Capital Celluloid: 2026

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 289: Sun Oct 18

I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning (Barnard, 2026): Curzon Soho, 12pm/BFI Southbank, 11.30am

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 12

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 7th to October 18th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This film is also screened at BFI Southbank on Friday October 16th. Details here.

BFI introduction:
Adapted from Kieran Goddard’s novel, this intoxicating yet compassionate film by the director of The Selfish Giant and Ali & Ava is propelled by a superb ensemble cast and the euphoric pulse of club music. As moments of youthful joy gradually give way to disillusionment, the film offers a piercing portrait of contemporary Britain, exposing exploitative social structures and widening inequality as forces that have deeply marked its characters’ lives.
Hyun Jin Cho

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 289: Sat Oct 17

Paper Story (Gray, 2026): Prince Charles Cinema, 3pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 11

With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 7th to October 18th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

This film is also screened at Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall on Saturday October 10th and Sunday 11th. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
Irwin Pearl (Miles Teller, on top form) is an engineer and family man living in Queens. When his brother, a showboating ex-police officer (a magnetic Adam Driver), enlists him for a high paying job, things rapidly take a turn for the worse. Channelling the spirit of Sidney Lumet and Michael Mann, Gray’s own, distinctive directorial style is on full display in this instant classic of American crime cinema.
Diana Cipriano

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 288: Fri Oct 16

Panelstory (Chytilova, 1979): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.35pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY10

BFI introduction:
A tragicomic gallery of characters composes this satirical fresco of a hellish housing estate. In this dysfunctional, endless chaos, people try to get on with their lives amongst the rubble and the mud of this new socialist nightmare. After being blacklisted for years, Věra Chytilová returns to her radical style with a film that still resonates in a society of individuals living in crowded isolation.
Giulia Saccogna

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 287: Thu Oct 15

La Dérive (Delsol, 1964): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.45pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 9

BFI introduction:
Jacquie, a beautiful 20-year-old, experiences various encounters with men in the south of France, where she returns to her family after leaving Paris. A young woman becoming the target of male predators is always a relevant topic. It’s presented here with a fresh approach: Jacquie is an unburdened wanderer rather than a desperate one, and her search for independence inebriating and joyful.
Giulia Saccogna

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 286: Wed Oct 14

Mouse (O'Sullivan/Thompson, 2026): Vue West End Epic 2, 8.30pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 8

This film is also screened at the prince Charles Cinema on October 16th. Details here.

Lifelong friends Callie and Minnie are like ying and yang: one loud and popular, the other shy and quiet. Abruptly forced out from her friend’s shadow, it’s finally time for Minnie to figure out who she is on her own terms. Kupferer and Okonedo’s performances drive this beautiful film that’s guaranteed to have audiences alternating between crying and laughing out loud.
Grace Barber-Plentie

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 285: Tue Oct 13

The Meltdown (Martelli, 2026): Vue West End Epic 1, 8pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 7

This film is also screened at Curzon Soho on October 14th. Details here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
It is 1992 and while watching the comings and goings in her family’s hotel, nine-year-old Inés befriends Hanna, one of the German skiers training in the area. When Hanna goes missing, Inés observes the local community closing ranks without quite understanding what is happening. Focussing on what lies unsaid, Martelli (1976, LFF 2022) expertly captures the tensions of a society as it transitions to democracy.
Maria Delgado

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 284: Mon Oct 12

Clarissa (Arie and Chuko Esiri, 2026): Vue West End Epic 1

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 6

This film is also screened at BFI Southbank on October 13th and 17th. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
It’s the day of Clarissa’s garden party. Just as she’s set to reunite with old friends, she finds herself reflecting on a summer that shaped the course of their lives. Virginia Woolf’s beloved novel is the jumping-off point for this rich and captivating look at class and gender in contemporary Nigerian society.
Grace Barber-Plentie

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 283: Sun Oct 11

La Gradiva (Atlan, 2026): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 3.05pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 5

This film is also screened at Curzon Soho on Friday October 9th. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
Toni, James, Suzanne and their classmates travel to Naples with their Latin teacher. Raw emotions, desire and power dynamics collide against the backdrop of a city with a history stretching back thousands of years. Joyous and tragic in equal measures, cinematographer Marine Atlan’s impressive first feature vividly captures the spirit and the drama of youth, and revels in the intoxicating aura of an ancient metropolis.
Laure Bonville

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 282: Sat Oct 10

The Dreamed Adventure (Grisebach, 2026): ICA Cinema, 5.30pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 4

This film is also screened at Curzon Soho on Sunday October 11th. Full details here.

BFI introduction:
In the verdant Bulgarian mountains, Veska crosses paths with Saïd, an old acquaintance whose car has been stolen. Offering help, she takes him to the excavation site where she works as an archaeologist. But as they reconnect, Veska is drawn into Saïd’s shady business world. Western writer-director Valeska Grisebach’s film is a skilfully directed drama with a strong feminist spine.
Julie Pearce

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 281: Fri Oct 9

The Devils (Russell, 1971): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.40pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 3

This film is also screened at the Prince Charles Cinema on Monday October 12th at 6pm. You can find the details here.

Time Out review:
There's plenty here that's still incredibly shocking. The scenes of plague are truly vile, as are the climatic torture scenes. But what horrifies most is Ken Russell's nihilistic view of the world in general, and humanity in particular: almost without exception, we are shown to be vain, lustful, perverse, self-serving, murderous, disease-ridden, exploitative, decadent, deluded creatures unworthy or incapable of salvation. Approach with extreme caution.
Tom Huddleston

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 280: Thu Oct 8

The Beloved (Sorogoyen, 2026): Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, 5.45pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 2

This film is also screened at BFI IMAX on Sunday October 11th and Curzomn Soho on Thursday October 15th. Details here.

BFI London Film Festival introduction:
Esteban is an Oscar-winning director. His daughter Emilia a struggling actor. He returns to Spain to make a film about the country’s exploitation of Western Sahara and offers her the lead role. The film shoot that follows isn’t a straightforward experience, demonstrating the unresolved tensions that still haunt their relationship. Guilt, resentment and forgiveness all intersect to powerful effect in this tense drama.
Maria Delgado

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 279: Wed Oct 7

Gone To Earth (Powell & Pressburger, 1950): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm

70th LONDON FILM FESTIVAL (7th - 18th October 2026) DAY 1

Today is the opening day of the London Film Festival. With its date at the end of the year, London is a "festival of festivals", as the Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin put it in one of his previews, so the films shown have mostly been seen and commented on by critics who have watched the features at such high-profile festivals as Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin.

So I'm making it simple with one recommendation a day. I will be concentrating on the repertory choices but I've also read the reviews of the contemporary releases and talked to and listened to the trusted critics all year and I am as confident as I can be that this is the pick of the movies within the parameters I have set. Firstly, there's no point highlighting the major gala films - they will be sold out quickly. Secondly, there is little to be gained in paying the higher Festival ticket prices to see films that are out in Britain soon. I will be returning to the London Festival films worthy of seeing and set to be released in the coming months on this blog as and when they get a general release in London.

Here then (from October 7th to October 18th) are the films you are likely to be able to get tickets for and the movies you are unlikely to see in London very soon unless you go the Festival. Here is the LFF's main website for the general information you need. Don't worry if some of the recommended films are sold out as there are always some tickets on offer which go on sale 30 minutes before each screening. Here is the information you need to get those standby tickets.

Time Out review:
A film much maligned in its time, not least by producer David O Selznick, who issued an American version retitled The Wild Heart, incorporating additional footage directed by Rouben Mamoulian and running only 82 minutes. Mary Webb's 1917 novel was the archetypal bodice-ripper - wicked squire, pious yokels, adultery and redemption - out of which Powell and Pressburger made a visually spellbinding romance. Christopher Challis' photography evokes Shropshire and the Welsh borders so that you can smell the earth. Menace, the bloodlust of the chase (of the fox or the outcast sinner), is omnipresent as trees bend and wild creatures panic before an unseen primal force. Cruelty besides beauty sweeps these pastoral vistas. Forget Jennifer Jones' rustic English (Kentucky? Australian?) and the melodramatic clichés (boots trampling posies): the haunting, dreamlike consistency recalls that other fairy story of innocence and menace, The Night of the Hunter.
Martin Hoyle

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 278: Tue Oct 6

The Girl Cut in Two (Chabrol, 2007): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6pm

This screening, which will be introduced by the director's daughter and the film’s scriptwriter, Cécile Maistre-Chabrol is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. There is another screening on October 3rd (details here).

Time Out review:
‘French society may be drifting towards Puritanism or decadence,’ says deciduous, sixtysomething, Goncourt-winning author Charles Saint-Denis (a marvellously offhand François Berléand) in a mock-channel TV interview in this nonchalantly acidic, upper-class-baiting delight by approaching-nonagenarian director Claude Chabrol. Charles is clearly a fully paid-up member of the decadent party: holed up in splendid isolation in his modernist manse in the Lyon countryside, the old married roué, gourmand, aphorist and erotomane is dubbed affectionately ‘the Marquis de Sade’ by his well-preserved publisher Capucine (Mathilda May). He’s moved to join the despised Parisian ‘media circus’ having smelled fresh blood in Ludivine Sagnier’s honest-hearted, less socially favoured weather girl, who he subjects to a series of ‘free-love’ humiliations and abasements in his upmarket brothel. Meanwhile, the unfortunate woman is assailed, in the equally threatening second half of a destructive pincer-movement, by the manic attentions of idle, arrogant, unstable, fatherless – and puritan – millionaire Paul (Benoít Magimel) intent on marriage and possession. An immaculate script, written with his long-term collaborator Cécile Maistre, reinvents the celebrated 1906 White murder case as a barbed anti-French-establishment anti-fairy tale (Sagnier’s weather girl is named Deneige – ‘snow’). Beautifully lit and crisply shot by Eduardo Serra, and directed with a confidence and seeming ease that stems from (and quotes) some 60 years of post-New Wave cinematic mastery, Chabrol’s latest comedy of manners is a minor stylistic and tonal triumph. Eschewing explicit moral condemnation in favour of a scabrous Buñuelian cool, humanised by a marvellously affecting central performance by Sagnier, and surrounded intriguingly by satellite performances which play riskily and amusingly with the edges of self-parody, this is one of Chabrol’s most elegant, acerbic and heartfelt entertainments in years.
Wally Hammond

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 277: Mon Oct 5

Wake in Fright (Kotcheff, 1971): Prince Charles Cinema, 3.15pm

This screening is the theatrical English premiere of the new 4K Restoration, courtesy of Arrow Video.

Chicago Reader review:
Ted Kotcheff (First Blood, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) directed this forgotten Australian masterpiece (1971) about an arrogant Sydney schoolteacher (Garry Bond) who's slowly driven mad after a prolonged stay in the Yabba, a desolate mining town in the middle of the Australian outback. After gambling away every dollar he has, Bond succumbs to the aggressive hospitality of the locals, and they condition him to their brutish lifestyle, which seems to consist mostly of constant drinking, random fistfights, anarchic destruction of other people's property, and kangaroo hunting. A Conradian parable of a man succumbing to the wild, the film is remarkable for its raw, pointed depiction of human behavior. Push a man too far, Kotcheff suggests, and you'll find the beast concealed behind the mask of propriety.
Drew Hunt

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 276: Sun Oct 4

No 1: Blanche (Borowczyk, 1971): ICA Cinema, 4pm

The screening will be introduced by Daniel Bird, Co-founder of Friends of Walerian Borowczyk, a non-profit association based in Paris that manages the rights to the painter, sculptor and filmmaker. He will discuss Borowczyk’s association with Contemporary Films, and will be joined by Kathleen Wallfisch, Music Supervisor for film and TV, to talk about the music of the film and how it is arranged and presented on screen. This is part of the Contemporary Films season across London. Details here.

Time Out review:
In this remarkable film, Walerian Borowczyk, through his commitment to ambiguity (notably in his framing, which forever denies the foreground/background opposition) and his belief in almost entomological observation, transforms his 13th century characters - a foolish old Baron, an overproud King, a lecherous page and a stupidly handsome lover, all of whom are in love with and/or lust after the simple Blanche, the Baron's young wife - into tragic figures caught up in a dance of death over which they have no control. In exactly the same way, the castle and its decor, photographed by Borowczyk as though it were living and its inhabitants were mere dolls for the most part, is seen as the backdrop to a happy fairytale, and at the same time as the root of all evil, as rooms and bizarre machines are opened and set in motion.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

************************************************************************

No 2: The Colour of Lies (Chabrol, 1999): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.10pm

This film is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screening of the film on September 26th is detailed here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
When a young girl is found murdered in a small Breton coastal town, suspicion falls on a local painter – a man of volatile temperament and uncertain alibi – as the community begins to turn on itself. Fans of Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt will recognise much here. However, Chabrol is less interested in identifying the killer than in capturing the poisonous social atmosphere that the crime unleashes: the rumour, the prejudice and the quiet savagery of village life.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 275: Sat Oct 3

The Bridesmaid (Chabrol, 2004): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 3.10pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screenings of the film, introduced by season curator Catherine Wheatley, is on October 5th. Details here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
A shy, somewhat passive young man falls into an all-consuming affair with a woman he meets at his sister’s wedding. Unfortunately, she’s a compulsive fantasist who will shortly ask him to prove his love in the most extreme ways. A Ruth Rendell adaptation, this is a heady tale of amour fatale, carried along by the charismatic performances of Magimel and Smet.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 274: Fri Oct 2

The Last Days of Disco (Stillman, 1998): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.40pm

This 35mm presentation also screens on September 25th at BFI Southbank. Details here.

Time Out review:
Manhattan, the early '80s. Recent graduates from an upper crust college, Alice (Chloe Sevigny) and Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) - flatmates and friends of a sort - pass their days working as trainee publishing editors, and most of their nights discussing social niceties at a fashionable disco where assistant manager Des (Eigeman) courts the boss's disfavour by admitting the wrong kind of clientele. The girls hang out at the disco with a preppy bunch of Harvard admen and lawyers; rumour, rivalry and falling-out is rife and relationships are frequently at risk. The third comedy of manners in Whit Stillman's loose trilogy about the 'doomed bourgeois in love' again highlights the writer/director's expertise with naturalistically articulate dialogue whose idioms, ironies and absurdities provide vivid insights into the delusions, desires and often ludicrous tribal rituals of the young, privileged and, mostly, pretty ineffectual. Like Metropolitan and Barcelona, it's a brittle, sporadically brilliant film, very funny but rooted in social, political, historical and emotional realities. Beckinsale, especially, is a revelation, making Charlotte smug, spiteful, sexy and, underneath, rather sad, all with a spot-on accent.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 273: Thu Oct 1

La Ceremonie (Chabrol, 1995): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.10pm

This film, featuring an extended intro on queer Chabrol by academic Kit Francis Bradbury Rance, is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screening of the film on October 6th is detailed here.

Time Out review:
When Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) takes on Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) as housekeeper, her family's impressed by Sophie's aura of quiet responsibility, even though they're not convinced she knows how to serve dinner correctly. Snobbish but liberal, they nevertheless treat her generously. Only when she starts to consort with postmistress Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), a gossip whom husband Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel) suspects of opening the family mail, do they find real cause for complaint. But by then the women have a secret bond which excludes them from the safe cosseted world of Sophie's employers. Claude Chabrol's adaptation of Ruth Rendell's A Judgement in Stone benefits from the director's immaculate sense of social and psychological detail. The film's strong points are not mystery, suspense or even surprise, but Chabrol's flair for characterisation, careful pacing and solid evocation of bourgeois complacency and anti-bourgeois hatred creates a palpable sense of unease that fully justifies the shockingly violent finale. Ledoyen, the daughter of the household, is a discovery; Bisset returns to form; and Huppert, unusually vivacious, is terrific.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 272: Wed Sep 30

Beautiful Thing (MacDonald, 1996): Genesis Cinema, 6.15pm

This 35mm screening will feature a Q&A with director Hettie Macdonald, moderated by Reclaiam The Frame's Melanie Iredale.

Time Out film:
A real winner this, from producer Tony Garnett and Channel 4: an 'urban fairytale' set in darkest Thamesmead, South London. Jamie (Berry) is in love with next-door neighbour Ste (Neal), but he's terrified his mum will find out, and Ste has plenty of troubles of his own. It may sound like a feelgood movie, but throw in the timeless tunes of Mama Cass, a funny romantic screenplay by Jonathan Harvey (skillfully adapting his own play), and a formidable performance from Linda Henry as Jamie's independent-minded mother, and you have the likeliest gay crossover hit since My Beautiful Laundrette.
Tom Charity

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 271: Tue Sep 29

King Rat (Forbes, 1965): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6pm

This 35mm presentation, introduced by Sarah Standing, Bryan Forbes’ daughter, is part of the Projecting the Archive: Bryan Forbes at 100 season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.

BFI Southbank introduction:
The infamous Changi prison was recreated in California for this study of the human spirit in the face of cruelty and deprivation. In his adaptation of James Clavell’s sprawling novel, Forbes focuses on the psychological toll on the men, and how military rank matters little when survival is all. The ensemble cast brilliantly conveys the bonds and rifts that form between the prisoners.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 270: Mon Sep 28

Only God Forgives (Winding Refn, 2013): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.50pm

This film is one of the most remarkable of director Nicolas Winding Refn's. Most critics were dismissive on release but the review below by the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw is a very good summing up of the movie's qualities. It is a one-off and, as Bradshaw argues, "deserves to be seen".

Guardian review (full version here):
Like a thwacked piñata, critical opinion for something provocative at a film festival can swing off in any direction. But it was, for me, surprising to find that one of the very best movies at Cannes this year had such a shrill and hostile reception. Nicolas Winding Refn's brilliant, macabre and ultraviolent anti-revenge movie Only God Forgives – his most interesting work since the Pusher trilogy in the Mads Mikkelsen era – was deafeningly denounced at its first screening. Some booed from their seats, cupping their hands around their mouths so that the sound carried that vital few yards further. Then came the nervy, brushfire social-media consensus – a new feature of criticism at festivals – as insecure pundits checked their Twitter feeds and committed themselves to derision, evidently taking Refn's supposed failure to be the "story", and in any case believing that something has to be seen to take a pasting if the praise-economy is not to go bankrupt. And all the while, middleweight products and franchise mediocrities are cordially waved through. I can only say that Refn's movie is entirely gripping, put together with lethal, formal brilliance, with bizarre setpieces of sentimentality and nauseous black comedy. It has its own miasma of anxiety and evil, taking place in a universe of fear, a place of deep-sea unreality in which you need to breathe through special gills – and through which the action swims at about 90% of normal speed through to its chilling conclusion. It is a kind of hallucinated tragi-exploitation shocker, an enriched uranium cake of pulp with a neon sheen.
Peter Bradshaw

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 269: Sun Sep 27

A Summer's Tale (Rohmer, 1996): ICA Cinema, 7.30pm

A Tale of Summer is the third instalment of Éric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons series and, according to the filmmaker himself, the most autobiographical of his work. Mary Stephen, who will be in a in-person Q&A after this 35mm screening, not only collaborated with Rohmer on the film as an editor, but also worked with him on the music under the pseudonym ‘Sébastien Erms’, creating the melodious sea shanty the protagonist wrote in the film. This is part of a collaboration between Hong Kong Film Festival UK and the ICA.

Time Out review:
From the verbose intellectuals in his 1969 classic My Night at Maud’s to the loquacious lovers of 2007’s erotic The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, director Eric Rohmer has always loved talk. Yet in this sublime 1996 love story, nearly ten minutes elapse before a line of dialogue is spoken—a tension-generating exception to the norm. During that time we observe introverted young adult Gaspard (Melvil Poupaud) as he wanders the streets of a seaside resort town, eating at restaurants, noodling on his guitar and generally avoiding eye contact. In short order, he’s approached by waitress Margot (Amanda Langlet, a Rohmer veteran), who gets the full story: Gaspard is two weeks away from starting a new job and is spending his downtime waiting for flaky sorta-girlfriend Lena (Aurelia Nolin) to arrive. Will she? Won’t she? Rohmer has a genius for taking a seemingly mundane situation and slowly tightening the screws. Margot has a rapport with Gaspard, though she denies any attraction—until maybe she doesn’t. Then there’s local girl Solene (Gwenaëlle Simon), who becomes smitten with the young man, but senses that his mind is elsewhere and continually challenges him about it. And, of course, the emotionally volatile girlfriend does show up—to Gaspard’s initial delight and eventual dismay. Conversation is a way for the characters to continually put off that crucial moment when a decision must be made. A long, enthralling interlude during which Solene and Gaspard hem and haw, evading any intimate expression (the scene’s punch line is killer) is the film in miniature. Think of it as a thriller by Hitchcock—a Rohmer favorite—only with words, not knives, that cut straight to the heart.
Keith Uhlich

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 268: Sat Sep 26

Story of Women (Chabrol, 1988): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.50pm

This film is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screenings of the film on October 1st is detailed here.

Chicago Reader review:
A bit mislabeled–the French title is Une affaire de femmes, which translates better as “Women’s Business”–Claude Chabrol’s accomplished and generally uncharacteristic period film (set in World War II occupied France), loosely adapted from a nonfiction book by lawyer Francis Szpiner, gives a plausible and wholly unsentimental account of a housewife and mother (Isabelle Huppert at her finest) who becomes an abortionist and winds up being sent to the guillotine for it. Married to a wounded French soldier (Francois Cluzet) who is initially off in a POW camp, she doesn’t want to sleep with him after his return, and soon becomes the family breadwinner–a tough little cookie who’s also helping other women out. Chabrol’s mise en scene and his handling of the period and performances are masterful (1988).
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 267: Fri Sep 25

Audition (Miike, 1999): Rio Cinema, 8.30pm

This 35mm screening is part of the cinema's Rio Forever strand and will be introduced by filmmaker and Hackney resident Asif Kapadia.

Time Out review:
Seven years after losing his wife to cancer, video producer Aoyama (Ryo Another Lonely Hitman Ishibashi) finds the new bride of his dreams at a casting call for a non-existent movie. Asami (Shiina) is modest, polite, sexy, a trained dancer - and, apparently, available. As Aoyama nervously begins dating her, the film slips into nightmare. Is his paranoia and guilt causing him to imagine the worst, or is Asami really a woman physically and mentally damaged by men since her childhood and out for revenge? Creatively reworked from a script by the son of director Shohei Imamura, this was a breakthrough film for Miike: his first to win festival prizes and overseas sales. It takes sex war tensions to an hallucinatory extreme and has a Grand Guignol climax that leaves many males crawling to the exits.
Tony Rayns

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 266: Thu Sep 24

The Cry of the Owl (Chabrol, 1987): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.55pm

This film is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screenings of the film on September 28th is detailed here.

Chicago Reader review:
Adapting the Patricia Highsmith thriller of the same title while transferring the action from an American small town to Vichy, Claude Chabrol returns to the manner—if not quite the distinction—of his late 60s work (e.g., La femme infidele, Le boucher). The plot concerns a solitary figure (Christophe Malavoy) fleeing a vengeful wife (Virginie Thevenet). He spies on a young woman (Mathilda May) from afar until she discovers and is drawn to him, which destroys her own relationship with her fiance (Jacques Penot). Things get much more complicated after that; Jean-Pierre Kalfon (L’amour fou) plays the police detective who eventually steps in. For viewers who enjoy the grim moral ironies of Highsmith, this can be highly recommended; those like myself who find her work gratuitously unpleasant won’t see any reason here to revise their opinion.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 265: Wed Sep 23

Les Biches (Chabrol, 1968): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.40pm

This film is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screenings of the film on September 6th and 27th and October 5th are detailed here.

Time Out review:
The film with which Chabrol returned to 'serious' film-making after his series of delightful thriller/espionage spoofs, this was also the film in which he began transferring his allegiance from baroque Hitchcockery to the bleak geometry of Lang. A calm, exquisite study, set in an autumnal Riviera, of the permutational affairs of one man and two women which lead to obsession, madness and despair. Each sequence is like a question-mark adding new doubts and hypotheses to the circular (as opposed to triangular) relationship as a rich lady of lesbian leanings (Audran) picks up an impoverished girl (Sassard), and whisks her off to her St Tropez villa. There, much to the distress of her benefactress, the girl embarks on an affair with a handsome young architect (Trintignant), only to find in her turn that architect and lesbian lady are in the throes of a mutual passion. Impeccably performed, often bizarrely funny, the film winds, with brilliant clarity, through a maze of shadowy emotions to a splendidly Grand-Guignolesque ending.
Tom Milne

Here (and above) is the opening of the film.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 264: Tue Sep 22

The Wrong Box (Forbes, 1966): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.15pm

This 16mm screening, introduced by Nanette Newman, one of its stars and the wife of the late Bryan Forbes, is part of the Projecting the Archive: Bryan Forbes at 100 season at BFI Southbank. You can find the full details here.

BFI introduction:
A catalogue of mishaps and bizarre coincidences foils the attempts of two bumbling brothers to secure a fortune from their elderly uncle. This surreal comedy won a BAFTA for Julie Harris’ exquisite period costumes, and is brimming with famous faces, including cameos by Tony Hancock and Peter Sellers. The print being screened is Peter Sellers’ own personal 16mm copy.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 263: Mon Sep 21

On the Silver Globe (Żuławski, 1988): Garden Cinema, 2.30pm

The film will feature a video introduction by writer Adam Żuławski.

Andrzej Żuławski’s sprawling lunar futurist epic, a dark and delirious allegory on civilisation and original sin is a haven of futurist worldbuilding, hemmed in by Magdalena Tesławska’s ornate, baroque costume design. Famous for its long, troubled and repeatedly thwarted production, On the Silver Globe was finally immortalised in its incomplete state in 1988, with supplemented scenes of contemporary Poland that further a jarring juxtaposition to the story’s otherworldly alien landscapes.

Film Comment review extract (full analysis here):
Even with this extra self-reflexive layer, it’s hard to make claims for On the Silver Globe as a great film or even, by conventional criteria, a good one. It’s excessive in so many ways—so grandiose, so hysterical, so utterly earnest. Yet it’s a film you should see, on the big screen if possible, because it’s such a spectacular anomaly—because its sheer will to strangeness is so furiously unrestrained. In its poetic and philosophical aspirations, in its outrageous maximalism, in its utter disregard for the normal prerogatives of pleasing an audience, this is the sort of film that by rights should not even exist. On the Silver Globe is not just a film maudit, but a genuine example of that small but exalted category of films you might call “Impossible Cinema,” in which I’d include other massive visionary projects either completed or aborted: Andrei Rublev; the landscape epics of Miklos Jancsó; Jodorowsky’s unmade Dune, as well as his earlier completed films; Aleksei German’s Hard to Be a God (similar to Silver Globe in its mix of primitivism and futurism); and the supposedly forthcoming Dau, a long-gestating Russian epic of already-legendary don’t-hold-your-breath status.
Jonathan Romney

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 262: Sun Sep 20

Queen Kelly (Von Stroheim, 1929): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 2.30pm

This special screening will be introduced by film critic and historian Pamela Hutchinson who will be signing copies of her book The Curse of Queen Kelly in the BFI Southbank Foyer following the film. There will be a live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. The long-awaited restoration and reconstruction of the surviving nitrate reels of Queen Kelly, based on Von Stroheim’s original scripts, with added stills and titles, was undertaken by longtime friends of the BFI, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films.

Chicago Reader review:
Erich von Stroheim’s 1928 film was the last that he would be allowed to sign, yet it, too, survives only in a fragmentary version. The story of a convent girl who is romanced by a prince but ends up as the mistress of an African bordello, it was intended to run for five hours, but producer Joseph P. Kennedy (who financed the film as a showcase for his close friend Gloria Swanson) turned off the money at the midway point, and the film was released in a truncated 70-minute version. (Two reels of the African footage, shot but never incorporated into the original prints, were discovered some years ago and spliced into the present 101-minute version.) Though it’s far from coherent, Queen Kelly is one of Stroheim’s most provocative works, not just in terms of its extravagant subject matter but in the aesthetic shift it suggests between the fierce realism of Stroheim’s earlier work and a distant, abstract perspective that points to the cinema of Josef von Sternberg.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 261: Sat Sep 19

Web of Passion (Chabrol, 1959): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 2.50pm

This is part of the Claude Chabrol season at BFI Southbank. The other screenings of the film on September 5th is detailed here.

Chicago Reader review:
Claude Chabrol’s first color feature (1959) adapts a Stanley Ellin thriller in which a bourgeois family’s oedipal conflicts lead to murder. The beautiful color cinematography of Aix-en-Provence is by Henri Decae, and the film is plotted with a mise en scene that suggests Alfred Hitchcock. The lively if uneven cast includes Jean-Paul Belmondo, the creepy Andre Jocelyn, Madeleine Robinson, Bernadette Lafont, and nouvelle vague axiom Laszlo Szabo. It’s not a total success, but it was one of the first pictures to translate the French New Wave’s genre interests into mainstream terms, and it’s full of sexy and irreverent details.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 260: Fri Sep 18

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Scorsese, 1974): Close-Up Cinema, 8.15pm

This film, presented in a new 4K restoration, also screens on September 9th, 19th and 26th. You can find all the details here.

Time Out review:
Although the ending is a bit of a cop out from a feminist point of view, Martin Scorsese's warm and witty blending of the road movie with the conventions of the women's weepie is a delight. Ellen Burstyn is excellent as the eponymous heroine who, following the death of a husband she barely loved, sets off for the Monterey of her childhood with hopes of reviving her abandoned singing career. Her encounters, and those of her precociously witty 12-year old son, are observed with great generosity and a raw realism, while Scorsese typically makes wonderful use of music to underline character and situation. Bitter-sweet and very charming.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.