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This year’s BFI London Film Festival line-up has been announced in full – and the fest will be a happy homecoming for one of the city’s greatest actors.
Daniel Day-Lewis’s new film, Anemone, is one of the films on the LFF’s newly announced 2025 programme. Directed by his son Ronan, it’s the Londoner’s first screen appearance since Phantom Thread in 2017. He’ll also be appearing for a sure-to-be roadblocked screen talk at the festival.
Other standouts on this year’s line-up include Park Chan-wook’s capitalist satire No Other Choice and Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet. An adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, it’s drawn instant Oscar buzz since its Telluride debut last week.
Really giving it the big one, the reliably brilliant Richard Linklater has two films at the fest: wistful songwriting drama Blue Moon and his snappy love letter to ’60s cine–radical Jean-Luc Godard, New Wave.
Time Out will be presenting a BFI IMAX screening of Oliver Laxe’s extraordinary Sirât, a desert odyssey that’s equal parts Sorcerer and Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s guaranteed to melt minds on the biggest screen in Britain.
Look out, too, for, Harry Lighton’s BDSM romance Pillion, Jim Jarmusch’s latest Father Mother Sister Brother, The Brutalist screenwriter Mona Fastvold’s directorial debut The Testament of Ann Lee, and Bait director Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada.
Bringing a musical flavour to the line-up are Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth’s drama about Marianne Faithfull, Broken English, and Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere with Jeremy Allen White playing the Boss during his Nebraska era.
There’ll also be opportunities to catch Sydney Sweeney’s performance as queer boxing champion Christy Martin in Christy, and legendary French actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) in John Skoog’s black-and-white debut Redoubt.
And it’s not just movies on the LFF slate. Chloé Zhao, Lynne Ramsay, Jafar Panahi and Yorgos Lanthimos will be joining Daniel Day-Lewis in doing screen talks, while the festival’s VR strand, LFF Expanded, includes 11 new works for fans of the immersive experience.
The festival opens on October 8 with Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and closes with 100 Nights of Hero on October 19. Head to the official festival site for the full programme and ticketing info.
Tickets go on sale to BFI members on September 9, AMEX card holders a day later, and to the general public on September 16. And stay tuned for more LFF news at our festival hub.
And remember that alongside in-person screenings, you’ll be able to catch up on festival events via BFI Player and on BFI YouTube.
Everything you need to know about this year’s London Film Festival.
The best films of 2025 (so far).