Emma Stone in a striking scene from Bugonia (2025)
The complete schedule for the 69th London Film Festival (LFF), which will be held from October 8–19, 2025, has been released by the BFI. 247 works from 79 countries are featured in this year’s edition, including series, immersive projects, shorts, and features. With 103 films helmed by female and non-binary filmmakers, the show celebrates diversity. Viewers can anticipate a total of 20 European premieres, 11 international premieres, and 27 world premieres.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery by Rian Johnson will open the festival, and 100 Nights of Hero by Julia Jackman will close it out. Philippa Lowthorpe’s H Is for Hawk, Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, and Hikari’s Rental Family are among the films that will be screened at the Gala. On the UK’s largest screen at BFI IMAX, special presentations include the restored Sholay – Director’s Cut, the documentary Broken English about Marianne Faithfull, and Isabella Eklöf’s series The Death of Bunny Munro.
The show features a variety of world premieres. Amir El-Masry and Pierce Brosnan star in Rowan Athale’s British boxing drama Giant; James Lucas’s Moss & Freud, a documentary about Kate Moss and Lucian Freud; Ed Sayers’ environmental documentary Super Nature; Yemi Bamiro’s Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story; Bradley Banton’s debut film More Life; and Calif Chong’s story about British-Chinese immigrants, High Wire.
International works and documentaries are also very important. Majid Al Ansari’s psychological horror film The Vile, Hsu Ya-Ting’s poignant Island of the Winds about Taiwan’s leprosy communities, Rachel Abigail Holder’s Love, Brooklyn, and Kevin B. Lee’s daring essay film Afterlives are all on the schedule.
With films like Letitia Wright’s Highway to the Moon, Ali Gill’s Party Animal, Idris Elba’s Dust to Dreams, Susan Wokoma’s Dark Skin Bruises Differently, and Pippa Bennett-Warner’s 22 + 1, short films are once again a prominent genre. From October 8 to October 26, viewers across the country will be able to access the shorts on BFI Player.
Through immersive and interactive projects, the LFF Expanded section keeps pushing the limits of storytelling. Rambert Studio will be transformed into a galaxy of light and sound with the European premiere of Andrew Schneider’s Now Is When We Are (The Stars). The well-liked Games Lounge and VR Lounge will be back to present the newest in immersive art and animation, while Future Botanica, an AI-powered augmented reality piece, will make its debut at BFI IMAX.
In addition to screenings, the festival will include a comprehensive schedule of Screen Talks with speakers like Yorgos Lanthimos, Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Linklater, Jafar Panahi, Lynne Ramsay, Tessa Thompson, and Chloé Zhao. In addition to partner theatres located throughout central London and 11 UK-wide locations in cities like Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Glasgow, and Bristol, events are held at flagship locations such as BFI Southbank, the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre, and BFI IMAX.
Festival director Kristy Matheson said the program reflects “the incredible state of the medium in 2025 – brimming with formal innovations, provocations, and essential roadmaps for navigating the world around us” and invites viewers to “craft their own festival journey” through premieres, exhibitions, and talks.
The 69th BFI London Film Festival is expected to reaffirm London’s status as a global centre for filmmaking with its lineup of big premieres, global discoveries, documentaries, shorts, and innovative immersive projects.