival with The Debut, his biggest ensemble cast yet as a director. | Royal Festival Hall |