BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Walker

The screening on Saturday 5 July will be introduced by filmmaker and Moviedrome presenter Alex Cox ‘What is a cult film? A cult film is one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to ...

July 5, 2025 | Moviedrome
Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen

The Fly

‘What is a cult film? A cult film is one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to everybody. Just because a movie is a cult movie does not automatically guarantee quality. Some cult ...

July 5, 2025 | Moviedrome
Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen

The Wicker Man - Final Cut

The screening on Friday 4 July will be introduced by Alex Cox and Nick Freand Jones ‘What is a cult film? A cult film is one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to everybody. Just...

July 4, 2025 | Moviedrome
Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen

Welcome to the Moviedrome

Moviedrome began on BBC2 at a time when there were just four TV channels in the UK, satellite broadcasting was in its infancy and streaming was decades away. It offered audiences a portal into the ...

July 4, 2025 | Moviedrome
Bringing the Cult TV Series to the Big Screen

The Swimmer

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A contemporary review Leaves rustle and twigs snap, sending a rabbit scurrying to its burrow and a deer into the foliage, as a man t...

July 2, 2025 | Big Screen Classics

In the Mood for Love 25th Anniversary Edition

There is a church in the Alpine village of Wassen in Switzerland which, perched on a hillock in the middle of a valley, can be viewed three times over from the railway that climbs up the encircling...

June 27, 2025 | Re-releases

Happy End

Michael Haneke on ‘Happy End’ The gap between Amour and Happy End was the longest between any of your films. Was that because Happy End was a long time gestating? No, it was simply because in the...

June 27, 2025 | Complicit
The Films of Michael Haneke

Funny Games U.S.

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Michael Haneke on ‘Funny Games U.S.’ Do you think that cinema, and particularly attitudes to violence in cinema, have changed over ...

June 20, 2025 | Complicit
The Films of Michael Haneke

Bread & Roses

Bread & Roses offers an unflinching look at the lives of Afghan women following the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021. Co-produced by Jennifer Lawrence and Malala Yousafzai and directe...

June 20, 2025 | Refugee Week

Hidden

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. At a formal level, Michael Haneke’s Hidden contemplates one of the fundamental questions of filmmaking: where to put the camera. Wat...

June 19, 2025 | Re-releases

Time of the Wolf

Michael Haneke on ‘Time of the Wolf’ How dramatically has Time of the Wolf changed in the ten years since you wrote the script? The script didn’t change at all. The one thing that did change is t...

June 17, 2025 | Complicit
The Films of Michael Haneke

The Rain People

Francis Ford Coppola on ‘The Rain People’ How did The Rain People originate? I had originally written The Rain People in 1960 in college. I could never get on top of it. It was first called Echoe...

June 8, 2025 | Wanda and Beyond
The World of Barbara Loden

Benny's Video

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. A skilfully made and disquieting film, Benny’s Video is also unusually oppressive. Director Haneke has described the trilogy of whic...

June 8, 2025 | Complicit
The Films of Michael Haneke

Vagabond

Most animals do not walk on their hind legs; humans are anomalous, unwieldy columns. Maybe because of this, we experience an existential loss of footing when we fall over. What made us so sure of o...

June 6, 2025 | Wanda and Beyond
The World of Barbara Loden

Wanda

Actor-writer-director Barbara Loden’s film is an extraordinary work in American film history, a bracing tale of a working-class woman’s weariness, drift, and refusal of the romantic plot of marriag...

June 3, 2025 | Wanda and Beyond
The World of Barbara Loden

Amour

Michael Haneke on ‘Amour’ When we spoke about The White Ribbon in 2009, you were writing a film about old age, but you later put it aside because of another film on the subject. So is Amour differ...

June 3, 2025 | Complicit
The Films of Michael Haneke

The Red House

A BFI member since 1967, Ray Deahl served as a BFI Member Governor twice, from 1996 to 2002. For over 50 years, Ray was a constant presence at BFI Southbank, sharing his deep passion for cinema and...

May 30, 2025 | Member Picks - A Tribute to Ray Deahl

Nicky Hamlyn - Cycles of Time

+ Nicky Hamlyn in conversation with BFI National Archive curator William Fowler A work from every decade of Nicky Hamlyn’s extensive output is included in a career-spanning programme about cyclica...

May 29, 2025 | Experimenta

Mountains

Director Monica Sorelle on ‘Mountains’ The film begins with a Haitian proverb; what does that proverb mean, and what resonance does it have for you? Proverbs are really big in Haitian culture. Wh...

May 29, 2025 | Black Debutantes
A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors

Valkyrie

In the film that marked the beginning of Cruise’s collaborations with his recent Mission: Impossible writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise plays Claus von Stauffenberg, the German Colonel w...

May 28, 2025 | Tom Cruise