Films
Special Events
In 1961, 60-year-old taxi driver Kempton Bunton steals Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London, in this delightful underdog tale starring the excellent Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren.
Three friends in their 50’s recreate an inter-rail journey across Europe from their twenties, with their friend’s 18-year-old daughter taking her mother’s place in this feel-good comedy starring Sally Phillips and Kelly Preston.
Official Selection
A compelling contemporary love story from acclaimed writer-director Clio Barnard, Ali & Ava charts an unlikely romance between two working-class Bradford residents, featuring Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook.
Written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, Belfast is a poignant story of love, laughter and loss in one boy’s childhood, amid the music and social turmoil of the late 1960s Northern Ireland.
A sumptuous portrait of 20th-century English poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon, from revered filmmaker Terence Davies and starring Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi.
British film icon Sir Michael Caine stars alongside Aubrey Plaza as a cranky, retired author who reluctantly embarks on a final book tour in this rollicking literary comedy.
Set in and around a restaurant during a single evening, Boiling Point stars Stephen Graham in an ensemble film following an emotionally scarred London chef who struggles to keep it together.
From acclaimed director Ben Lewin, this romantic comedy starring Danielle Macdonald and Joanna Lumley, follows a young woman who quits her job and ends things with her long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer in the Scottish Highlands.
After being forced to retire, Peter, a man of routines and few joys, decides to go to Benidorm to visit his brother, only to discover that he has disappeared in this mysterious thriller starring Timothy Spall.
In acclaimed director Edgar Wright’s psychological horror fantasy starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie, an aspiring fashion designer is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer.
An audacious retelling of the life of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, this biopic starring Romola Garai paints a stunning portrait of Eleanor Marx - a social reformer and women's rights activist.
A romantic period drama featuring an all star cast including Olivia Coleman and Colin Firth, Mothering Sunday follows a maid living in post-World War I England who secretly plans to meet with the man she loves before he leaves to marry another woman.
A 35-year-old window cleaner, devoted to raising his young son on his own, searches for the perfect replacement family when he learns he only has months left to live in this poignant drama starring James Norton.
Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen star in this WWII drama that follows the incredible true events surrounding the Allies’ deception effort to keep the Allied invasion of Italy hidden and outwit German troops.
A biopic about the young David Bowie, starring Johnny Flynn, Stardust chronicles Bowie’s 1971 road trip across America, when he was still developing the alter ego that would become Ziggy Stardust.
This imaginative biopic starring Benedict Cumberbatch alongside Claire Foy tells the extraordinary true story of eccentric British artist Louis Wain, whose playful paintings helped to transform the public’s perception of cats forever.
A heart-warming adventure across Britain starring festival favourite Timothy Spall, The Last Bus follows the journey of a pensioner who travels from Britain's most Northerly to its most Southerly point, using only local buses.
A cantankerous architect of some renown is retained by the “Grand Duke of Corsica” to build an unusual monument in this intriguing mediation on life, love and architecture starring Timothy Spall.
Based on true events, The War Below centres on a group of British miners recruited during WWI to tunnel underneath no man’s land and the German front, in the hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.
A powerful and emotional drama, To Olivia tells the story of the tribulations behind best-selling novelist Roald Dahl's marriage to Academy Award winning actress Patricia Neal, starring Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes.
7 From The 70s
Celebrating its 50th anniversary and presented in a stunning 4K restoration, Stanley Kubrick’s cult classic A Clockwork Orange is a disturbing and thought-provoking sci-fi film adapted from Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel.
An Irish rogue (Ryan O’Neal) wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England in Stanley Kubrick’s sumptuous version of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel.
The Who’s 1973 classic rock opera Quadrophenia was the basis for this invigorating coming-of-age tale and depiction of the defiant, drug-fueled mod subculture of early 1960s London.
A young American and his English wife come to rural England and face increasingly vicious local harassment in this psychological thriller directed by Sam Peckinpah.
Recently divorced career woman Alex Greville (Glenda Jackson) begins a romantic relationship with glamorous mod artist Bob Elkin (Murray Head), fully aware that he's also intimately involved with middle-aged doctor Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch).
A tale of torrid and forbidden love between a couple in the English countryside, adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter from the 1953 novel by L. P. Hartley, Julie Christie and Alan Bates star in this award-winning film that follows the romance between a young woman of the aristocracy and a lowly farmer.
A wonderful family film adapted from Edith Nesbit's much-loved 1906 novel, The Railway Children follows the adventures of the Waterbury Children - Bobbie (Jenny Agutter), Phyllis (Sally Thomsett) and Peter (Gary Warren).
Documentaries
An intimately staged concert from Eric Clapton and his band, this film follows the recording of a new live album, featuring acoustic renditions of past hits, in the English countryside during the pandemic.
An immersive journey through the trailblazing life of novelist Jackie Collins, this feature documentary reveals the untold story of a ground-breaking author and her mission to build a one-woman literary empire.
In this tender documentary, Nick Broomfield takes a distinctly personal look at his relationship with his humanist-pacifist father, Maurice Broomfield, a factory worker turned photographer of vivid images of postwar England.
A toast to the joys and pleasures of champagne, this entertaining documentary narrated by Stephen Fry explores behind the scenes of the highest of high-end sparkling wines.