Beset with personal and professional problems, George Bailey (James Stewart) finds his previously happy life falling apart around him on Christmas Eve. Seeing no way out, George considers suicide from the edge of a bridge - but Clarence, his guardian angel, intervenes and shows George what his beloved hometown of Bedford Falls would be like without him. Shocked by what he sees and at the unfore...

Paddington in Peru brings Paddington's story to Peru as he returns to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.

OPENING NIGHT | SNEAK PREVIEW This illuminating documentary offers a new perspective on the remarkable partnership of Oscar-winning director James Ivory and Indian producer Ismail Merchant. Footage from more than fifty interviews, clips and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who, together with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins, tra...

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW The Contestant charts the startling birth of reality television in Japan. With echoes of The Truman Show , aspiring comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi, wins an audition resulting in him living alone in a room where his every move is filmed. He has no idea that 15 million people are watching his life unfold. The film has recently received a BIFA (British Independent ...

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW Ashley Gething’s film commemorates the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest natural disasters in history - the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Told through the stories of seven individuals in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, the film documents the events of that terrible day and follows the fortunes of these survivors. Charting the pain and loss they suffered, we also see the re...

UK PREMIERE Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line) incisively probes Trump's covert policy of separating migrant children, including babies, from their families at the US-Mexican border. Merging narrative vignettes of one migrant family’s plight with hard-hitting interviews with government officials, Morris paints a jaw-dropping picture of the stat...

SATURDAY NIGHT CENTREPIECE | WORLD PREMIERE Author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , polymath Douglas Adams was a pioneer of science fiction, comedy, technology and environmental activism. Campaigning for endangered species and climate change, he was ahead of his time. Featuring interviews with family and friends including John Lloyd, Stephen Fry, Griff Rhys-Jones, Mary Allen and Jon Ca...

Eight decades after Auschwitz, this film records the extraordinary meeting between Hans Jurgen Höss, the son of the camp Commandant, and Jewish prisoner Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived because she was a cellist for the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. By delving into several generations of each family, the documentary reveals the long shadows that Auschwitz still casts over so many lives. P...

How can we measure happiness? The country of Bhutan invented Gross National Happiness to do just that, and Amber is one of the agents who travels door to door to meet people and measure how happy they really are. He is still living with his elderly mother at the age of 40, but is nevertheless a hopeless romantic who dreams of finding love: a happiness agent who is in search of his own happiness. ...

When the United States withdrew from its twenty-year 'forever war' in Afghanistan, the Taliban retook control of the ravaged country and immediately found an American base loaded with over $7 billion of weaponry. Unprecedented and audacious, director Ibrahim Nash’at spent a year inside Afghanistan following the Taliban as they take possession of the cache America left behind—and transform from a f...

CLOSING NIGHT When Lesley Hornby was dubbed the Face of '66 by the Daily Express at the age of 16, she changed the image of modelling forever. Her slender, androgynous figure, short hair and huge eyes caught the attention of the world, and she rapidly acquired a manager, became Twiggy and took the fashion world by storm. Her varied career as model, actress and television presenter has lasted a...

Ridley Scott returns to Ancient Rome for a long-anticipated sequel to Gladiator , in which Lucius (Paul Mescal) must do battle in the Colosseum to save Rome from the clutches of a tyrannical leader. Returning to the world of one of his great cinematic triumphs, Ridley Scott brings us a long-awaited sequel to Gladiator , led by an all-star cast including Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pas...

Jazz and decolonisation are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the U.N security council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Crackling with energy and verve, this masterful film takes history and creates an audacious musical documentary. From the producer of I Am Not Y...

Featuring Tilda Swinton as the voice of Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, this feature documentary tells the story of a remarkable artist and a magnificent obsession. One day in 1949, a young Scottish painter climbed a Swiss glacier. The experience rewired her brain and transformed her art. Barns-Graham was synaesthetic – associating letters, names and people with particular colours – a...

The origins of Donald Trump are brought to life in a provocative, electrifying portrait of the man and his mentor, Roy Cohn – a notorious lawyer who will never let the truth get in the way of winning a fight. Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong star as Trump and Cohn respectively, with Maria Bakalova starring as Ivana Trump and acclaimed director Ali Abbasi ( Border , Holy Spider ) bringing a unique ...

Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci revel in the ritual and intrigue surrounding the process of choosing a new pontiff, in this tantalisingly tense Vatican-set drama. The Pope has died. Cardinal Lawrence must lead the Conclave to select the new leader of the Catholic world. But as high-ranking cardinals gather, he discovers sides have been drawn and secrets that might destroy a future pope, perhaps...

The manners and manias of polite Edwardian society are studiously dissected in this typical Merchant-Ivory period drama, a handsomely mounted adaptation of E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel. Sheltered Lucy Honeychurch, holidaying in Florence with her spinister chaperone Charlotte, is kissed by unconventional George Emerson. Frightened by her confusing feelings for him, she returns to England and accept...

From acclaimed filmmaker Mati Diop ( Atlantics ), Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. Set in November 2021, the documentary charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin: the present-day Republi...

This Christmas, be transported into an ethereal world where a sprinkling of fairy dust makes dreams come true. This enchanting ballet by The Royal Ballet’s Founding Choreographer Frederick Ashton is a theatrical experience for all the family.

While working as a coal merchant to support his family, Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent — and uncovers truths of his own — forcing him to confront his past and the complicit silence of a small Irish town controlled by the Catholic Church. Led by a powerhouse central performance by Cillian Murphy, in his first big screen performance following ...