15 films to see at London Film Festival 2017

The BFI London Film Festival returns again in October, and as usual it’s bursting at the seams with some of the year’s most anticipated film titles. Andy Serkis’s debut feature as director – Breathe, starring Andrew Garfield – kicks proceedings off on 4 Oct, while Martin McDonagh’s blackly comic thriller Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri should bring the festival to a foul-mouthed close on 15 October.

In between there’s gorgeous-looking gay romance Call Me By Your Name (released 27 Oct), which is set to launch its star, Timothée Chalamet, into the stratosphere; Armando Iannucci’s The Death Of Stalin (20 Oct), reportedly another riotous satire from the In the Loop director; Good Time (3 Nov), a blistering crime drama from the talented Safdie brothers, starring Robert Pattinson; Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s Thelma, an indie horror with shades of Carrie; and The Florida Project (10 Nov), the latest from Sean Baker, who made the wonderful Tangerine.

All of the above open within a month of the festival coming to a close, and we’re keen to see them all. Here, however, are 15 other films at LFF we're eager to check out.

1) You Were Never Really Here

Dir. Lynne Ramsay

Lynne Ramsay trades in uncomfortably visceral films (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin), so the idea of her making a brutal revenge thriller is both bracing and mouthwatering. The Scottish director's latest follows the fragmented inner journey of a self-loathing vigilante for hire (Joaquin Phoenix) whose latest mission might be sending him over the edge.

2) The Shape of Water

Dir. Guillermo del Toro

This curious love story about the relationship that forms between a mute woman and an aquatic monster was the toast of Venice – it won the festival's top prize and many critics proclaimed it Del Toro’s finest film since Pan’s Labyrinth. Sally Hawkins is reportedly magnificent as the young woman with the hots for the fish-man.

3) Let the Sunshine In

Dir. Claire Denis

Claire Denis continues to be one of the most mercurial filmmakers working today, easily moving from existential thrillers, to vampiric horror, to tender family dramas; her next project is reportedly a sci-fi movie with Robert Pattinson. She’s ticking another genre off the list with Let the Sunshine In, a sophisticated romantic comedy with Juliette Binoche as a woman enjoying her single life.

4) Gemini

Dir. Aaron Katz

The brilliant Aaron Katz's finest film so far, Cold Weather, concerned a group of slackers who find themselves embroiled in a detective caper. This new film sees Katz back in meta-genre territory, as a seemingly small-scale, naturalistic indie movie spirals into a hardboiled crime film complete with laconic cops, femmes fatales and twisting plot.

5) Beach Rats

Dir. Eliza Hittman

We’ve heard great things about Eliza Hittman’s second feature, which concerns a young gay man keeping his sexuality from everyone around him. By day, he gets wasted with his less than enlightened bros, by night he cruises the web for men. Like Hittman’s evocative debut It Felt Like Love, this is a cinematic and haunting drama that digs deep into its central character's psyche.

6) Princess Cyd

Dir. Stephen Cone

The latest film from Stephen Cone follows a rambunctious 16-year-old who finds herself dumped with her novelist aunt for the summer. Like Cone’s previous two films (Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party and Wise Kids), this is reportedly a vivid coming-of-age film with some perceptive things to say about sexuality, religion and life in general.

7) Wonderstruck

Dir. Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes returns with Wonderstruck, which dovetails the stories of two 12-year-olds living 50 years apart. One section (in black in white) follows a young girl in the 20s, and the other follows a boy in the 70s. Reviews from Cannes suggest the title is an apt one.

8) Zama

Dir. Lucrecia Martel

With The Headless Woman, Argentinian filmmaker Lucretia Martel gave us one of the finest films of the 21st century so far. After a nine year absence she’s back with the tale of an officer of the Spanish army going through an existential crisis while overseeing an 18th-century Spanish colony perched on the Asuncion coast.

9) Mudbound

Dir. Dee Rees

Dee Rees showed great promise with tender coming-of-age film Pariah. Word is that Mudbound, however, takes her filmmaking to a whole different level. It’s a sweeping, 1940s-set epic covering the lives of two families and dealing with some heavy themes including alcoholism, racism and war.

10) A Fantastic Woman

Dir. Sebastián Lelio

Chilean director Sebastian Lelio, the director of the very fine Gloria, returns with A Fantastic Woman. Word is there’s a Almodóvarian feel to this story of a grieving transgender woman who’s fighting for her rights following the death of her elderly husband.

11) 120 BPM

Dir. Robin Campillo

Robin Campillo is celebrated for his screenplays for The Class and Time Out, but Eastern Boys marked him out as an extremely talented director also. His follow-up, 120 BPM, is a drama about the efforts of the Paris branch of ACT UP in the 1980s. The drama won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes film festival, but many felt it was robbed of the Palme d’Or.

12) Lean on Pete

Dir. Andrew Haigh

Andrew Haigh brings his distinctive stripped-back style (no non-diegetic music, few camera moves, unadorned performances) to this coming-of-age film following a 15-year-old boy and his friendship with the horse of the title. Rising talent Charlie Plummer plays the lonely lad and won an award at Venice Film Festival for his performance.

13) Ex Libris

Dir. Frederick Wiseman

With Frederick Wiseman, you’re always in safe hands. For five decades he’s been documenting various institutions in America and around the world, from schools to museums to medical facilities. His latest takes us inside the New York Public Library, and in an age when anti-intellectualism is rife we’re looking forward to spending several hours with the NYC book nerds Wiseman observes in the film.

14) Golden Exits

Dir. Alex Ross Perry

A new film from Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip) is always worth a watch, and this latest sounds like a doozy. It’s a typically spiky drama following a 40-ish archivist (former Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz) and his precarious relationship with his wife (Chloë Sevigny), his sister-in-law (Mary-Louise Parker) and his new assistant (Emily Browning). Richard Brody called it a "Brooklyn Bergman".

15) Loveless

Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev

The latest from Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev takes inspiration from Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage with a tale of a toxic couple so obsessed with their own lives that they don’t even notice when their son goes missing. As ever with Zvyagintsev, the film is telling some home truth’s about the director’s home nation.