BFI Player is delighted to welcome Rhianna Dhillon as its latest expert voice, starting in January with a new series that offers innovative and engaging perspectives on film, launching with an all-new take on the idea of Fresh Starts.
An award-winning film and television critic, broadcaster and host, Dhillon joins BFI Player with an original video essay, available from 9th January 2026, and a carefully curated selection of films that explore renewal in all its forms. From quiet personal shifts to late-in-life reinvention, her debut on the platform offers a timely counterpoint to the pressures of New Year resolutions and instead invites audiences to consider how cinema reflects change that is tentative, imperfect, and human.
Films in the collection include:
- Paterson (2016, Jim Jarmusch) – available now
A quietly uplifting portrait of everyday creativity, in which fresh starts are found not in reinvention, but in noticing, writing and beginning again each morning. Starring Adam Driver and Golshifteh Farahani, it premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
- Urchin (2025, Harris Dickinson) – launches 31 December
Harris Dickinson’s debut feature explores how starting again can be fragile and uncertain, following a young man attempting to break destructive patterns and rebuild a life from the inside out. At the 2025 Cannes Film Festival star Frank Dillane won Best Actor, and the film won the FIPRESCI Prize .
- The Outrun (2024, Nora Fingscheidt) – available now
A return to childhood landscapes becomes an act of reckoning and renewal, as recovery forces its protagonist to confront the past to imagine a different future. Starring BAFTA nominated Saoirse Ronan.
- My Favourite Cake (2024, Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha) – available now
A tender, subversive celebration of late-in-life bravery, showing that fresh starts can arrive through connection, risk and small acts of rebellion at any age. Premiered in competition at the 74th Berlinale.
- Ikiru (1952, Akira Kurosawa) – available now
Kurosawa’s timeless classic asks what it truly means to live, offering a powerful reminder that meaningful change can begin even when time feels most limited. Re-made as Living in 2022 starring Bill Nighy.
- The Ice Tower (2025, Lucile Hadžihalilović) – launches 12 January
A haunting reimagining of transformation and rebirth, where fresh starts unfold through myth, imagination and the unsettling pull of the unknown. Starring Marion Cotillard and won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at 75th Berlinale.
Through her upcoming video essay and film selections, Dhillon reflects on the idea that fresh starts do not always arrive through dramatic change or bold declarations. Instead, the films explore renewal as moments shaped by creativity, courage, self-reflection, or the decision to pause and reassess. Together, they offer a cinematic response to the question of who fresh starts are really for, and how meaningful change often unfolds gradually rather than overnight.
Rhianna Dhillon joins fellow critic Mark Kermode, whose weekly picks offer audiences expert insight into standout titles across the platform. Her Fresh Starts collection sits alongside Mark Kermode’s Kermode Introduces collection which has previously included Parasite, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Showgirls, and I’m Still Here among others, highlighting a line-up of distinctive cinema with everything from emerging talent to international award-winners and cult classics.
Expertly curated by the BFI, BFI Player is an antidote to the algorithm so many other VOD services rely on to navigate their audiences. At the core of BFI Player are its thoughtfully curated collections, which bring together underseen gems alongside celebrated classics and contemporary independent films. By providing context and critical perspective, these collections help audiences discover not only what to watch, but why these films matter. Rhianna Dhillon’s Fresh Starts sits perfectly within this curatorial approach, pairing expert insight with carefully selected films that invite audiences to engage more deeply with cinema and the ideas it explores.
Alongside its curated film collections, BFI Player has also become a destination for exclusive filmmaker conversations and event recordings, offering audiences rare access to the creative voices shaping contemporary cinema. Recent highlights include George Clooney in Conversation, filmed at BFI Southbank and connecting audiences not only with films, but with the stories and people behind them.
Several titles featured in the series, including critically acclaimed films Urchin and The Ice Tower, will be available as BFI Player subscription exclusives.
Rhianna Dhillon is available for broadcast and print interviews from January 2026, and can speak about her Fresh Starts video essay, her film selections for BFI Player, as well as wider film and cultural topics.
For the month of January, all new customers can get their first year of BFI Player for just £50 when subscribing annually with voucher code NEWYEAR26 (saving £15 on a full 12-months of streaming).
For more information on BFI Player or to subscribe, visit player.bfi.org.uk
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