The 68th BFI London Film Festival closed on 20 October 2024 with its highest in-person attendance in a decade. Across 12 days, the festival drew 230,342 audience members – an 18 per cent increase on 2023 and a figure that surpassed the previous record of 205,630 set in 2018. Occupancy across London screenings and events hit 92 per cent, up from 90 per cent the prior year. Nearly half of ticket bookers – 49 per cent – were first-time attendees, signalling that the festival’s strategy of broadening its reach is working.
Under festival director Kristy Matheson’s second year at the helm, the programme presented 255 features, shorts, series and immersive works from 80 countries, spoken in 64 languages. Some 112 of those works – 44 per cent of the total – were made by female and non-binary filmmakers. The festival featured 39 world premieres and hosted over 815 international filmmakers, XR artists and series creatives presenting their work in person. The industry forum attracted more than 3,000 delegates, while over 800 media were accredited.
Opening and Closing Films
Steve McQueen’s historical drama Blitz opened the festival on 9 October with its world premiere at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. Starring Saoirse Ronan as an East London mother who sends her son to the countryside during the Blitz, only for the boy to jump off the train and attempt to return home, the film marks McQueen’s third time opening the LFF after Widows in 2018 and Mangrove in 2020. McQueen described it as “such a London film” that tells an important story not just about a period in history but about the citizenship of the city itself.
The festival closed on 20 October with the European premiere of Morgan Neville’s Piece by Piece, an animated documentary chronicling the life of Pharrell Williams entirely through LEGO bricks. Williams and Neville were joined at the Closing Night Gala by guests from music, fashion and sport. The Royal Festival Hall returned as the festival’s Headline Gala and Special Presentation venue for a fourth consecutive year since 2021.
Headline Galas and Major Premieres
The 2024 programme stacked an unusually strong lineup of international titles. Headline galas included Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anora, Ali Abbasi’s provocative Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, Andrea Arnold’s Bird, Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller Conclave, Jacques Audiard’s genre-defying Emilia Pérez, and Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie. Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch also screened as headline presentations.
The Mayor of London’s Gala went to John Crowley’s We Live in Time, while Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths was the BFI Patron’s Gala. Ben Taylor’s Joy received the Cunard Gala, and R.J. Cutler and David Furnish’s Elton John: Never Too Late was the American Express Gala. The Family Gala was Simon Otto’s animated That Christmas.
Among the world premieres, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s documentary Endurance – examining Ernest Shackleton’s lost Antarctic ship – stood out alongside Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson’s Holloway, about one of Europe’s largest former women’s prisons. Steven Knight’s Victorian boxing series A Thousand Blows, starring Stephen Graham, also received its world premiere.
Award Winners
The competitive awards were announced on the festival’s final day, chosen by four juries. Adam Elliot’s stop-motion animation Memoir of a Snail won the Best Film Award in Official Competition – the first animated feature to receive the top prize since the competition section was established in 2009. The jury, led by Alexandre O. Philippe, called it “a singular achievement in filmmaking” that is “emotionally resonant and constantly surprising,” tackling “bullying, loneliness and grief head-on, creating a crucial and universal dialogue in a way that only animation can.” The film, following separated twins in 1970s Australia, had previously won the Cristal at Annecy. Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl received a special mention.
Laura Carreira’s debut feature On Falling won the Sutherland Award in the First Feature Competition – the first British winner since Clio Barnard’s The Arbor in 2010. The film follows a young Portuguese warehouse worker in Scotland, and the jury praised its “masterful cinematic precision and understated, lived-in performances.” Tomás Pichardo Espaillat’s Olivia & The Clouds received a special mention.
The Grierson Award for Best Documentary went to Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson’s Mother Vera, about a young Orthodox nun confronting her past. The jury highlighted its “balance of aesthetic beauty and emotional depth.” Eloise King’s The Shadow Scholars received a special mention. Rehab Nazzal’s Vibrations from Gaza, depicting the experience of Palestinian deaf children under siege, won the Short Film Award, with Lisa Ott’s Dragfox earning a special mention.
Audience Awards
Audiences voted for their favourites across three categories. Darren Thornton’s Irish comedy-drama Four Mothers – about a novelist juggling care for his elderly mother while his friends leave their mothers in his care – won Best Feature. Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson’s Holloway took Best Documentary, and Jamie Benyon’s Two Minutes won Best Short Film. The audience voting closed on 23 October, with winners announced on 4 November alongside the attendance figures.
LFF Expanded and LFF for Free
The festival’s immersive strand, LFF Expanded, ran from 11 to 27 October, showcasing virtual reality, video games and interactive installations. Highlights included Playing Kafka, an interactive adaptation of The Trial, and Soul Paint, a VR experience narrated by Rosario Dawson. The LFF for Free programme offered talks, short films and filmmaker Q&As at BFI Southbank and gallery@oxo, with free short films available on BFI Player – including the nominated Best Short films.
Looking Ahead
Matheson’s programming has increasingly embraced the avant-garde, with filmmakers such as Wang Bing, Payal Kapadia and Tsai Ming-liang threading through the lineup. The festival also received £1.7 million from the UK government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision funding via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, supporting its ambition to reach broader audiences. With record attendance, strong competition winners, and a programme balancing mainstream premieres with experimental work, the 68th edition cemented the LFF’s position as the UK’s most significant film festival.
