10 films to see at the BFI Lon­don Film Festival

It can be a tough task to nav­i­gate the gigan­tic line-up of the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val. So many movies, so lit­tle time. Here, in order to mild­ly alle­vi­ate your selec­tion process, we’ve select­ed 10 non-gala titles that we reck­on to be fail­safe winners.

We want to start by giv­ing a shout out to Kate Plays Chris­tine, 2016’s oth­er film about the Florid­i­an news­cast­er Chris­tine Chub­buck who shot her­self in the head live on air in 1974. Where KPC is an exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary on biopic ethics, Chris­tine is that biopic, direct­ed by the always-inter­est­ing Anto­nio Cam­pos (After­school, Simon Killer). It’s a sto­ry which tan­gles which some fair­ly hairy and spec­u­la­tive real­i­ty, but retains a cool objec­tiv­i­ty (as much as a biopic can) through­out, and boasts a tru­ly aston­ish­ing cen­tral per­for­mance by Rebec­ca Hall. Book tick­ets

It’s been a while since we’ve seen any rum­blings from the Por­tuguese direc­tor João Pedro Rodrigues, but his 2012 fea­ture, The Last Time I Saw Macao, was one of the best of that year. His new one, which pre­miered in Locarno, received rave (if occa­sion­al­ly bewil­dered) write-ups, and pur­port­ed­ly sees a buff ornithol­o­gist under­go­ing a series of bizarre human tri­als in his search for the myth­i­cal black stork. Count. Us. In. Book tick­ets

We all know that the movie biopic is one tired nar­ra­tive form, so trust the great Chris­tine Mol­loy and Joe Lawlor to breath new life on to its hag­gard old bones. This is the sto­ry of Ambro­sio O’Higgins, First Mar­quis of Osorno, but instead of a bland trans­po­si­tion of Wiki-facts to the screen, the film offers a dry­ly com­ic com­men­tary of what the mak­ers would show, why, how and where. Added to the mix are spec­u­la­tions on land­scape, char­ac­ter and con­text – it’s a film about the life of a per­son, but also on the mine­field of respon­si­bil­i­ties that any sto­ry­teller worth their salt needs to con­sid­er. This all may sound a mite aca­d­e­m­ic, but Fur­ther Beyond is actu­al­ly a mov­ing, charm­ing and com­plete­ly orig­i­nal movie. Don’t miss. Book tick­ets

This new film from direc­tor Alain Guiraudie got a lit­tle side­lined at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val this year as it was the first film in the com­pe­ti­tion to screen. But this LFF screen­ing means you have no excuse to miss this grotesque picaresque about parental respon­si­bil­i­ty which fea­tures per­haps the fun­ni­est assist­ed death sequence ever laid down on film. It’s the very def­i­n­i­tion of play­ful and provoca­tive, but deep down in its heart, there’s also untapped stores of sin­cer­i­ty and emo­tion. Book tick­ets

This sounds like the naughty lit­tle broth­er to Michael Haneke’s Fun­ny Games in which a house par­ty takes a turn for the insid­i­ous­ly vio­lent when, the morn­ing after the big rave-up, one of the guests returns for a bit of afters. This is Jorge Riquelme Serrano’s debut fea­ture film, which he also writes, edits and pro­duces, and ear­ly reviews have described it as ​“unbear­ably tense” and ​“gen­uine­ly upset­ting” – all the emo­tion­al ingre­di­ents you need for a good inter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­val. Book tick­ets

Crit­ic, schol­ar and now film direc­tor Gabe Klinger impressed us might­i­ly with his 2013 debut fea­ture, Dou­ble Play: James Ben­ning and Richard Lin­klater, a por­trait of two artists that also worked as a swell, back-porch hang out movie. He returns with an intrigu­ing fic­tion­al debut star­ing (the late, great) Anton Yelchin and Lucie Lucas as a cou­ple who meet cute in the Por­tuguese city of the title and engage in a brief, intense romance. Book tick­ets

In 2005, a text mes­sage went viral (can a text mes­sage go viral?) invit­ing locals to a white pride demon­stra­tion on Cronul­la beach in the sub­urbs of Syd­ney. This swell of nation­al­ism swift­ly spilled over into vio­lence against local eth­nic minori­ties, and direc­tor Abe Forsythe has made a very fun­ny spec­u­la­tive fic­tion about the day after the carve-up. It’s like a knock­about Coen broth­ers film which a bold polit­i­cal edge about a fight in which all par­ties are des­tined to lose. Book tick­ets

Eme­tophil­ia is a sex­u­al fetish for see­ing oth­er peo­ple vom­it, and if this is an afflic­tion to which you ascribe, you could do a lot worse than pick up a tick­et for this restora­tion screen­ing of Fred­er­ick Wiseman’s 1970 fea­ture, Hos­pi­tal. Aside from con­tain­ing a scene of pro­longed vom­it­ing which devel­ops from agony to hilar­i­ty and back again, it’s also a mas­ter­ful por­trait of New York’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Hos­pi­tal and a paean to those who ded­i­cate their lives to the benign task of help­ing oth­ers. Book tick­ets

We’re big fans of Kore­an-Amer­i­can direc­tor So-Yong Kim, specif­i­cal­ly on the strength of her excel­lent fea­tures Tree­less Moun­tain from 2008 and For Ellen from 2012. This new one, star­ring Jena Mal­one and up-and-com­er Riley Keough, sees a pair head­ing on a cross-coun­try road trip and attempt­ing to com­pre­hend the new­found desire they devel­op for one anoth­er. Since its Sun­dance pre­mière, it’s been draw­ing strong reviews, so this is def­i­nite­ly one to add to the dock­et. Book tick­ets

The jury is well and tru­ly out as to whether this has the best or worst title in the fes­ti­val line-up. What we will say is that we caught this Céline Sci­amma-penned clay­ma­tion at Cannes this year, and it is utter­ly won­der­ful in every way imag­in­able. Though it’s bright­ly coloured and extreme­ly fun­ny, it explores the lives of young chil­dren tak­en in to a sub­ur­ban orphan­age and is unflinch­ing when it comes to dis­cussing the rea­sons for them being there. This is Pixar-lev­el great, even though there’s no way America’s finest would tack­le such dan­ger­ous, polit­i­cal­ly-tren­chant mate­r­i­al. Book tick­ets

The 60^th LFF runs 5 – 16 Octo­ber. Check out the full pro­gramme at bfi​.org​.uk/lff