Colin Farrell brought Edward Berger’s Macau gambling drama Ballad of a Small Player to the BFI London Film Festival for its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall.
Colin Farrell, Tilda Swinton and Fala Chen led Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player into the Royal Festival Hall on Thursday 9 October 2025, a Netflix drama given its UK premiere among the BFI London Film Festival’s galas.
Farrell was born in Castleknock, Dublin, in 1976, the son of a Shamrock Rovers footballer. He left the Gaiety School of Acting when the BBC cast him in Ballykissangel, and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report made him a leading man in 2002. Martin McDonagh then gave him two of his defining roles: In Bruges, which won him a Golden Globe, and The Banshees of Inisherin, which won him the Volpi Cup at Venice and an Academy Award nomination. His Oz Cobb in The Penguin brought a third Golden Globe in 2025.
Rowan Joffé adapted the film from Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel. Farrell plays a disgraced Irish financier calling himself Lord Doyle, laying low among the casinos of Macau and fascinated by an enigmatic woman at the baccarat table. Swinton, who acted opposite Farrell in his first credited film, The War Zone, joins Fala Chen, Deanie Ip and Alex Jennings in the cast.
Berger, the director of All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, made the film for Netflix. It had opened at Telluride in August, reached British cinemas on 17 October and began streaming on 29 October.