The BFI Announces Its September Programme At The BFI Southbank And BFI IMAX

The BFI announces its September highlights, including seasons dedicated to Claude Chabrol and Sarah Maldoror. Also, the centenary celebrations of Harry Dean Stanton and Bryan Forbes.

The BFI has announced the programme for 1 September – 6 October 2026 at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, beginning with CLAUDE CHABROL: ELEMENTS OF CRIME. Often considered one of the French New Wave’s most neglected filmmakers, Claude Chabrol might also be the most important. This September, the BFI celebrates Chabrol’s cool, precise, entertaining and deliciously wicked thrillers, beginning with the BFI Distribution rerelease of LA FEMME INFIDÈLE (1969), returning to UK and Ireland cinemas from 11 September. The first of Chabrol’s great run of bourgeois psychological thrillers, LA FEMME INFIDÈLE is one of three of his films that BFI Distribution has acquired, alongside LE BOUCHER (1970) and LES BICHES (1968), while a curated Chabrol online collection will also be available on BFI Player for audiences UK-wide, spanning a selection of 10 films from across his prolific career.

50 YEARS AND 80-ODD FILMS

Spanning some 50 years and 80-odd films, BFI Southbank season curator Catherine Wheatley argues that:

“few directors have mapped the darkness beneath respectable surfaces with quite the wit, precision and relentless productivity of Claude Chabrol”.

The season highlights 20 titles, from his daring 1958 debut LE BEAU SERGE to 2007’s THE GIRL CUT IN TWO, shining a light on some of Chabrol’s darkest and most compelling films. Dubbed the French Hitchcock, beneath the composed surfaces of Chabrol’s thrillers lies something more poisonous: a cinema of corrosive irony, wicked wit, and simmering violence. Chabrol’s films share affinities with acclaimed thriller writers, including Georges Simenon (THE HATTER’S GHOST, 1982), Patricia Highsmith (THE CRY OF THE OWL, 1987), and Ruth Rendell (THE BRIDESMAID, 2004, LA CÉRÉMONIE, 1995).

Each of whose works he has adapted, while Chabrol has also been recognized as a kindred spirit to the most recent generation of Korean filmmakers, with Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook both citing him and his films such as QUE LA BÉTÈ MEURE (1969) and LA RUPTURE (1970) as a key influence.

INTRODUCING THE SEASON

Catherine Wheatley delivers the season introduction on 1 September with an illustrated exploration of Chabrol’s cinema, peeking beneath his elegant surfaces to reveal the rot lurking beneath. Meanwhile, few directors have understood women as complex, dangerous agents of their own destiny quite like Claude Chabrol. MEAN GIRLS: CLAUDE CHABROL’S DANGEROUS WOMEN on 23 September brings together experts, including filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond (CENSOR), film scholar Virginie Sélavy, and season curator Wheatley to examine the extraordinary actresses such as Stéphane Audran, Isabelle Huppert, and Sandrine Bonnaire at the heart of Chabrol’s work.

Other events include Chabrol’s daughter and collaborator Cécile Maistre-Chabrol, who will present two of her father’s films, introducing THE SWINDLE (1997) on 3 October, and a Q&A for his penultimate feature, The GIRL CUT IN TWO (2007) on 6 October. Film philosophers Lucy Bolton, Ben Tyrer, and season curator Wheatley take a close-up look at Chabrol’s masterpiece, LE BOUCHER, on 9 September, cutting to the heart of the themes which shaped the filmmaker’s entire body of work on the nature of violence.

A POET WITH A CAMERA

The season A POET WITH A CAMERA: THE CINEMA OF SARAH MALDOROR is an exploration of Sarah Maldoror’s intimate and poetic body of work, curated by her daughter Annouchka de Andrade and highlighting a filmmaker whom history almost erased. Maldoror’s highly subversive, revolutionary, and very African cinema reveals her love for the arts and commitment to existing as a woman and filmmaker. It also highlights her constant and unwavering support for her partner, the Angolan poet and politician Mário de Andrade.

Maldoror took her destiny in her own hands, becoming a rare Black woman filmmaker whose cinema was motivated by a need to bear witness to the realities of people rarely seen on screen. The African struggle was where she began, but her body of work encompassed politics and culture worldwide.

THE SEASON

The season launches on 2 September with the introduction event POETRY IN MY SOUL, when Annouchka de Andrade will share the political context, artistic choices, and intimate elements of her mother’s work. The event will include screenings of a brief portrait of Joan Miró, a filmed performance piece featuring Louis Aragon reading a text by Jean Ristat, and a portrait of Guyanese poet and politician Léon-Gontran Damas. Meanwhile, SARAH MALDOROR HERSELF on 3 September is an intimate session, featuring a discussion with Andrade, that will see Maldoror emerge through her own words beyond her films, including Anne-Laure Folly’s documentary portrait SARAH MALDOROR OU LA NOSTALGIE DE L’UTOPIE (1999), a number of filmed Q&As, and a live reading of an interview which Maldoror conducted with Marguerite Duras in 1959.

Films playing in the season will include Maldoror’s landmark film SAMBIZANGA (1972), which is an incisive and powerful anti-colonial drama, plus eight programmes of shorts that collect many of Maldoror’s films. In addition to directing over 40 films, Maldoror was also involved in three landmark pictures by other directors, which we play throughout the season – THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966), in which Maldoror worked with Pontecorvo on set and as a liaison with some of the local population, SANS SOLEIL (Chris Marker, 1982), featuring footage of Guinea-Bissau shot by Maldoror in 1972, and THE PAN-AFRICAN FESTIVAL OF ALGIERS (William Klein, 1969), for which Maldoror was part of Klein’s team.

HARRY DEAN STANTON

Emerging with the New Hollywood movement of the late 1960s, the late, great Harry Dean Stanton brought a world-weary naturalism to the screen. For over 50 years, Stanton embodied the quintessential American everyman, lending laconic credibility to multiple decades’ worth of movies, even through the briefest of appearances, working with some of the biggest filmmaking names, including David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola. A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED: HARRY DEAN STANTON, curated by BFI Executive Director of Public Programme and Audiences Jason Wood, honors Stanton’s centenary with a season featuring his finest performances that skilfully and subtly combine sadness, vulnerability, honesty, and guilelessness, demonstrating why Stanton achieved the status of one of US cinema’s greatest character actors.

Appearing in blockbuster titles, cult classics, and alternative fare alike, Stanton was a genuine one-off whose personality proved so unique it was as if his friend David Lynch had dreamed him up. Films playing at BFI Southbank throughout the month will include COOL HAND LUKE (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967), PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (Sam Peckinpah, 1973), THE MISSOURI BREAKS (Arthur Penn, 1976), WISE BLOOD (John Huston, 1979), ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (John Carpenter, 1980), REPO MAN (Alex Cox, 1984), PARIS, TEXAS (Wim Wenders, 1984), PRETTY IN PINK (Howard Deutch, 1986), WILD AT HEART (David Lynch, 1990), THE STRAIGHT STORY (David Lynch, 1999) and LUCKY (John Carroll Lynch, 2017).

BRYAN FORBES

A rare chance to see rediscovered features from the BFI National Archive, this month our Projecting the Archive strand honors BRYAN FORBES AT 100. Actor, writer, director, producer – few figures in British cinema have displayed so much talent across as many spheres as Bryan Forbes. Frustrated by the paucity of good screen acting roles, he began writing his own before turning to producing and directing. Later, as head of EMI, he added THE GO-BETWEEN and THE RAILWAY CHILDREN to the canon of British cinema, before becoming a successful novelist.

From a working-class background, Forbes proved skillful at the sympathetic presentation of marginalized groups, particularly women; figures too often caricatured or demonized on screen were humanized through his keen observation and perceptive dialogue. His refusal to compromise, either his creative vision or his message, has bequeathed us a filmography of powerful, moving works.

CELEBRATING A CENTENARY YEAR

To celebrate his centenary year, this expanded Projecting the Archive strand brings six of his films to the screen, each with an introduction. The centerpiece of the celebration is the premiere of a brand new 35mm print of Forbes’ directorial debut WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND (1961) on 4 September, featuring a Q&A with actors Hayley Mills, Diane Poole, and Alan Barnes. This brand new 35mm print was made in 2026 by the BFI National Archive at Haghefilm, Netherlands. The soundtrack was scanned by the BFI National Archive and restored by Molinare, London, with restoration supported by Simon and Harley Hessel.

Other films screening are THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (Basil Dearden, 1960), Forbes’ witty adaptation of John Boland’s novel introduced by Mark Gatiss on 6 September, THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962), Forbes’ sensitive adaptation of Lynne Reid Banks’ novel, introduced by author Cathi Unsworth on 15 September, SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (1964) starring Richard Attenborough who won a BAFTA for his study of a psychic’s dangerously devoted husband in Forbes’ powerful psychological thriller, introduced by writer and producer David McGillivray on 8 September, plus KING RAT (1965), Forbes’ adaptation of James Clavell’s novel set in the infamous Changi prison, introduced by Forbes’ daughter Sarah Standing on 29 September.

Nanette Newman, who appeared in nine films directed by her husband, including THE WRONG BOX (1966), will introduce Forbes’ surreal comedy where she starred alongside Ralph Richardson, John Mills, and Michael Caine on 22 September. In addition, a one-day FORBES AT 100 SYMPOSIUM on 4 September will examine Forbes’ remarkable contribution to film history with academics, writers, and filmmakers speaking about the career of one of post-war British Cinema’s most versatile figures.

FURTHER SPECIAL EVENTS

Further special events this month will include a screening of QUEEN AT SEA (Lance Hammer, 2026), including a Q&A with actor Juliette Binoche on 17 September. Binoche stars as a woman thrown into a complex moral dilemma when she starts to doubt her stepfather has her vulnerable mother’s best interests at heart. Winner of the Berlin Silver Bear Jury Prize, this fascinating and human drama is a subtle, beautifully composed masterwork.

Mike Leigh joins us on 3 September for CONTEMPORARY 75: BLEAK MOMENTS (Mike Leigh, 1971). This rare screening, digitally remastered by the BFI, offers a chance to experience a landmark work of British independent cinema. Leigh’s understated feature debut, about a woman caring for her sister, is a devastating portrait of loneliness, routine, and the fragile search for connection with extraordinary sensitivity and a keen eye for everyday life.

Meanwhile, to mark the BFI Distribution release of SUPER NATURE (Ed Sayers, 2026) on 4 September, we play the film at BFI IMAX, followed by a Q&A with director Ed Sayers. Known for running the popular filmmaking competition Straight 8, Sayers has enjoyed a lifelong passion for Super 8mm film. He devised a globe-spanning documentary to celebrate the wildlife that surrounds us, dispatching Super 8 cameras to collaborators across 25 countries, which provides an exhilarating journey across land, air, and beneath the water’s surface.

MADNESS AND MORE

Members of the English ska pop band Madness (TBC) join us on 30 September for the Restoration World Premiere of TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT (Dave Robinson, 1981) ahead of its BFI Distribution release from 2 October and BFI Blu-ray release on 19 October. Newly restored in 4K by the BFI, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT was filmed after Madness had achieved Top 10 success and endeared themselves to the British public with the humor of their iconic music videos. Travelling back in time, Robinson’s film details how a bunch of mates living in Camden Town in the mid-70s got together to form the band, the jobs they left behind, the line-up changes, the rows, the laughs, and how their distinctive ska-pop ‘Nutty Sound’ evolved.

Molly Manners will introduce her feature debut EXTRA GEOGRAPHY on 5 October to tie in with an extended run from 2 October. Manners’ film charts the intense and uncanny friendship of two boarding school girls, coming-of-age in the early 2000s, as they embark on their Summer project of falling in love.

TV PREVIEWS

TV previews will include 70 UP: THE FINAL CHAPTER (Asif Kapadia, 2026), including a Q&A with creators on 7 September. Over the course of 63 years, the Up series has chronicled the lives of a group of individuals from a cross-section of British society, detailing the events that defined them as they grow older. For this final installment, the participants turn 70 and look back on the lives that we have been witness to. We also preview THE SPLIT UP (Shamim Sarif, 2026) with key cast and creatives on 16 September.

Based on THE SPLIT and set within the charged world of Manchester’s high net worth divorce circuit, THE SPLIT UP centers on Kishan Law, a powerhouse British South Asian family firm. Just as brilliant divorce lawyer Aria is poised to take the reins from her father, a shock announcement and the arrival of a former flame call everything into question.

S.O.U.L FEST

S.O.U.L. FEST, in partnership with the American Black Film Festival, returns to BFI Southbank from 11 – 13 September, celebrating its eighth year. One of the most important platforms for Black British cinema, this three-day programme offers audiences an outstanding selection of British features, shorts, and special events. The festival opens with BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL: THE KWAME BRATHWAITE STORY (Yemi Bamiro, 2025) on 11 September. The world caught up with the brilliance of photographer Kwame Braithwaite’s work when, following his death in 2023, his son uncovered a vast archive of images. Bamiro’s exhilarating documentary, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, traces the remarkable story behind this rediscovery of more than half a million images – intimate photographs of everyday Black life, alongside portraits of icons including Stevie Wonder, Muhammad Ali, and Nina Simone.

The weekend also features two industry panels supported by founding sponsor Sony Pictures Entertainment: FROM SHADOW TO SET on 12 September, presented with Left Bank Pictures, and BEYOND THE SCREEN on 13 September, presented with Crunchyroll. The festival closes with the S.O.U.L. FEST SHORT FILM PROGRAMME on 13 September, featuring eight new works by Black British filmmakers spanning a variety of genres and exploring themes from faith and identity to friendship, memory, and belonging. Together, they present a snapshot of contemporary Black British short filmmaking. The screening will be followed by the S.O.U.L. FEST SHORT FILM AWARDS, celebrating the very best of this year’s programme, before ending with a festival closing party that you won’t want to miss. Further programme details will be announced closer to the time.

WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

Elsewhere, Woman With A Movie Camera presents WILDWOOD, NJ (Ruth Leitman, 1994) on 11 September, including a Q&A with director Ruth Leitman. Shot on dreamy Super 8 by an all-woman crew, Wildwood, NJ introduces a host of unforgettable characters – from go-go dancers and pre-teen brats to goths working as vampires in a boardwalk’s haunted house. It is a fascinating collage that captures the nostalgia of summer-filled memories in the last great New Jersey carnival town.

We also preview BABYSTAR (Joscha Bongard, 2025) on 14 September. As an influencer since birth, Luca approaches adulthood, living a lifestyle that is the envy of both teenagers and adults. Her parents consider having another child to unlock a new source of income. Eerie yet frighteningly believable, Bongard’s assured debut reveals the emotional complexities beneath the pursuit of success, questioning what is lost when life becomes a performance.

MARK KERMODE LIVE IN 3D AT THE BFI

Finally, joined by surprise guests from across the film industry, MARK KERMODE LIVE IN 3D AT THE BFI sees one of the nation’s favorite and most respected film critics joined by surprise guests from across the film industry to explore, critique and dissect current and upcoming releases, cinematic treasures, industry news and even some guilty pleasures, this month on both 14 September and 4 October.

NEW AND RE-RELEASES

Films playing on extended run throughout the month at BFI Southbank will include the BFI Distribution release of SUPER NATURE (Ed Sayers, 2026) and re-release of LA FEMME INFIDÈLE (Claude Chabrol, 1969), plus BAD APPLES (Jonatan Etzler, 2025), BITTER CHRISTMAS (Pedro Almodóvar, 2026), QUEEN AT SEA (Lance Hammer, 2026) and EXTRA GEOGRAPHY (Molly Manners, 2026).

BFI IMAX

New releases playing on the UK’s largest screen at BFI IMAX throughout the month will include the BFI Distribution release of SUPER NATURE (Ed Sayers, 2026), plus DON’T LOOK BACK IN ANGER (Steven Knight, Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern, 2026) and the continued run of THE ODYSSEY (2026), projected from a pristine IMAX 70mm print.

REGULAR BFI SOUTHBANK PROGRAMME STRAND

BFI Southbank’s regular programme strands have something for everyone – whether audiences are looking for silent treasures, restorations, experimental works, archive rarities, family previews, or Relaxed screenings for neurodivergent audiences.

BIG SCREEN CLASSICS

Cinema has always reveled in the cover of darkness. At night, we are free to indulge, to desire, to be someone different, or just truly ourselves. From 1920s bootleggers to the dancehalls of Mexico City, nightclubs are the backdrop for both tragedy and euphoria, as bodies move to the beat beneath the mirror ball. This month’s BFI Southbank daily screenings of classic movies for just £9.50 celebrate the allure, heat, and stickiness of dancefloors that play host to all manner of indiscretions and emotional turmoil. Films playing throughout September and early October will include PICCADILLY (E. A. Dupont, 1929), THE BLUE ANGEL (Josef von Sternberg, 1930), THE ROARING TWENTIES (Raoul Walsh, 1939), DANCE, GIRL, DANCE (Dorothy Arzner, 1940), CABIN IN THE SKY (Vincente Minnelli, 1943), NIGHT AND THE CITY (Jules Dassin, 1950), VICTIMS OF SIN (Emilio Fernández, 1950).

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (Toshio Matsumoto, 1969), CABARET (Bob Fosse, 1972), SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (John Badham, 1978), CRUISING (William Friedkin, 1980), PARIS IS BURNING (Jennie Livingston, 1990), BELLY (Hype Williams, 1998), THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO (Whit Stillman, 1998), SHAME (Steve McQueen, 2011) and EDEN (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2014).

In addition to our £9.50 ticket offer for BIG SCREEN CLASSICS, audience members aged 25 and under can buy tickets for BFI Southbank screenings (in advance or on the day). And special events and previews (on the day only) for just £4, through our ongoing ticket scheme for young audiences.

Plan your trip to the BFI Southbank and/or the BFI IMAX today to be a part of these great movies and events in September.

 

 

 

 

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