BFI London Film Festival 2015 Guide

When is the London Film Festival?

The 2015 London Film Festival opens Wed 7 Oct with the UK premiere of Sarah Gavron's Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts and Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst. The curtain comes down on the festival 18 Oct with the UK premiere of Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Apple co-founder. In between you'll find some of the best British and international cinema in venues across London.

What is the London Film Festival?

The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's biggest and glitziest celebration of cinema. This year’s programme features over 241 films separated intro 11 strands titled Love, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Debate, Laugh, Journey, Sonic, Family, Experimenta, and archieve film section Treasures. The festival features four competitions, which include prizes for Best Film, Best First Feature Film, Best Documentary, and Best Short Film.  

How can you get tickets for the London Film Festival?

Tickets for the 2015 BFI London Film Festival are on sale now. The can be purchased from the BFI website or at participating venues.

What are the best films?

Read our rundown of the 12 films you should see at this year's London Film Festival.

London Film Festival 2015 Reviews:

Suffragette: "The fact that it took a mere hundred years for this story to be told on the big screen is an indication that it’s still pretty damn relevant."

Taxi Tehran: "Panahi’s latest not only highlights the difficulty faced by filmmakers attempting to represent Iranian reality, but how a blend of fact and fiction can sometimes be the only route to unearthing the truth."

The Lobster: "Yorgos Lanthimos' ability to combine arch humour and outbursts of shocking violence is as potent as ever here."

The Program: "Taut but structurally aimless, O'Dowd's skeptical sports writer is reduced to a bystander, watching a narrative we're already familiar with play out."

High-Rise: "Hints at going in a Clockwork Orange direction before Wheatley loses formal control in parallel to his characters."

Tangerine: "A brilliant standalone piece of rhythmic storytelling, throwing itself at the audience as a ball of momentum that rolls to a tender, touching stop."

Son of Saul: "Son of Saul is bracing, but its power diminishes as the film wears on; we become numb to Nemes's bravura direction just as Saul has become numb to mass murder."

11 Minutes: "The theme is nihilistic but its execution is thrilling."

Sunset Song: "Stays true to Davies's lushly pained, deliberate style and builds into a sweeping chronicle of land and emotion that could fairly be called a Scottish answer to Gone with the Wind."

Carol: "The film never really goes for crescendo, rather it simmers a cauldron of heated but restrained emotions and sensations – gorgeously."

The Assassin: "Its intoxicating power coming from just how alien it feels. It takes you to the past, but it seems like another universe."

The Witch: "Running concurrently at all times with the black magic and shady goats is an affecting moral drama regarding the devastating roots that seep from seeds of distrust."

My Scientology Movie: "In the past Theroux's nice-guy act has turned nazis and survivalists apoplectic, and he gets similar reactions from Miscavige's enclave."

Brooklyn: "A touching romance and nuanced exploration of how perceptions of home and family shift as life throws us new opportunities."

The Best Films from London Film Festival 2014 – Reviews:

Eden: "It’s a kind of vampire movie, with our protagonist trapped in the crepuscular purgatory of his early 20s."

Girlhood: "The film’s biggest strength lies in Sciamma’s magic touch with young actresses: the cast of first-timers give uniformly excellent performances, with Karidja Touré and Assa Sylla in particular showing a real star quality."

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night: "It’s righteous, shocking, terrifying, iconic, funny, twistedly romantic and refreshingly unpredictable."

Whiplash: "This is funny, horrifying, brutal, exhilarating, and builds to a finale that's somehow fist-pumpingly fantastic and utterly tragic at the same time. You’ll want back for more as soon as it’s over."

The Falling: "Borrowing freely from Nicolas Roeg (and produced by his son Luc), as well as making reference to pagan folklore, The Falling invites us to wonder whether something supernatural is afoot, or the mass-blackouts are merely a psychosomatic rebellion."

Mommy: "An unabashed melodrama that's constantly swinging for the fences, and the emotional force of the picture is irresistible."

The Tribe: "Slaboshpytskiy has made a film with a unique hook but one that doesn’t rely on gimmickry – underneath its method is a substantive emotional compendium that’s passionately, hypnotically shattering."

Phoenix: "Phoenix’s Berlin is a rubble-strewn labyrinth and its inhabitants walking ghosts haunted by the recent past."

National Gallery: "The film is made with Wiseman's customary perceptiveness and unfussy grace, but in its final moments it achieves a sense of transcendence that lifts it into the top tier of this great documentarian’s work."

It Follows: "The term ‘instant classic’ is being bandied around a lot on this one – deservedly."

Goodbye to Language: "Even at a brisk 70 minutes, Goodbye to Language is dense with too many ideas and innovations to unpick on one viewing. One thing’s for sure: this old dog still has plenty of new tricks."

Timbuktu: "Shot with a brilliant eye for composition by Sofian El Fani, Timbuktu is an essential work; it's a vital plea for understanding, compassion and peace that is marked by a deep wisdom and humanity."

The New Girlfriend: "Loosely based on a Ruth Rendell story, Ozon’s film quivers between psychological thriller and playful farce."

Hard to Be a God: "It’s bewildering, darkly hilarious, something of an endurance test, and made with such epic scale and precision that it’s also breathtaking."

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