The 70th BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the ten films competing for its prestigious Best Film Award, showcasing an international selection of directors from ten countries, including the UK, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, and Germany.
The Official Competition lineup features new works from prominent international filmmakers. British director Carol Morley presents 7 Miles Out, an adaptation of her semi-autobiographical novel exploring youth and grief in 1970s Stockport. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda enters the competition with Look Back, a coming-of-age narrative following two young artists. Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa presents Imperium, an archival documentary reframing Soviet history through footage captured by Italian camera crews in the 1970s.
Irish directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor return with Act 3, an essay film drawing parallels between their own lives and artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. Argentine director Benjamín Naishtat presents the period-noir thriller Glaxo, while Italian director Giovanni Tortorici teams up with producer Luca Guadagnino for Ketticè, a coming-of-age drama starring Monica Bellucci.
The selection also includes Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s domestic drama My Notes on Mars, Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain’s body-horror feature The Difficult Bride, and Danish director May el-Toukhy’s post-war drama Woman Unknown. Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert round out the competition with The Idiot(s), a period piece starring Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn as Anna and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
BFI Southbank will host the screenings for the Official Competition, with the winner selected by an international jury and announced on Sunday 18 October 2026. Shortlists for the Grierson Award for Best Documentary, the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature, and the Short Film Award will be announced in September.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival runs from 7 to 18 October 2026. The full festival programme will be revealed on 2 September, with general ticket sales opening on 17 September following a priority booking window for BFI members.
