London Film Festival 2022: line-up, tickets, recommendations

Matilda, dir. Matthew Warchus (Opening Gala)

Following success on the West End and on Broadway, the Matilda musical – penned by Dennis Kelly with music by Tim Minchin – has finally found its way to the big screen. Kelly returns to write the screenplay for this bizarre, Dahlian tale, and The Old Vic’s Matthew Warchus directs.

The young girl Matilda (Alisha Weir) is burdened with bad parents, and she’s sent off to a scary school run by the authoritarian Miss Trunchbull (vividly played by Emma Thompson). But she finds literary solace in the loving teacher Ms Honey (Lashana Lynch) and discovers her own telekinetic abilities. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough also star.

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Photo: Sony

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, dir. Rian Johnson (Closing Gala)

Murder mysteries have become so ubiquitous that only the special ones rise above the rest. It's why Knives Out was one of the loveliest surprises of the festival in 2019. Writer/director Rian Johnson crafted Daniel Craig into a cartoonish detective for an Agatha Christie-like scenario, involving a motivated murder and a populous family of suspects.

For its inevitable sequel Glass Onion, Craig’s sleuth Benoit Blanc finds himself on a bright and sunny Greek island. A gathering of old friends turn up for a murder-mystery game, one that becomes a little too real. Stars Edward Norton, Leslie Odom, Jr, Kathryn Hayn, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe and Kate Hudson.

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Photo: Netflix

Empire of Light, dir. Sam Mendes (American Express Gala)

The day lockdown lifted was a golden time for many reasons, but especially for film fans. Cinemas reopened after months of uncertainty, reigniting old debates about whether venues will perish from the light of the small screen. But although the latter is still important, many still value the beauty of cinema – including but not limited to Sam Mendes, whose latest film Empire of Light embraces that glorious shared experience.

Aside from a teaser trailer, not much has been revealed about the film. Toby Jones plays a projectionist in a British cinema overlooking the seaside, with Olivia Colman and Michael Ward appearing to start a relationship.

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Photo: Disney

The Banshees of Inisherin, dir. Martin McDonagh (American Airlines Gala)

Martin McDonagh is constantly straddling film and theatre, which is perhaps why his movies are so rich in dialogue that's funny, profane and poignant. Following the Oscar-winning Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, his fourth film The Banshees of Inisherin travels to the west coast of Ireland for a dark tale of a broken friendship.

McDonagh reunites with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in their first collaboration since In Bruges. Set in a small, rural community, Gleeson and Farrell play lifelong friends Colm and Padraic. When Colm abruptly ends their friendship, Padraic tries hard to mend it. Also stars Barry Keoghan.

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Photo: Disney

She Said, dir. Maria Schrader (Headline Gala)

It was a nuclear moment that pushed #MeToo into the mainstream. Back in 2017, The New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey wrote the phenomenal exposé of Harvey Weinstein and the systems used to protect him. Before long, this led to more accusations: showing that the problem was bigger than one seedy studio head.

Maria Schrader (Unorthodox) directs this new journo drama based on Kantor and Twohey’s investigation, as portrayed by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan. Although the culture has shifted to suit the new consciousness ignited by Weinstein, She Said is the first film to tackle him head on.

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Photo: Universal

White Noise, dir. Noah Baumbach (Headline Gala)

Martin Amis once called White Noise a ‘beautifully tender fever dream’, which doesn’t immediately call director Noah Baumbach to mind. He usually has a Woody Allen-like aesthetic: mutedly examining the lives of creatives and/or intellectuals.

This film, then, is something of a departure. Based on the lauded novel by Don DeLillo, the story follows a ‘Hitler Studies’ professor (Adam Driver) at a university town that suddenly fills with airborne toxic waste. Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle also star.

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Photo: Netflix

The Wonder, dir. Sebastián Lelio (Headline Gala)

With Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman, the Chilean director Sebastián Lelio became a significant modern voice – challenging conservative forces and ideals. But for his latest film The Wonder, he enters different territory: digging back in time to rural Ireland in the 1860s.

Florence Pugh plays Lib Wright, a British nurse who observes a young religious girl in the community that claims to have starved herself for months. The 11-year-old Anna believes she’s surviving only on ‘manna from heaven’, attracting many pilgrims and tourists to the area. Sceptical journalist Will Byrne (Tom Burke) joins Lib, convinced that somebody is slipping Anna some food.

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Photo: Netflix

Decision to Leave, dir. Park Chan-wook (Headline Gala)

Park Chan-wook is one of South Korea’s most popular movie exports – wowing everyone in 2004 with Oldboy. His last movie was 2016's The Handmaiden, prior to making his TV adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl, starring Florence Pugh.

Now, Chan-wook comes back to cinema in a more muted fashion with his new detective drama Decision to Leave. The story follows a woman suspected of her husband’s murder and the well-meaning detective who's conducting the investigation. Making things complicated, they fall in love.

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Photo: MUBI

Living, dir. Oliver Hermanus (Headline Gala)

Remaking one of the most beautiful films ever made is a dangerous ambition, especially when the original was directed by a defining figure in film history and based on a story by a literary titan. But director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) takes on the challenge with his latest film Living – reimagining Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, which was itself inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s existential short story The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Booker-winner Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go, The Remains of the Day) adapts this British remake, swapping postwar Tokyo for postwar London. Williams (Bill Nighy) is a bureaucratic civil servant in the 1950s, who’s diagnosed with a fatal illness. He tries to find some sort of meaning to existence, helped along by his former co-worker Margaret (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood).

Photo: Lionsgate

The Whale, dir. Darren Aronofsky (Headline Gala)

Recently, after so many years, we’re seeing a fascinating resurgence of Brendan Fraser. During the 90s and early noughties, he was one of the most famous faces in Hollywood before largely disappearing. In an interview with GQ in 2018, he alleged that he was sexually assaulted in 2003 by a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – making him spiral into depression. Now, he’s gradually returning to larger roles.

This new film from Darren Aronofsky (auteur of mother!, The Wrestler, and Requiem for a Dream) is another important step in Fraser’s return, being his first leading role in nine years. A first-look image of The Whale (see above) sees him transform into a state of obesity. He plays a reclusive and severely overweight English teacher who tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter (played by Stranger Things star Sadie Sink).

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Photo: A24

Triangle of Sadness, dir. Ruben Östlund (Special Presentation)

Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund won the Palme D’Or in 2017 for his strange and brilliant blazing of the art world in The Square. This year, he won the coveted prize again for his funny, seething satire Triangle of Sadness starring Woody Harrelson.

The film follows a pair of social media influencers on a luxury yacht, living the high life with a gaggle of billionaires. But when the ship heads for disaster, all of them become stranded on a desert island. Modern-day hierarchies begin to dissolve as they struggle to survive.

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Photo: Charles McDonald

Women Talking, dir. Sarah Polley (Special Presentation)

With an excellent cast including Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Ben Whishaw, Women Talking is a harrowing examination of a group of abused women in a strict religious community.

Based on the 2018 novel by Miriam Toews, which was inspired by a horrifying true story of sexual assault, Sarah Polley’s third film allows these pious women to speak candidly about their situations and their futures. Do they leave the community, despite the judgement they’d face? How can they reconcile their faith with the reality of their assaults?

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Photo: Universal

Allelujah, dir. Richard Eyre (Special Presentation)

Set in the geriatric ward of a small Yorkshire hospital, Allelujah – based on the Alan Bennett play – dives into the lives of its patients as well as the doctors and nurses caring for them. Unfortunately, the hospital is facing closure. To combat this threat, they invite a news crew to document their preparations to celebrate their best nurse.

Call the Midwife writer/creator Heidi Thomas writes the screenplay, and Richard Eyre (The Children Act) directs. The film stars Jennifer Saunders, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Russell Tovey and Bally Gill.

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Photo: Pathé UK

The English, created by Hugo Blick (Special Presentation)

Although revisionist Westerns have existed for decades, they’re still refreshing to watch. Writer/creator Hugo Blick's new project The English embraces that revisionism with a revenge-drama premise, set in 19th-century mid-America.

Emily Blunt plays Lady Cornelia Locke, an aristocratic Englishwoman who seeks vengeance on the man responsible for her son’s death. She joins with Pawnee ex-cavalry scout Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) and travels across a violent landscape to wreak that revenge, but neither is aware that they have a shared past. Also stars Rafe Spall, Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds.

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Photo: BBC

Lady Chatterley's Lover, dir. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (Love Strand)

Let’s face it: banned books are often the most interesting. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is one of those historic literary divisions, igniting a failed obscenity trial in 1960 for its sex and swearing. That's never stopped its continuous popularity and constant adaptations, the newest of which stars The Crown’s Emma Corrin as Lady Chatterley and The North Water’s Jack O’Connell as her working-class lover Oliver.

After her husband suffers injuries from World War I, Lady Chatterley falls out of love with him. She starts an affair with her gamekeeper, who shows her a life of desire and intimacy she didn’t think possible – breaking the traditions of the time.

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Photo: Netflix. Emma Corrin in The Crown, season 4.