Did you know that Jonathan Glazer has a new film? And it has Olivia Rodrigo in it? And if you were born after 2001, you can watch it for £6 in a cinema that usually charges three times that amount, probably with talented artists attending the screening and doing a Q&A?

It is, then, the BFI London Film Festival, the 12-day period each October (this year it’s from the 7th to 18th) when the multiplexes around Leicester Square transform into arthouse theatres that programme strange, boundary-pushing, subtitled masterpieces that may never play on the big screen again – and also some Oscar-bait rubbish, because that’s the way the festival ecosystem works.

Arriving in the months after Cannes, Venice, and Telluride, the London Film Festival is essentially the best of the best: it’s screening 258 titles (including features, shorts, weird VR stuff, etcetera), many of which will be the best films of 2027 when they come out in cinemas. Or, even better, you can hunt down the oddities that don’t have theatrical distribution, or are doomed to go straight to streaming. While it can’t be guaranteed, a huge number of screenings will have introductions and Q&As from directors and actors, many of whom won’t be exhausted yet from awards season. (They also tend to kill time around Soho in between the intro and Q&A. A primetime to catch the cast of Primetime in a Pret.)

Tickets are on sale now, but if an event looks fully booked, don’t worry: seats are still sporadically being released, and you can usually turn up on the day anyway to get into any screening. Strangely, the more in-demand events (the star-studded galas with red carpets) are the easiest to get into, as uncollected press and guest tickets get sold to the public at the last moment. Also, don’t forget that £6 tickets are available for anyone under 25, or anyone able to pretend they’re under 25.

JOY OF JOYS (DIR. JONATHAN GLAZER)

Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D.C., Wet Leg, Damon Albarn, and Beabadoobee are amongst the artists featured in Glazer’s documentary about the recording of War Child’s charity album Help(2) at Abbey Road. The real stars, though, are the children who filmed it with cameras – not just in the London studio, but in parallel stories shot in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and Yemen. Glazer devised the project with Mica Levi, who refers to the endeavour as “by kids, for kids”.

ARTIFICIAL (DIR. LUCA GUADAGNINO)

Within days of signing a multibillion deal with OpenAI, Amazon announced they were no longer releasing Guadagnino’s dramatisation of how Sam Altman was temporarily removed as CEO from his company. (The film was rescued by Neon.) How damaging could it be to Altman, played in the film by Andrew Garfield? According to rumours, quite a lot. Other names include Anora’s Yura Borisov as Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. Guadagnino specialises in strange, erotically charged stories, so let’s see if he tries to sex up the story of socially awkward computer scientists and sociopaths ruining the planet.

CAMERON WINTER AT CARNEGIE HALL (DIR. PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON)

At the end of last year, Cameron Winter, the frontman of Geese, performed solo at a piano to a crowd of around 3,000 fans. Two of them were Paul Thomas Anderson and Benny Safdie, both of whom operated cameras for a concert film shot on 16mm and 35mm. Commemorating the one-year anniversary of Winter’s solo album Heavy Metal, the intimate gig can finally be seen and heard in superior quality to any YouTube footage. As for accusations that Geese are a “psyop” band – well, at least it wasn’t Christopher Nolan at the helm.

THE HISTORY OF CONCRETE (DIR. JOHN WILSON)

On the Nathan Fielder-produced HBO series How To with John Wilson, the titular filmmaker found the profound in mundane topics such as public toilets and package thieves. In his debut feature, Wilson takes a similar approach to concrete, except he does so in the style of a Hallmark movie – he even attends an instructional seminar. Still, it’s ultimately Wilson walking around with a camera, commenting on his surroundings, and being very deadpan. A tip: there’s also a “relaxed screening” where audience members can move around and stim.

IT GETS WORSE (DIR. MOUNIA AKL)

A TV sitcom and not a film, It Gets Worse is the new series from creator, writer, and star Leo Reich, a 28-year-old comedian who famously came out to his parents on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe. In Reich’s London-based sitcom, three best friends (the other two are Emily Fairn and Olive Gray) face existential anguish amidst a post-university job search when they’re threatened with eviction by their landlord. It’s probably your only chance to watch the show (well, the first three episodes) on a big screen with a packed, laughing audience who may also be crying inside from sad recognition.

SWEET MILK LAKE (DIR. HARVEY ZIELINSKI)

Zielinski, an Australian transmasculine filmmaker, stars in this coming-of-ager about identical twins and their impromptu switcheroo. Jake, who is trans, returns home to make amends with his estranged father, but is accidentally mistaken for his cisgender brother, Sam – and he goes along with the new identity. Both roles are, of course, played by Zielinski, whose script explores the complexities of gender, family, and, yes, what it’s like to lead a different life by pretending to be your twin brother.  

7 MILES OUT (DIR. CAROL MORLEY)

When Carol Morley was 11 in 1977, her father died of suicide. The next few years of using booze for escapism were covered in her documentary The Alcohol Years. However, 7 Miles Out, named after the distance Morley lived from Manchester, explores how the director turned to music while mourning in Stockport. The semi-autobiographical story, adapted from Morley’s 2015 novel, follows Ann (Lucy Halliday) who spends her teen years partying and discovering the new-wave punk scene. Worth remembering that Morley is a coming-of-age specialist who gave Florence Pugh her first-ever acting role in The Falling.

FILIPIÑANA (DIR. RAFAEL MANUEL)

At a golf course in Manila, 17-year-old Isabel (Jorrybell Agoto) is a “tee-girl”, meaning her job is to place the ball down for wealthy, much older men. New to her job, Isabel navigates the elite club’s power hierarchies, itself a microcosm for Filipino society, while Clara (Carmen Castellanos), a young visitor from New York, tries to comprehend outdated traditions from the other side. With Jia Zhangke as an executive producer, the dark comedy follows Isabel as she learns more about colonialism, and the significance of golf, a western sport, in the Philippines.

LA GRADIVA (DIR. MARINE ATLAN)

The word from Cannes was that La Gradiva signalled Atlan, a cinematographer-turned-director, as a major filmmaker. In her debut feature, Atlan casts a handful of first-time actors as French kids on a school trip to Pompeii and Naples. In the historic surroundings, the young protagonists allow their emotions, desires, and anxieties to explode. So not only does the coming-of-ager depict the complexities and high drama of being a teenager in the digital age, the angst unfolds amidst the ruins of Ancient Rome.

CONGO BOY (DIR. RAFIKI FARIALA)

Based on Fariala’s upbringing as a Congolese refugee, this coming-of-age drama follows 17-year-old Robert (Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset) as he raises his four siblings while developing a rap career. With both parents in prison, Robert, who’s still at school, hides his Congolese identity in Central African Republic but instead expresses himself by spitting bars in clubs. The film is so autobiographical, Fariala claims that some of the locations – including where shots are fired at Robert – are completely true to his childhood.

QUEER EDWARD II (DIR. THEO ROLLASON)

In 1991, Derek Jarman’s debut feature, Edward II, updated a 1594 play to comment on modern homophobia, while also finding roles for Annie Lennox and a young Tilda Swinton. Rollason’s archival documentary draws from jaw-dropping BTS footage (much of it shot by Seam McGarvey, who was invited onto the set) that captures how Jarman reinvented queer cinema while living in – and fighting against – Thatcher’s Britain.

The BFI London Film Festival runs from October 7 to 18 at venues in London and across the UK. Tickets are on sale now. Extra tickets get released on October 1. For more information click here.