BFI Southbank Programme Notes

A Woman under the Influence

John Cassavetes had complete disdain for the idea of cinema as escapism. He didn’t believe in making films that went down easily, or that reassured with their familiar tropes and happy endings. Sc...

July 7, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

Le Charme discret
de la bourgeoisie

A contemporary review If Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie registers as the funniest Buñuel film since L’Age d’or, probably the most relaxed and controlled film he has ever made, and arguably the...

July 7, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Bled Number One

Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche on ‘Bled Number One’ The film features Kamel, the hero of your previous film Wesh, Wesh , in which he had just returned to France having been deported to Algeria after serving...

July 7, 2024 | TIGRITUDES
A PAN-AFRICAN FILM CYCLE 1956-2024

The Adventures of Robin Hood

What’s it about? Sir Robin of Locksley becomes an outcast after standing-up to the corrupt rule of Prince John. He takes refuge in Sherwood Forest, where he joins forces with a group of outlaws i...

July 7, 2024 | BFI FAMILIES

Requiem for a Dream

Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream is as bravura a display of filmmaking as you’re likely to see; an exhibition of poised expressionist swagger beside which the pyrotechnics of David Fincher se...

July 6, 2024 | DISCOMFORT MOVIES

Kinds of Kindness

In Yorgos Lanthimos’s comic epic fantasy Poor Things (2023), Emma Stone was electrifying as a Frankensteinian creature, Bella Baxter – a deceased pregnant woman, reanimated with the transplanted br...

July 5, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

The Conversation

I had been terrified by the whole Orwellian dimension of electronic spying and the invasion of privacy when I started The Conversation. I realised that a bugging expert was a special breed of man, ...

July 5, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

Au hasard Balthazar

+ intro by Lou Thomas, BFI Digital Production Editor and film critic (Wednesday 31 July only) SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Robert Bresson drafted the rules of a...

July 5, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Passenger

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. Michelangelo Antonioni is, to say the least, not widely recognised as a humorous director. But The Passenger (1975) – in which a ma...

July 4, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

The Lighthouse

+ intro by Giulia Saccogna, Programme & Research Coordinator Set on the fringes of an unspecified war, Lena returns home to an attractive and traditional mountain village in the Caucasus in an...

July 4, 2024 | RESTORED

Taxi Driver

+ intro by Chantelle Lavel Boyea, BFI Assistant Curator of Television (Wednesday 3 July only) SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. New York in the 1970s as seen through...

July 3, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Pierrot le fou

It would be as hard to remake Pierrot le fou as it would be to forget it. Somehow its rueful lovers have to be reconciled to changed times. The film is 44 years old now [at time of writing], which ...

July 2, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Wild Strawberries

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. An elderly scientist (Sjöström, superb) drives with his daughter-in-law from Stockholm to Lund to receive an honorary award; distur...

July 1, 2024 | BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

When Harry Met Sally...

When Harry Met Sally… is so much more than a faked orgasm and a punchline. Not only does it offer many more pleasures than these, admittedly fine comic moments, it also stands as a pivotal film tha...

July 1, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Singin' in the Rain

It would be hard to find a more enjoyable, durable musical than this homage to Hollywood’s bumpy transition from silent to talking pictures. Gene Kelly is at his charismatic best, especially during...

July 1, 2024 | MEMBER MONDAYS

Network

Peter Finch is mesmerising as veteran news anchor Howard Beale, who’s ‘mad as hell’ and ‘not going to take it anymore’, in this era-defining satire. Having been given two weeks’ notice due to his e...

June 28, 2024 | RE-RELEASES

Bye Bye Tiberias

As a child, Lina Soualem spent her summers visiting her mother’s family and swimming in the waters of Lake Tiberias. Those waters flow through Soualem’s quietly absorbing documentary Bye Bye Tiberi...

June 28, 2024 | NEW RELEASES

The Machine That Kills Bad People

Rossellini’s beguiling neorealist comedy proposes a sharp satire on human behaviour. Engaging us in people-watching from the start, he creates a detailed and authentic portrait of life in a small...

June 24, 2024 | RELAXED SCREENING

The Epic of Everest

Introduced by Dr Jan Faull The Epic of Everest is the official film record, shot by Captain John Noel, of the third British expedition to attempt to reach the summit of the world’s highest peak. W...

June 23, 2024 | CENTENARY SCREENING

Green Border

On stage to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Polish Film Festival (FPFF) in Gdynia in 2021, Agnieszka Holland took the opportunity to highlight the dire situation occurring at the Poland...

June 21, 2024 | NEW RELEASES