The 70th BFI London Film Festival Announces Additional Titles And Screen Talks
Share the Force:
Carl Roberts 
Ahead of the 70th BFI London Film Festival, some additional titles and two more screen talks have been added to the festival schedule.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival (7th-18th October) is excited to announce the addition of some incredible titles to the 2026 programme. In particular, Luca Guadagnino’s ARTIFICIAL will have its International Premiere. Meanwhile, Paul Thomas Anderson’s CAMERON WINTER AT CARNEGIE HALL will make its UK debut. Chris Rock’s MISTY GREEN and Banjong Pisanthanakun’s INHERIT will also have their UK premieres.
Additionally, Jonathan Glazer’s JOY OF JOYS will be featured as a European premiere. We’re also looking forward to the UK premiere of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s EVEREST: THE OTHER SIDE. In addition, Lance Oppenheim’s PRIMETIME will also debut in the UK.
Exciting additions to the programme of LFF SCREEN TALKS include Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse and Nosferatu) and Javier Bardem (Jamón Jamón, No Country for Old Men, Cape Fear).
NEW ADDITIONS TO THE PROGRAMME
ARTIFICIAL
Sunday 11 October 21:00 and Friday 16 October 11:30 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, Thursday 15 October 15:30 at Vue West End
Director Luca Guadagnino. Screenwriter Simon Rich. Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd with Ike Barinholtz and Mark Rylance. USA-Italy 2026. 140min. Courtesy of NEON. Language English
Luca Guadagnino returns to the Festival with his fascinating, timely origin story of OpenAI and its co-founder, Sam Altman.
Artificial homes in on the rise of Open AI and the tumultuous period that saw Altman ousted as CEO of his own company. Andrew Garfield has rarely been better in his portrayal of the tech entrepreneur, with an impressive cast joining him. Writer Simon Rich and Guadagnino (Queer, LFF 2024; After the Hunt, LFF 2025) centre the human drama and ethical conundrums facing the creators of this life-changing technology.
Screening as part of our GALA strand.
CAMERON WINTER AT CARNEGIE HALL
Wednesday 7 October 18:30 at Prince Charles Cinema and Thursday 8 October 15:00 at BFI Southbank
Director Paul Thomas Anderson. With Cameron Winter. USA 2026. 71 min. Courtesy of MUBI. Language English.
‘One Battle After Another’ director Paul Thomas Anderson creates an intimate document of Geese frontman Cameron Winter’s solo piano performance at the legendary New York concert hall.
In December 2025, Paul Thomas Anderson collaborated with fellow filmmaker Benny Safdie on a multi-perspective and multi-format recording of Winter’s solo performance. The warm hues capture the room’s atmosphere, including audience reactions, creating an immersive cinematic experience for those of us who couldn’t be there. It’s a rapturous celebration of live performance, whose appeal should reach far beyond the band and Winter’s existing fan base.
Screening as part of our CREATE strand.
EVEREST: THE OTHER SIDE
Saturday 10 October 12:45 at Vue West End and Tuesday 13 October 18:20 at BFI Southbank
Director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin. With Jim Morrison, Hilaree Nelson. USA 2026.113min. Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios. Language English
This intimate portrait from the directors of Oscar winner Free Solo follows a mountaineering couple with a shared passion and ambition for the near-impossible.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin once again show their passion for individuals who push themselves to the limits of human endurance. Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson share a dream of becoming the first to successfully climb up and ski down the north face of Everest – a feat that prompts concern among friends and family. The resulting film is a compelling and moving portrait of perseverance.
Screening as part of our JOURNEY strand.
JOY OF JOYS
Sunday 11 October 13:45 Vue West End
Director Jonathan Glazer. With Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys. UK 2026. 38min. With some English subtitles
Devised by Mica Levi and Jonathan Glazer, and seen through young eyes, Joy of Joys transforms the making of War Child’s record HELP(2) into something tender and playful.
At Abbey Road, London schoolchildren film recording sessions with artists including Olivia Rodrigo, Arctic Monkeys and Jarvis Cocker – their small digital cameras capturing the music with curiosity and wonder. Meanwhile, children in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen record fragments of their daily lives. Moving between these images, the film finds in music a form of witness and refuge, and in childhood, a spirit of play and joy that persists amid catastrophe.
Screening as part of our CREATE strand.
PRIMETIME
Sunday 11 October 18:00 at BFI IMAX
Director Lance Oppenheim. Screenwriter Ajon Singh. With Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, and Anna Faris. USA 2026. 107min. Courtesy of A24. Language English. Contains flashing images.
Robert Pattinson continues his run of astonishing 2026 performances as he portrays the To Catch a Predator presenter Chris Hansen in this vivid and propulsive drama.
It’s 2006, and despite its unconventional methods, To Catch a Predator is a US TV hit. When executives decide to move the show to a primetime slot, Hansen and his production team must up the ante to keep their audience, no matter the cost. Merritt Weaver and Skyler Gisondo also impress in this absorbing narrative feature debut from documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim.
Screening as part of our THRILL strand.
MISTY GREEN
Monday 12 October 18:30 at Vue West End and Sunday 18 October 18:15 at BFI Southbank
Director-Screenwriter Chris Rock. With Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya USA 2026. 104min. Courtesy of A24 Films. Language English. Contains flashing images
Chris Rock turns his eye to contemporary Hollywood in this biting comedy, in which a washed-up actress attempts to turn her life around in the course of a week.
Misty Green used to be a somebody. These days, she’s barely scraping by. But when an old acquaintance re-enters her life, it looks like she might finally have the chance to start afresh. But when the biggest obstacle is yourself, rebooting your life isn’t always easy. Rosalind Eleazar is magnetic as Misty, and is joined by an all-star cast including Rock, Daniel Kaluuya and Adam Driver.
Screening as part of our JOURNEY strand.
INHERIT
Friday 9 October 20:50 at Curzon Soho and Saturday 10 October 11:10 at Prince Charles Cinema
Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun. Screenwriter: Banjong Pisanthanakun, Thamsatid Charoenrittichai, Chantavit Dhanasevi. With Davika Hoorne, Baipor Thitiya Jirapornsilp, Sinjai Plengpanich. Thailand 2026. 129min. Courtesy of Barunson E&A. Language: Thai.
A rich Thai family falls apart with the arrival of a distant relative in Banjong Pisanthanakun’s (The Medium, LFF 2021) gripping and unpredictable new horror.
Grandma Woranart is full of surprises. She claims to be 80 but has the face of a beautiful young woman. That turns out to be the tip of the iceberg, as family secrets are gradually revealed, and it becomes all too apparent that something sinister lurks inside this seemingly benign relative. Featuring a magnetic performance by Davika Hoorne (A Useful Ghost), Inherit thrills as much as it chills.
Screening this film as part of our CULT strand.
JAVIER BARDEM SCREEN TALK
Sunday 11 October 10:30 at Curzon Soho
We welcome Javier Bardem to the Festival, whose Screen Talk accompanies his stunning performances in Gala entries The Beloved and Bunker.
One of the most accomplished actors of his generation, Javier Bardem first gained attention with roles in Bigas Luna’s Jamón Jamón and Golden Balls. He followed it with an outstanding performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s thriller, Live Flesh. Further acclaim and international roles followed, with lead performances in Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and John Malkovich’s The Dancer Upstairs, as well as a scene-stealing cameo in Michael Mann’s Collateral.
His moving performance in Alejandro Amenábar’s The Sea Inside saw him win the fourth of his seven Goya awards, while his portrayal of a ruthless, sociopathic killer in the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men brought him an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe. He changed tack to play the charming object of desire for two American tourists in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and followed it with a Cannes-winning performance as a dying man haunted by ghosts from the past in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s emotionally raw Biutiful.
OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES
Bardem received another Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for his role in Aaron Sorkin’s Being The Ricardos, and was Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe-nominated as José Menendez in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Over the last two decades, Javier Bardem has worked with Terrence Malick, Sam Mendes, Ridley Scott, Darren Aronofsky, Ryan Murphy, Joseph Kosinski, and Denis Villeneuve. He played Silva, one of the most captivating Bond villains, in Skyfall; was terrifying as Max Cady in the serial adaptation of Cape Fear; and will return to our screens in December as Stilgar in the much-anticipated third part of the Dune trilogy.
ROBERT EGGERS SCREEN TALK
Sunday 11 October, 17:30 VUE West End
In advance of the New Year’s Day 2027 opening of Werwulf, we welcome writer-director-producer Robert Eggers to this Screen Talk to discuss his career.
A master storyteller whose five features all unfold before the 20th century and revel in a world of myths, legends, folk tales and gothic atmosphere, Robert Eggers is one of the 21st century’s most distinctive filmmakers.
Initially displaying an interest in theatre – where his vision for Nosferatu first began – he soon moved from experimental and street theatre to film, developing the story for his feature debut, The Witch. Immersing himself in the early 17th century, he wrote a script with dialogue and a dialect as close to that era as he could achieve – an element of his process that would continue through all his subsequent work.
THE WITCH AND AN INCREASE IN SCALE
The Witch stood out among contemporary horror films and paved the way for his visually striking, boldly original sophomore feature, The Lighthouse. That saw Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as two 19th-century lighthouse keepers gradually driven mad.
The Northman, Robert Eggers’ first collaboration with Icelandic novelist Sjón, marked a significant increase in scale, as it detailed a Viking warrior’s trail of destruction as he avenges his murdered father. No less ambitious, Eggers’ take on F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is a gruesomely beautiful tale of tortured love and bloodlust, receiving four Oscar and five BAFTA nominations. He returns with his most visceral and haunting experience yet, the upcoming Werwulf, once again co-written with Sjón, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation, and the devil within. We welcome him to this Screen Talk to discuss these films and his vision of the world.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival takes place from Wednesday 7 October – Sunday 18 October 2026. Tickets go on general sale from 17 September (BFI Members book early).
Introducing Carl! As the News Editor at Future of the Force, Carl has been an invaluable member of our team since early 2016. His expertise and dedication have made him an integral part of our editorial staff. Beyond his professional role, Carl is a fervent supporter of Liverpool F.C. and an avid follower of pop culture. He has a deep passion for Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the iconic movie franchises Star Wars and Star Trek.
He can be found either at his neighborhood cinema, enjoying the latest releases on the big screen, or at home streaming the newest blockbuster movies.
