LFF 2025 Films Ranked

As another wonderful week at the BFI London Film Festival is complete, I would like to reflect and share some thoughts on the movies I saw this year. This year saw an especially strong programme, with the bulk of the best and most anticipated films following the festival circuit featured, making a stacked and competitive hot ticket season indeed. Old masters returned and new masters emerged with work redefining the form surrounding knockout lead performances with some unexpected surprises. A consistent theme of emotional longing and catharsis seemed to float between this year's offering, crafting ghost stories, fantasies, dreams, and mystery that both exude and celebrated the necessary healing power of art itself.

15. THE ICE TOWER

Jeanne (Clara Pacini) is a 15 year old girl in search of a home, after she leaves her orphanage she stumbles into a movie studio that is working on a production of The Snow Queen, where the allure of the titular enchantress Cristiana, played by Marion Cotillard has Jeanne spellbound. Sneaking her way to becoming an understudy in the filming, Jeanne's relationship to Cristina grows from enchantment to obsession where the lines between fairy-tale and manipulation begin to blur, Jeanne maybe seeing only what she wants to see in the eyes of her infatuation with the chilling Snow Queen.

Lucile Hadžihalilović creates another distinctly atmospheric dream like experience of projected desire and delusional relationships in the realm of make believe and performance. There's an air of Powel and Pressburger in the Ice Tower, with a very conspicuous poster for The Red Shoes (1948) emerging in one frame, with a Sunset Boulevard (1950), or Carol (2015) complex throne in. It's darkly entrancing with some hypnotic set design and a creeping score, but at times it is a tediously slow film to endure that could do with a bit more unearthing of its characters to keep it interesting.

In UK Cinemas: 21st of November

14. ANEMONE

Jen (Sean Bean) must convince his voluntarily exiled war veteran brother Ray (Day Lewis) to come back to society to help stop his son Brian from making the same mistakes as he did.

There is no denying that seeing the acting giant back on the big screen is incredible, and Day Lewis gets more than enough scenes to chew with three distinct moments of emotional rage and regret which are magnificent to behold alone for his acting. It's hard not to examine Anemone as a sort metaphor for Daniel Day Lewis coming out of retirement in a personal project co-written by himself and his son Ronan. Ronan Day Lewis displays some confident directing with a bleak forest set visual language that sets up for a Lars Von Trier type hellscape, there's even a whiff of Colonel Kurtz in Ray when he bursts into a traumatic speech by the fireplace. What lets Anemone down is its underwhelming script that doesn't uphold the impact of the performances carrying it. In a mighty return to acting from Daniel Day Lewis, this intensely raw portrait of estranged brothers, and fathers and sons features powerhouse monologues and dreamlike imagery of biblical proportion, but it ultimately lands somewhere between family therapy and self-indulgence.

In UK Cinemas 7th of November

13. BUGONIA

Conspiracy nut Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and his mentally challenged cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap a high powered CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), convinced she is an alien sent to destroy the planet after years of corrupt business tactics. Imprisoning Fuller in their basement and shaving her hair so she cannot contact her mother ship, Teddy plans to interrogate and torture Michelle until she confesses the truth of her identity.

Yorgos Lanthimos delivers another deliciously twisted and funny thriller with terrifically unsettling performances from Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone. A stinging unpredictability keeps you on edge and in doubt as to who the real monster is, as a paranoid conspiracy theorist who cannot be convinced out of his beliefs goes head to head with cold and calculated business woman with confident and manipulative sensibility. Bugonia offers a nihilistically satirical view of humanity that leaves little to no hope to change our self destructive nature, no matter what theories we choose to believe to identity a single culprit for all of life's evils. A bit like Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), while not as outrageously freaky as I expect from Lanthimos, its effective enough in its chamber piece tension, but I was still left wanting a bit more to chew on. When all said and done, we just need to save the bees.

In UK Cinemas 31st of October

12. FRANKIENSTEIN

Guillermo Del Toro accomplishes a life long passion project in bringing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to life IN this passionately operatic and heartfelt retelling. Oscar Isaac takes some Olivier style acting pills to deliver one of the most overtly thespian impressions of the deranged Victor Frankenstein, an obsessively devilish scientist desperate to concur death out of some oedipal trauma. He is however outshone by the tormented Creature that he gives life to, played with eloquent humility by Jacob Eldori. A sumptuous visual feast awaits as Del Toro’s magnificently trait world building dazzles once again, with a swimmingly fluid camera that engulfs you in every set. Del Toro literally works to the bone in fleshing out every artery in the structure of this beast, with every limp torn out and dissected at some point. It's impeccably rendered if not for falling short by some flimsy blue screen and outrageously flat CGI effects. While Del Toro pours his heart and creative juices in every inch, it can't help but feel like thoroughly covered ground. Del Toro has spent his career loving the monsters and its apt for him to finally take on such a definitive text of gothic fiction, more than enjoyable, but it lands as one of his weaker works where most of his films have already triumphed in the such territory.

In UK Cinemas Now, and on Netflix: 7th of November

11. ROSE OF NEVADA

In a desolate costal town, a long lost boat; the Rose of Nevada has mysterious returned, prompting two young men Nick (George McKay) and Liam (Callum Turner) to join the new crew of the boat where they will be transported back in time to when the last crew set off.

Cornish auteur Mark Jenkin makes another eerie time travel experience with Rose of Nevada. Jenkin essentially has combined his two previous features with the decline of fishing communities in Bait (2019) crossing over to the surreal realm of phantoms from Enys Men (2022). Jenkin's analogue craft is transfixing, with a heightened sense of reality from the warped attention to sound, colour and the texture of the sets. George MacKay and Callum Turner perfectly merge into this small rustic 16mm time capsule that is not held back from their star power. Like a eulogy to the family fishermen who worked to serve their homes and lost their lives to the tyranny of the sea, Rose of Nevada is a melancholic ghost story.

10. IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU

A gut wrenching anxiety attack of a film unleashing the full agony of motherhood. Rose Byrne is outstanding as Linda, a suffocating mum trying to breath in a sea of unbearable responsibility for her sick daughter, patients, the growing hole in her bedroom ceiling, and her sanity. She never has a handle on any of it, even when she tries to it all steps another 100 miles away from her grasp. No matter how much people around her want to help, no one can or even listens, especially Linda's self centred therapist played in a terrific turn by Conan O' Brien.

Mary Bronstein crafts a hideously raw and surreal endurance test that propels all of Linda's stress onto the audience itself. With long standing extreme close ups of Linda from shoulder height tracking her emotional and physical decline, bombarded by her ominous daughter's whining and whose face is always hidden from the spectator. If I had Legs I'd Kick You has the biting punch that was sorely lacking from Marielle Heller's Nightbitch (2024) with the ramped up fever dream of Darren Aronofsky's Mother! (2017), with some Erazerhead (1977) surrealism in there too. Hard to watch especially near the last quarter, but Bronstein and Byrne go so far down the rabbit hole, it's pretty impressive how exasperating it gets.

9. RESURRECTION

In a dystopian future, a sneaking deviant is the only being still able to dream, when his captor enters his dreams, a genre swapping, reincarnated journey into the realm of the five senses begins in Bi Gan's kaleidoscopic dreamscape.

It's hard to fully describe what happens in Resurrection, but the best way to describe it would be like Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) meets Leos Carax Holy Motors (2012). I would be lying if I said I understood much of it, but when the credits rolled I needed to take a moment to come back down to earth, as Bi Gan's celestial style travels through multiple lives and desires all ruminating in one single mind before the curtains are drawn. We travel from silent era expressionism to smoky film noir and land on vampiric romance. Gan's film is an ambitious poetic statement about the fundamental human need to dream and attributes the cinema machine as one of last means to do so.

8. WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

We should be more than trusting of Rian Johnson by now to deliver another staggeringly enthralling murder mystery with the wonderfully southern eccentric detective Benoit Blanc on the case. Johnson manages to shake up the pieces of a playful formula for each new instalment with his third entry decorated to an Edgar Allan Poe style of supernatural detective fiction with Wake-Up Dead Man unravelling in a dark consecrated web of faith and fury. In his new mystery Johnson takes a stab at the hypocrisy of Christian nationalist preaching coming from Josh Brolin's wrathful Monsignor Wick going up against Josh O' Connor's more loving father Judd standing as the single voice of sincere faith. Not knowing where Johnson will spin the webs is the biggest joy in these films, though Wake Up Dead Man toes the line to a more traditional form of mystery, the misdirection here is where the emotion comes in to play which is weighed up by the need for confession. It may not be the sharpest of the Knives Out films but it's still damn good fun with beautifully gothic production design and another outlandishly entertaining performance from Daniel Craig.

In UK Cinemas: 28th of November, On Netflix: 12th of December

7. TRAIN DREAMS

Adapted from the novella by Dennis Johnson, Train Dreams follows the life of a tree logger, Robber Grainer played with quiet ease by Joel Egerton as he observes the industrialisation of America. Grainer eventually falls in love with Gladys, played by Felicity Jones who build a sequestered life together in the American forest. Grainer meets a parade of characters including William H Macy unrecognisably appearance as the old timer logger Arn. Over the course of his lifetime, Grainer experiences many joys but also great tragedy through how he connects with people and nature itself. There is a discreet charm and poignancy in Train Dreams as a mediative journey reminiscent of the style of Terrence Malik with just as gorgeous woodland cinematography and a delicate score by Bryce Dessner. It never feels preachy or overtly sentimental in its delivery, but subtly washes over you in a grateful recollection of all that a single life can lead.

In Cinemas: 7th of November On Netflix: 21st of November

6. SENTIMENTAL VALUE

Winner of the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival, Joachim Trier's latest Norwegian drama explores traumatic family dynamics, when an estranged father and accomplished filmmaker Gustov Borg (Stellan Skarsgard) approaches his actress daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) for the lead role in his new film, which happens to be about their family history. When Nora refuses the role due to her inability to connect with her father, Gustov offers the role to Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) and begins to mould her to the part that was intended his daughter.

Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt of Oslo, August 31st (2011) and The Worst Person in the World (2021), continue to create a dense body of work unravelling complicated characters and yearning with phenomenal performances from the ensemble cast but a particular stand out turn from Stellan Skarsgard who disrupts his daughters' lives with egotistical intention and an incapacity for connection that is not hidden behind a camera. Sentimental Value shares an indulgent middle class melodrama to the likes of Noah Baumbach and while sometimes its hard to relate to the characters, so much of the drama relies on the characters not connecting with each-other in normal terms. It's heavy family portrait that gets more interesting the more you think about it.

In UK Cinemas: 26th of December

5. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

After needing to pull his car up at a garage for emergency repairs, a mechanic Vahid suspects the driver to be his former prison guard who tortured him and under the authority of the Iranian regime. In a desperate need for vengeance, Vahid kidnaps the man and plans to kill and bury him, until a doubt about his identity shakes Vahid's nerves, which sets him on a quest for concrete identification as he gathers a unexpected rag tag group of ex-prisoners who all suffered at the same hand, including, a bride and groom to be, their wedding photographer, and her unhinged former partner Hamid, to confirm his suspicion and share in the moment of revenge.

Cinema freedom fighter Jafar Panahi returns fresh off winning the Palme d'Or, with this farcically gripping morality tale on the price of revenge. Panahi who has faced persecution and multiple arrests for his proactively political work in Iran puts his personal fury into this twistedly dark thriller which turns from from buddy road trip to monstruous hell bound decent of no return. How far down the cave do you need to go until you become the very beast you are hunting? As one of Panahi's most entertaining films it may also be his darkest, it roars with the same outrage fear and paranoia that Panahi dissects with often hilarious but profoundly gruesome momentum that won't be easy to shake off.

In UK Cinemas: 5th of December

4. NO OTHER CHOICE

After he is laid off from 25 years working for a paper company, Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) devises an opportunity to restore his family to their former glorious life, when he seeks out a role to fill in a rival company, and must murder the competition of similar out of work paper experts.

Oldboy (2003) director, Park Chan-wook’s latest is a diabolical cutthroat takedown at the heart of capitalism and mechanisation, where foul play is the only way to keep food on the table and to keep the Netflix subscription running. Lee Byung-hun is terrifically desperate as a natural transformation from confident family man to cold blooded killer arises in his void of unemployment. There’s an air of Jerry Lundegaard from Fargo (1996) in his pathetically psychopathic intentions that comes with dilemma when he must stare his equally despaired opponents in the face. Their failings are just as raw as his own, but Su refuses to lose himself by no other choice. Wook’s signature intrinsic visual style is padded with dimensional layers and forensic transitions of internal horror and humour, no one edits his films quite like Park Chan-wook. There is laugh out loud absurdist violence and tragic comedy but at the heart of it is a frightening depiction of the increasing disposability of the human workforce that is narrowing the livelihoods of the working man inevitably to be replaced by machines.

3. THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

The Testament if Ann Lee is an utterly hypnotic and grandiose piece of filmmaking about the life of Shaking Quaker leader Ann Lee as she rises from Mancunian peasant to an angelic second incarnation of Christ setting off to the New World to share the news of Mother Ann’s presence.

Amanda Seyfried’s divinely vigorous performance is truly something to behold, as she sings, dances and leads a new way of life during the birth of America that naturally tries to destroy her for her radically defiant leadership. There is an un-nerving mystery of insanity or saintly quality to her expression which appears as magical and demonic at the same time. Mona Fastvold’s peculiar biopic doesn’t intend to unpack the mystery of the Shakers and its messianic leader, but just to fully plunge into their world and observe this community in all its hysterical worship and infrastructure, where the oppression was heavy but the possibility for a genuine equal society was once in reach. It looks freaky, cult like, but harmonious in love and labour and maybe that is what it takes to build a heaven. How the hell are Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet making these micro budget epics?

2. HAMNET

Adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's novel, Hamnet is about the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes a woodland witch, who experience heart-breaking loss during the death of one of their children which in turn comes to inspire one of the Bard's most famous works.

Like a slow knife to the chest, when its pulled out you see that the one holding the knife has their own heart in their hand. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are extraordinary in Hamnet, a tragedy of love, grief, fate and the eternal art that is born from it. Chloé Zhao's sensibly delicate direction slowly builds into a shattering triumph of performative unified emotion. Emily Watson and Noah Jupe also have standout moments in their minimal screen time. Max Richter's score brings the house down, even if it's not original. The guy next to me had his head in his hands, and I was with him, I was afraid of a corny forced sentimentality in the end, but it's pitched at such the right note that I was absolutely drenched in tears.

In UK Cinemas: 9th of January 2026

1. SOUND OF FALLING

Intergenerational trauma haunts the quiet spaces of a farm in Altmark in this elegiac mosaic of interceding timelines woven together for a sensorial experience of the unseen lives of four women across a century.

It is increasingly difficult to feel invigorated by new cinema these days, with AI on the rise and the cheapness of churning out so much IP branded films, with exception to a rare few gems that come out of nowhere, the spark of inspired and passionate art feels harder to find, but there is always at least one or two films a year that redefine the power of the cinematic language and Masha Schilinski's sublime tapestry Sound of Falling carries that torch.

Sound of Falling or ‘In die Sonne schauen’ - ‘Looking into the Sun’ flows like an entrancing tone poem, unfolding a living ghost story in past, present and future simultaneously in the mental and emotional constraints of womanhood. The camera drifts around the farmhouse like a wandering spirit lurking in the corners and cracks surrounding each character where they will all at one precise moment turn their gaze back to the camera as it rises above them like the sun. The scattered structure of the film can seem hard to follow but Schilinski's firm hand over every scene and shot traverses to the next in ethereally precise moments of pain, ponderance, and desire connected across four lives. Sound of Falling can most easily be compared Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975) in a stream of consciousness, though I would also cite the underappreciated All Dirty Roads Taste of Salt (2023) with the nihilistic Bergman psychology and Terrence Mallick's spiritual narration. It's a bleak portrait of womanhood to say the least as Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka all share a shifting form of tortured life held back by their times at the cost of their blooming femineity which morphs into a collective vanity of existence. Schilinski's film is an astonishing tapestry to behold in the feat of its scale and the haunted nature of its world and characters, that is truly something only cinema can unlock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0htEPr5QsIM