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This year’s BFI London Film Festival kicks off on October 7, bringing 11 days of movies to cinemas in London and cities across the UK. Tickets always go fast but don’t despair if you’ve missed out so far: there’s rush queues to all the screenings and an array of free-to-attend events to enjoy. But there’s also tickets still available to plenty of the more than 200 films, shorts, series and XR works at the festival. Here’s five movies you should make a beeline for – and where to buy tickets.
1. Zero Intention of Living Quietly
Adam Pearson more than held his own opposite Sebastian Stan in A Different Man, and now he gets the spotlight all to himself. Edward Lovelace’s warm, funny and gut-punching doc picks up with the British actor who was born with the facial tumour condition neurofibromatosis type 1, as he handles newfound fame, faces cruelty from strangers and unpicks a lifelong love of cinema that has both wounded and rescued him, from The Elephant Man to Frozen. The real heart of it is his friendship with Ellie, a teenager with the same rare condition and the same dream of performing. Make sure to bring tissues for this one.
3pm, Sun Oct 11, Vue West End
12.30pm, Wed Oct 14, BFI Southbank
2. In the Shadows
Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson swaps Summerhouse for the boxing ring in this true story of Ramla Ali, who fled Somalia’s civil war as a child and grew up in London’s East End. As a teenager she took up boxing in secret, hiding it from her strict Muslim parents, and went on to become Britain's first female Muslim boxing champion and the first boxer ever to represent Somalia at the Olympics. Peaky Blinders’ Finn Cole plays her husband, but this is Jobson’s fight and she lands every punch.
2.45pm, Fri Oct 16, Curzon Soho Cinema
3. A Long Winter
A new film from All of Us Strangers, Weekend and 45 Years filmmaker Andrew Haigh is an event, so don’t miss an early chance to clock his chilly new 1950s family drama. A Long Winter is adapted from Irish writer Colm Tóibín’s short story and stars Nickel Boys’ Fred Hechinger as a young man returning home whose world is upended when his mother (Caitríona Balfe) vanishes into a blizzard and his dad (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is left devastated. It was filmed at altitude in the Canadian Rockies, so the sense of time and place should envelope festival-goers like a winter frost. Wrap up warm.
12.15pm, Thu Oct 15, Royal Festival Hall
8.45pm, Wed Oct 14, Royal Festival Hall
4. A Place To Heal
French director Cédric Kahn was at the LFF a couple of years ago to premiere his gripping legal drama The Goldman Case and he’s back with a new drama that switches the locus from the courtroom to a psychiatric ward. Acclaimed at last month’s Venice Film Festival, A Place To Heal (aka ‘15/18’) has already drawn comparisons with Laurent Cantet's Palme d’Or winner The Class. The festival is always a great place to clock striking new talent and newcomers Zoé Monpart and Malou Khebizi fit that bill as two young in-patients in a facility for struggling teens.
5.45pm, Fri Oct, Vue West End
8.15pm, Sun Oct 18, Curzon Soho
5. The Slightest Touch
A documentary that finds hope in a place of pain and immense challenge, this HBO film snapshots the friendship between Colin Farrell and Emma Fogarty, a survivor of the rare skin disorder Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). As Fogarty reaches 40, an age that doctors had predicted she’d never live to see, she takes up an offer from her old friend, The Banshees of Inisherin actor, to run the Dublin marathon together. The upshot is a joyful and optimistic portrait of friendship and low-key the most unlikely sports doc of the year.
8.45pm, Mon Oct 12, BFI Southbank
4pm, Thu Oct 15, Vue West End
Everything you need to know about the 2026 London Film Festival.