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The London Film Festival has rolled up its red carpet for another year, but that doesn’t mean the city’s movie fest season is over. Far from it, in fact. Film cultures from across the world are being celebrated in style at festivals like the Made in Prague Festival (from October 31), London Korean Film Festival (from November 5), UK Jewish Film Festival (from Nov 6) and London Baltic Film Festival (from Nov 7).
One that’s always worth a close look is the French Film Festival London. It all happens under one roof at South Kensington’s ornate red-brick Institut Français and this year it’s showcasing some genuinely exceptional new movies from France and, thanks to the vagaries of film financing, far beyond the French Republic. This year is the 33rd fest and as you’d expect, it’s a well-oiled machine but an intimate one too, where you can find like-minded film fans gathering for 76 screenings at the venue’s elegant two-screen Ciné Lumière.
And because you probably can’t see all 33 films without being fired from your job or your family, we’ve had a moustache-twiddling peruse of the line-up to pick five absolute must-sees on the programme, including a Palme d'Or winner and the year’s single most devastating drama. Bonne séance!
It Was Just an Accident
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner, a blackly funny story of kidnap and revenge set in Tehran, may not look like a French film, but don’t be fooled: it’s French financed and a worthy centrepiece for the festival. Panahi has been victimised and censored by the Iranian regime and his latest opus comes as another exercise in pure moral courage and exceptional filmmaking craft. Vahid Mobasseri plays a mechanic who thinks he’s stumbled into the man who once tortured him – and decides to get his own back.
The Stranger
Existentialism has never been sexier than in François Ozon’s black-and-white take on Albert Camus’ 1942 novella about a young, disenchanted Frenchman who shoots an Arab man in cold blood and won’t explain or justify his actions to anyone. Summer of 85’s Benjamin Voisin takes the role once inhabited by Marcello Mastroianni in Luchino Visconti’s 1967 version, while Rebecca Marder is the lover who can’t make much sense of this unblinking enigma either.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
An absolute turkey could get a 10-minute standing ovation at film festivals these days, but even so, not many films get 23 minutes of raucous, palm-numbing applause. Meet Kaouther Ben Hania’s extraordinary Palestinian docudrama then, a heartbreaking true-life story about a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza by IDF soldiers in 2024. It’s a powerhouse big-screen experience and a sign of the festival’s willingness to tackle the toughest subjects head on.
The Great Arch
The Square’s Claes Bang is obscure Danish architect Otto von Spreckelsen in Stéphane Demoustier’s festival opener, a real-life story of an aesthetic disrupter who changed the Paris skyline in the most dramatic style. Picking up where The Brutalist left off, The Great Arch follows early ’80s President François Mitterrand’s commission to build the city’s Great Arch of La Défense – and all the controversy and political shenanigans that came with it.
La Reine Margot
The fest also boasts some retrospectives to sink your teeth into. An absolute humdinger of a period drama, Patrice Chéreau’s 1994 César winner is a Grand Guignol-tinged historical epic that’ll be an apt way to celebrate its star, Isabelle Adjani’s 70th birthday. Look out, too, for Marcel Ophüls’ masterful Occupation doc The Sorrow and the Pity and Harry, He’s Here to Help, the Hitchcockian debut by Dominik Moll, who also has Case 137 in the festival line-up.
The French Film Festival London runs November 12-23. Head to the official website for all the programme info and to book tickets.
How many of the 100 greatest French films ever made have you seen?