The BFI today announce the programme for BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX from 30 March – 30 April 2026, beginning with THE CINEMATIC LIFE OF BOXING, a season of films that capture the essence of a sport that has been as influential on generations of athletes and fans as it has on cinema itself. From screenings of Academy Award® Best Picture winners ROCKY (John G. Avildsen, 1976), celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, RAGING BULL (Martin Scorsese, 1980)and MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Clint Eastwood, 2004), to Best Documentary winner WHEN WE WERE KINGS (Leon Gast, 1996), CREED (Ryan Coogler, 2015), plus 35mm screenings of BODY AND SOUL (Robert Rossen, 1947), THE HURRICANE (Norman Jewison, 1999), ALI (Michael Mann, 2001) and THE FIGHTER (David O. Russell, 2010).
This BFI Southbank season, curated by Dr. Clive Chijioke Nwonka, BFI Professor in Practice, Associate Professor of Film Culture and Society at University College London, brings together some of the finest examples of the boxing genre alongside hidden gems and underappreciated works that span drama, comedy and documentary. Together they explore how cinema, through the lens of boxing, has presented stories of love, triumph, personal struggle, racial injustice, politics, class identity, disability and the human spirit to cement boxing’s place in the pantheon of film.
Launching on 31 March, the programme kicks off with the World Premiere of documentary LEARNING THE ROPES (2026) including a season introduction from curator Dr. Clive Chijioke Nwonka and followed by a Q&A with director Ryan Pickard, narrator Ray Winstone and former World Champion boxer Darren Barker. Repton Boxing Club is recognised as one of the most famous amateur boxing clubs in the world, with alumni including Winstone, Barker, Pickard, Audley Harrison and former World Champions John H Stracey, Andy Lee and Maurice Hope. Through this candid portrait of Tony Burns, the club’s legendary former head coach, Pickard presents a singular account of his impact on the institution’s boxers past and present.
Other events taking place will include a Q&A on 14 April with former World Champion and Boxing Hall of Fame boxer Barry McGuigan, who famously trained actor Daniel Day-Lewis for his remarkable turn in THE BOXER (Jim Sheridan, 1997) which we also screen on the night, plus a Q&A with actor and writer Johnny Harris on 16 April following JAWBONE (Thomas Q. Napper, 2017), a Q&A with director Shane Meadows on 21 April following TWENTYFOURSEVEN (1997),a Q&A with former boxer and renowned coach Jimmy Tibbs and his son, former boxer and now coach Mark Tibbs on 28 Aprill following FIGHTERS (Ron Peck, 1991), and a discussion on gender in boxing with broadcaster and athlete Jeanette Kwakye and boxing writer Ruth Rapper on 15 April following MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Clint Eastwood, 2004). Further films playing in the season will include ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (Luchino Visconti, 1962), FAT CITY (John Huston, 1972), THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MÄKI (2016), JOURNEYMAN (Paddy Considine, 2017) and the UK Premiere of THE FEATHERWEIGHT (2023), Robert Kolodny’s impressive faux-documentary. The full details of this BFI Southbank season were announced in a press release here.
Meanwhile, screening from prints and new restorations, FINDING YOUR WAY: THE FILMS OF PETER WEIR celebrates the timeless work of one of cinema’s most humane auteurs. Wildly different in scale and genre, the films of Peter Weir are united by more than immaculate craftsmanship.
If many are beloved classics, it is because his cinema is attuned to the feelings of characters reckoning with what we all must eventually face: the unknown. Whether warring at sea, encountering unfamiliar cultures, or simply waking to the power of poetry for the first time, Weir’s protagonists are spurred to action by overwhelming emotions. Born in Sydney in 1944, Weir spearheaded the Australian New Wave before thriving in Hollywood, reconciling commercial demands with a bold arthouse sensibility. Profoundly moving yet never sentimental, his films reach a transcendent beauty precisely because they grapple with the darker sides of experience.
Events in the season will include a discussion about Weir as an Australian director with season curator Elena Lazic, academicDr Stephen Morgan and film critic Tim Robey on 9 April following a screening of THE PLUMBER (1979). Further films playing throughout April will include a new 35mm print of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), made by the BFI with funding from the National Lottery, along with 35mm screenings of THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982), THE MOSQUITO COAST (1986) and FEARLESS (1993), plus THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS (1974),THE LAST WAVE (1977), GALLIPOLI (1981), WITNESS (1985), DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989), GREEN CARD (1990), THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998), THE WAY BACK (2010), and MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (2003) which will also play on the UK’s largest screen at BFI IMAX on 19 April.
Often received as barbed, playful, nihilistic retorts to the socially and politically rigid, as well as the corrupt, there is much to gain from a date with our season, TRASH! THE WILDEST FILMS YOU’VE EVER SEEN. Trash films delight in low budgets and so-called ‘bad taste’. They are lurid, camp, transgressive, wild and DIY, made by friends and lovers who subvert received ideas about gender, sex and identity. Their history goes back to the carny sideshows of yore, breaking the fourth wall and revelling in audiences’ complicit inclusion in both the shocks and jokes.
Shown at cheap drive-ins, alternative art spaces and midnight movie palaces, these queer, divine, eye-popping works challenge the limits of censorship whilst blurring the boundaries between art and exploitation, parody and homage, excess and play. The centrepiece of the season is an intimate, revelatory and heartfelt cabaret show IDOL WORSHIP – AN EVENING WITH MINK STOLE & PEACHES CHRIST on 10 April starring living legend and cult film icon Mink Stole and San Francisco drag impresario and filmmaker Peaches Christ. This evening of storytelling, for fans of John Waters, Divine, drag history and trash cinema, will include film clips and live song for a wildly entertaining and uncensored exposé as hilarious as it is revealing. Meet and greet tickets will also be available.
Other events will include the premiere of a new 35mm print of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957) on 7 April. Ed Wood’s cult sci-fi horror was honourably badged ‘the worst film of all time’ and this new print has been created specifically for this season, from original elements preserved in the BFI National Archive.
Meanwhile a special introduction,SOME FILMS ARE TRASH, SOME HAVE TRASH-NESS THRUST UPON THEM on 1 April, will look to identify the specific qualities that trash films have in common and why the label should be worn with pride as we celebrate trash cinema with season curators Will Fowler and Justin Johnson joined by writers, critics and academics Helen de Witt, Elena Gorfinkel and Dominic Johnson, who will discuss where trash begins and ends.
The season includes screenings of films by some of American trash cinema’s most infamous names, including John Waters (MULTIPLE MANIACS, PINK FLAMINGOS), George and Mike Kuchar (SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS, HOLD ME WHILE I’M NAKED), Jack Smith (NORMAL LOVE), Herschell Gordon Lewis (BLOOD FEAST), Russ Meyer (FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!), Paul Morrissey (TRASH), Curt McDowell (THUNDERCRACK!), Beth B (SALVATION!), Bruce LaBruce (SUPER 8 ½) and more. Further details of this season were previously announced in a dedicated press release here.
Elsewhere, marking the arrival of his new, stylised documentary KINAESTHESIA (2025), which traces the history of dreams in silent cinema, director Gerald Fox has programmed a selection of essential films on this theme. An exploration of the relationship between film and dreams, KINAESTHESIA (the sensation of movement) is a lyrical documentary inspired by the film historian Vlada Petrić, which draws on an extensive archive to offer a journey through the history of dreams in early cinema.
We preview the film on 17 and 19 April followed by Q&As with Fox. The director will join us again on 19 April to introduce a screening of METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1926) as well as a SILENT DREAMS SHORTS PROGRAMME, with other films playing in the month set to include A PAGE OF MADNESS (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926) and THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (Jean Epstein, 1928).
Film previews at BFI Southbank this month will include the BFI Distribution release ROSE OF NEVADA (2025) on 23 April including a Q&A with director Mark Jenkin and cast (TBC). Jenkin’s latest continues his exploration of Cornish folk myth with the long-missing Rose of Nevada fishing trawler. When it mysteriously returns to its old harbour in a small village, two young men join the new crew hoping to pull themselves out of hardship. But when they return to the harbour, the men realise they have slipped back in time.
As part of this month’s Big Screen Classics programme, selected by Jenkin, we also welcome Mike Figgis for an In Conversation event on 28 April. One of the filmmaking world’s nonconformists, Figgis employs radical ideas about form and technique in his process. He made TIMECODE (2000), which we also play on 28 April with an introduction, in four continuous 98-minute takes played together on a screen divided into quarters. Jenkin and Figgis will discuss the film and his rich, eclectic and acclaimed career. Meanwhile, we preview BFI Distribution release D IS FOR DISTANCE (2025) on 2 April followed by a Q&A with directors Emma Matthews, Chris Petit and their son Louis Petit. Louis’ severe epilepsy erased his childhood memories and this personal film, told through family archive footage, explores medical bureaucracy, cinema and the mind, expanding into a meditation on technology, capitalism and resilience.
A screening of THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE (2026) on 1 April will include a Q&A with director Ben Gregor and producer Pippa Harris. Enid Blyton’s beloved stories are finally brought blazingly to life in this new British family film which sees the Thompson family reluctantly move to a remote part of the countryside. Things look up when the children discover that they reside near an enchanted wood that is home to a magical tree inhabited by extraordinary characters and a conduit to a series of fantastical worlds. On 13 April we preview SURVIVING EARTH (2025) including a Q&A with director Thea Gajić. Based on a true story, Gajić’s feature debut follows a Yugoslav refugee who fled the 1990s conflict and rebuilt his life in Bristol.
By day, he works as a drugs counsellor. By night, he leads a Balkan band a finds that music becomes both a refuge from, and a reminder of, the past. A preview of MIROIRS NO. 3 (2025) on 15 April will also be followed by a Q&A with director Christian Petzold. In this haunting, finely wrought drama, Petzold returns to the metaphysical ambiguities that define his most celebrated films. After surviving a car crash that kills her partner, a young pianist forms an unsettling bond with an older woman living in rural isolation. Economical yet emotionally rich, this is a quietly gripping study of loss, doubling and the fragile human connections that make reinvention possible.
A TV preview of MINT (Charlotte Regan, 2026) will include a Q&A with cast and creators (TBC) on 9 April. Scrapper director Regan’s series debut is set in the heart of a crime family and told through the eyes – and imagination – of the family’s daughter who is desperately searching for love. A Relaxed Screening of MY FERAL HEART (Jane Gull, 2016) on 30 March will be followed by a 10th anniversary Q&A with director Jane Gull, writerDuncan Paveling and producer James Rumsey. Ten years since its original release, this sensitive and nuanced film about a man who has Downs Syndrome losing his independence after the death of his mother remains a heartfelt plea for understanding and tolerance.
Our Woman with a Movie Camera strand previews COTTON QUEEN (Suzannah Mirghani, 2025) on 23 April. Teenage Nafisa enjoys a simple life in a Sudanese cotton-farming village, guided by her grandmother Al-Sit’s stories of resistance against British colonisers. When a young, local businessman returns with a development scheme and samples of genetically engineered cotton, Nafisa is drawn into a struggle over the village’s future. Other events include a 25th anniversary screening of AMELIE (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) on 31 March, plus A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (Richard Lester, 1964) on 8 April, introduced by broadcaster and author of the new BFI Film Classics on the film, Samira Ahmed. Shot in a documentary style inspired by the French New Wave, the Beatles’ first feature film captured Britain at a moment of social transformation, with a portrayal of celebrity, camaraderie and media frenzy that still resonates today.
Finally, MARK KERMODE LIVE IN 3D returns on13 April with surprise guests and discussion of upcoming releases, cinematic treasures, industry news and even some guilty pleasures.
FURTHER PROGRAMME INFORMATION FOR APRIL 2026
BFI SOUTHBANK SEASONS AND FESTIVALS
THE CINEMATIC LIFE OF BOXING
This BFI Southbank season brings together some of the finest examples of the boxing genre alongside hidden gems and underappreciated works that span drama, comedy and documentary.
FINDING YOUR WAY: THE FILMS OF PETER WEIR
From Australian New Wave cult classics to Hollywood gems, celebrate the emotional cinema of Peter Weir at its most transporting – on the big screen.
TRASH! THE WILDEST FILMS YOU’VE EVER SEEN
Often received as barbed, playful, nihilistic retorts to the socially and politically rigid, as well as the corrupt, there is much to gain from a date with Trash cinema.
KINAESTHESIA
Marking the arrival of his new, stylised documentary, which traces the history of dreams in silent cinema, director Gerald Fox programmes a selection of essential films on this theme.
NEW AND RE-RELEASES
Films playing on extended run throughout the month at BFI Southbank will include the BFI Distribution release ROSE OF NEVADA (Mark Jenkin, 2025), plus Mark Jenkin’s other acclaimed Cornwall-set features BAIT (2019) and ENYS MEN (2022), as well as D IS FOR DISTANCE (Emma Matthews and Christopher Petit, 2025), DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST (Satyajit Ray, 1970), DEAD MAN’S WIRE (Gus Van Sant, 2025) and KIM NOVAK’S VERTIGO (Alexandre O Philippe, 2025).
BFI IMAX
New releases playing at BFI IMAX throughout April will include KOKUHO (Sang-il Lee, 2025) and MICHAEL (Antoine Fuqua, 2026).
BIG SCREEN CLASSICS
This month’s BFI Southbank daily screenings of classic movies for just £9.50 is a highly personal selection, both in terms of creative influence as a filmmaker as well as his taste as an audience member, from director Mark Jenkin that celebrates the BFI Distribution release of ROSE OF NEVADA. Film splaying throughout April will include PICKPOCKET (Robert Bresson, 1959), THE CONVERSATION (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), THE GARDEN (Derek Jarman, 1990), THE THIN RED LINE (Terence Malick, 1998), THE PERFECT STORM (Wolfgang Petersen, 2000), INLAND EMPIRE (David Lynch, 2006), WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, 2009), LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen, 2020) and more. The full details of our line-up can be found here. In addition to our £9.50 ticket offer for BIG SCREEN CLASSICS, audience members aged 25 and Under can buy tickets for BFI Southbank screenings (in advance or on the day) and special events and previews (on the day only) for just £4, through our ongoing ticket scheme for young audiences.
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