Film & TV

BFI London Film Festival 2025

A selection of thirteen reviews from this year's BFI LFF by the Felix team

Sijung Lee

17 Oct 2025 — 4 min read

The 69^th BFI London Film Festival (LFF), presented in partnership with American Express, started on 8th October, ushering in twelve days of premieres, panels, and global cinematic celebration across the UK that will last until 19^th October. This year’s programme features 247 titles, including features, shorts, series, and immersive works, representing a total of 79 countries. The programme is open to the public, allowing everyone to experience a wide array of screenings, workshops, immersive experiences, and more.

In London, it is mostly only Southbank Centre and West End venues that put on in-person screenings and events, with standby queues and last-minute tickets available for the majority of films. The BFI LFF is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in experiencing undiscovered early-release films, as these are shown in the UK for the first (and for some, the only) time. Highly anticipated upcoming movies also feature as public red carpet premieres, also known as Galas at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.

The annual festival opened this year with the international premiere of Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third installment of his Knives Out series, and will close with the UK premiere of Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero. There is much excitement around several new works from established directors like Yorgos Lanthimos, Park Chan-wook, and Chloé Zhao, as well as the return of Daniel Day-Lewis, who has won three Academy Awards for Best Actor, performing in his son Ronan Day-Lewis’s directorial debut Anemone.

In this special feature, our team presents reviews of thirteen films from the LFF, eight of which premiered as part of the festival’s prestigious Gala selections. We hope you enjoy this feature and perhaps even find some upcoming films to look out for and add to your watchlist!