Tony Paley's daily guide to the best film screening in London today. Follow me on X at @tpaleyfilm and on Bluesky at @tpaleyfilm.bsky.social
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Ten Days' Wonder (Chabrol, 1971): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm This is part of the Claude Chabrol season and features an introduction by season curator Catherine Wheatley. Another screenings of the film (on September 19th) during the season is detailed here . Time Out review: Here Claude Chabrol inaugurates a new genre, the theological thriller. Charles (Anthony Perkins at his most charismatically…
Le Boucher (Chabrol, 1970): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm This is part of the Claude Chabrol season and features an introduction by season curator Catherine Wheatley. Other screenings of the film (September 21st and 25th and October 4th and 6th) during the season are detailed here . Time Out review: Classically simple but relentlessly probing thriller, set in a French village shadowed by the…
The English Patient (Minghella, 1996): Cine Lumiere, 6.30pm Marking the reopening of the refurbished Ciné Lumière under the auspices of its figurehead, Kristin Scott Thomas, and the 30th anniversary of the release of The English Patient , the screening on 8 Sept at 18.30 will be preceded by an extended introduction by lead actors Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. Time Out review: Tuscany, as…
Wise Blood (Huston, 1979): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.55pm This 35mm presentation, also being screened on September 19th , is part of the Harry Dean Stanton season at BFI Southbank. Details here . Chicago Reader review: Along with The Man Who Would Be King and The Dead, this is arguably John Huston's best literary adaptation, and conceivably his very best film—a very close rendering of Flannery…
Sans Soleil (Marker, 1983): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm This 35mm presentation, also screening on September 29th , is part of the Sarah Maldoror season at BFI Southbank. Full details here . Chicago Reader review: Chris Marker’s 1982 masterpiece is one of the key nonfiction films of our time—a personal philosophical essay that concentrates mainly on contemporary Tokyo but also includes footage shot…
The Dresser (Yates, 1983): David Lean Cinema, 2pm This screening is a 35mm presentation. Time Out review: An accomplished film of Ronald Harwood's theatrical two-hander, animated by two gigantic performances. Albert Finney, grossly Shakespearean as Sir, the imperious, declamatory actor-manager with a Moses-like command of his company and inanimate objects ('St-o-o-p th-a-a-a-t tr-ai-ai-n!' he…
Whistle Down the Wind (Forbes, 1961): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.15pm This 35mm screening in the 'Projecting the Archive' strand features a Q&A with actors Hayley Mills, Diane Poole and Alan Barnes. BFI introduction: When a stranger appears in their barn, three siblings care for him in the belief that he’s Jesus returned to Earth. Forbes shot his directorial debut on location in rural Lancashire with…
Bleak Moments (Leigh, 1971): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm 'I've tried to vary my films considerably, but I would have to admit that Bleak Moments remains, in some ways, the mother of all Mike Leigh films. And I'm very proud of it.' Mike Leigh The film screened by Contemporary 75, a London festival screening films that inspired generations of British audiences and filmmakers, will be followed by a Q&A…
Sambizanga (Maldoror, 1972): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm This film, which also screens on September 19th , is part of the Sarah Maldoror season at BFI Southbank. You can find all the details here . Sight & Sound review: This is the first feature in Africa to be directed by a woman. Set in 1961, at the start of the Angolan War of Independence, and shot in Congo, the film tracks the resistance…
That Most Important Thing: Love (Zulawski, 1975): Garden Cinema, 6pm This is part of the Andrzej Zulawski season at the Garden Cinema . This film is also being shown on September 16th and October 13th . The screening on the September 1st will be introduced by Garden Cinema team member, writer, and filmmaker Sarah Grice. Chicago Reader review: Polish-born director Andrzej Żuławski was a master at…
