The BFI just announced the films in the running for Best Film Award 2026

an image from 7 Miles Out, a new film by Carol Morley featuring at BFI 2026 — (Image credit: Handout)

The BFI London Film Festival is a London institution, a lighthouse to cinephiles, movie nerds, and ex film students as well as a calling card for people who love a subtitled film. This year’s festival lineup has already been teased, with the fantastic opening and closing films already confirmed.

Now, fresh off the bookender announcements of Jesse Eisenberger’s new comedy and Andrew Scott’s Oscar tipped biopic as the closer and opener of the festival, the films in the running for the Best Film award have been announced.

10 films will be going head to head for the prestigious award, during the festival’s run from 7-18th October.

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Ten different countries are represented in the category, with films from the UK, Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Japan, and Poland all in the running. The winner will be announced on the festival’s last night on 18th October.

The UK’s entry is 7 Miles Out, a new semi-autobiographical film from Carol Morley whom you’ll know from her other work including Dreams of a Life starring Zawe Ashton, and The Falling which starred Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh. It stars California Schemin’ and The Testaments star Lucy Halliday as Anne who, after losing her father in tragic circumstances, finds solace and trouble in Manchester’s music scene in the 70s and 80s.

Act 3, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s rumination on ageing, is an Ireland-UK production, while period drama The Idiot(s), which stars Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn and is directed by Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert is UK-Polish.

European entries include Sergei Loznitsa’s archival Imperium, Giovanni Tortorici’s coming-of-age story Ketticè, Lili Horvát’s domestic drama My Notes on Mars and May el-Toukhy’s drama Woman Unknown.

an image of aimee lou wood and johnny flynn in the new film The Idiots which has been shortlisted in the BFI best film award for 2026

The three final entries are Benjamín Naishtat’s period-noir thriller Glaxo, a Brazilian-Argentinian production, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Look Back, another coming-of-age story from Japan, and Rubaiyat Hossain’s body horror The Difficult Bride, which is a France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany co-production.

There are plenty of other films featured across different categories in the Festival, including The Audience Awards (Hamnet being its most recent winner), the Grierson Award for Best Documentary, the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature and the Short Film Award. The films shortlisted for these awards will be announced in September.

BFI London Film Festival director Kristy Matheson said: ”As we celebrate the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival, it’s an honour to have a number of alumni filmmakers represented in the Official Competition alongside those making their first appearance at the festival.

“Our 2026 competition selection brings an astounding array of filmmaking styles to the screen. As ever, it’s been creatively nourishing for myself and the team to encounter each of these works - we’re excited to share these with audiences in October.”

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