Scottish Film Events: June 2026

Just under a year ago, Filmhouse made a phoenix-like return, and the cinema is celebrating this comeback with the Filmhouse Birthday programme. The lineup is split into three parts: 1) the cinema's top performing releases since reopening (Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Frankenstein); 2) the Filmhouse staff’s favourite new films since reopening (I Saw the TV Glow, Perfect Days, No Other Choice); and 3) classics chosen by Filmhouse members (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Lawrence of Arabia). There’ll also be opportunities to tour Filmhouse’s projection booths, there are discounts on food and drink to mark the bar’s new menu (I’m praying for a return of the brisket chilli), and there’ll also be a proper birthday party with cake and live music. See filmhouse.org.uk for full details.

Pesimists, rejoice! Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, the global film festival celebrating godforsaken cinema, is coming to Scotland for the first time. GFT and Filmhouse are among the six cinemas in the UK taking part. The pick of GFT’s seven-strong lineup includes the apocalyptic anti-war drama Threads, haunting wartime anime Grave of the Fireflies and Agnes Varda’s sombre road movie Vagabond.

Filmhouse’s assortment is even more harrowing. Among their 15 titles are bleak masterpieces like Come and See, bleak epics like Das Boot, and rarely screened bleak gems like Dustin Hoffman as a recidivist thief in Straight Time and Stanley Kramer’s 1959 nuclear war drama On the Beach. 

Refugee Festival Scotland returns 12-21 June with a wide-ranging programme featuring live performances, talks and workshops as well as lots of film – not least at the Southside Open Air Cinema Day in Glasgow’s Queen’s Park on 14 June. There are three screenings across the day: Natxo Leuza’s climate displacement doc Black Water, short film programme Routes & Returns, and a sure-to-be-electric screening of Everybody to Kenmure Street.

The great Hong Kong director John Woo is celebrated at GFT in June. Five of his films, characterised by balletic action setpieces that manage to be both elegant and preposterous, screen, from Hard Boiled (6 Jun) to A Better Tomorrow (27 Jun & 2 Jul) via his exceptional, highly implausible US actioner Face/Off (13 & 17 Jun).

One of the most promising new directors of 2026 is Seán Dunn with The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford, his wry and moving comedy about a tour guide (Peter Mullan) losing his grip on reality; it’s out 12 June, and ahead of that release, the Edinburgh-born, New York-based filmmaker will be at Edinburgh Filmhouse (10 Jun) and DCA (12 Jun) for Q&A screenings. 

There are more Q&As and special screenings at GFT: Aussie animation Lesbian Space Princess screens 14 June with a drag performance, A Private Life screens 25 June followed by a Q&A with director Rebecca Zlotowski, there's a Q&A screening of Blue Heron, our Film of the Month, on 30 June with director Sophy Romvari and actor Adam Tompa, and on 1 July there's a preview of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie to mark Canada Day.

And last but not least, The CineSkinny, our film podcast, is once again teaming up with Queer Cinema Sundays. We’ll be presenting one of the touchstones of New Queer Cinema, Gregg Araki’s candy-coloured Nowhere, the final instalment of his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, on 28 June at GFT. Following the screening, the Cineskinny team will take to the stage to discuss this bratty, hyperactive queer teen classic and the fluidity of sex and desire in Araki’s cinema as part of a live podcast recording.