The ten titles will compete at the 2026 BFI London Film Festival Awards, with the winner being announced on the 18th October.
The 70th BFI London Film Festival (7th-18th October) has confirmed the films selected to screen in Official Competition, contending for the festival’s prestigious Best Film Award.
The nominated films bring together an international line-up of filmmakers from across the world, with 10 countries represented including the UK, Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Poland. In addition, each film showcases a wide range of storytelling spanning fiction to documentary, from post-war Europe to Dhaka, Japan and beyond.
This competition will feature new work from internationally celebrated filmmakers – Hirokazu Kore-eda, Sergei Loznitsa, Carol Morley, Lili Horvát, Benjamín Naishtat, Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor, Giovanni Tortorici, Malgorzata Szumowska, May el-Toukhy & Michal Englert, Rubaiyat Hossain, who each bring bold cinematic perspectives to this edition of the festival.
First established in 2009, the BFI London Film Festival’s Best Film Award celebrates inspiring, inventive and distinctive filmmaking. Previous recipients include Jacques Audiard for A Prophet. Recent winners include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist in 2023, Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail in 2024 and Landmarks by Lucrecia Martel in 2025.
The 10 films in competition this year are as follows:
- 7 MILES OUT (UK, Dir. Carol Morley)
- ACT 3 (Ireland-UK, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor)
- GLAXO (Brazil-Argentina, Dir. Benjamín Naishtat)
- IMPERIUM (Germany-France-Italy-Lithuania, Dir. Sergei Loznitsa)
- KETTICÈ (Italy, Dir. Giovanni Tortorici)
- LOOK BACK (Japan, Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)
- MY NOTES ON MARS (Hungary-Austria, Lili Horvát)
- THE DIFFICULT BRIDE (France-Bangladesh-Portugal-Norway-Germany, Rubaiyat Hossain)
- THE IDIOT(S) (UK-Poland, Dir. Małgorzata Szumowska, Michal Englert)
- WOMAN UNKNOWN (Denmark-Latvia-Sweden, Dir. May el-Toukhy)
Meanwhile, the films shortlisted for the festival’s other competitive categories, the Grierson Award for Best Documentary, the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature and the Short Film Award will be revealed in September. Winners in all four categories will be chosen by LFF Awards Juries, the members of which will be announced in the coming weeks.
The ever popular The Audience Awards also return for 2026, following last year’s wins: Chloé Zhao’s period drama Hamnet won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film, and Yemi Bamiro’s documentary Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story won the Audience Award for Best British Discovery.
Kristy Matheson, BFI London Film Festival Director, 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.”