BFI Southbank's autumn season, 1 September to 6 October 2026, brings together twenty of Claude Chabrol's bourgeois thrillers, from Le Beau Serge to The Girl Cut in Two.
BFI Southbank’s autumn season, curated by Catherine Wheatley, runs from 1 September to 6 October 2026 and brings together twenty of Claude Chabrol’s thrillers, from his 1958 debut Le Beau Serge to The Girl Cut in Two in 2007. Chabrol spent fifty years and some eighty films exposing the seam of malice behind the most elegant French veneers, adapting Simenon, Highsmith and Ruth Rendell along the way, and Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook both cite him as an influence. The season carries a BFI re-release of La Femme infidèle from 11 September, Violette Nozière, the first of Isabelle Huppert’s seven collaborations with him, and introductions and Q&As with the director’s daughter and collaborator Cécile Maistre-Chabrol on 3 and 6 October. Le Boucher and Les Biches screen alongside, and a curated collection of ten films runs on BFI Player for the season’s length.