Rentals
Collections
Featured collections
BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival Presents
The home of LGBTQ+ film on BFI Player, with features, shorts and exclusives.
Based on the Bookβ¦
Literature has inspired some of the greatest films ever made.
French Cinema
France, the country where cinema was born, has given us some of the masters of cinema. cinema.
Carol Morley
Dreams, memories and reveries - the collected works of one of Britain's most distinctive filmmakers.
Best Films of 2018
Cinema can be sharpest at its edge. This yearβs chart has small stories told well, and grand adventures that magnetiseβ¦
Explore further
Women with a Movie Camera
Great films incite, others vex, a few elate. From pre-war to the present day, these remarkable works by international women directors do all that and more.
Documentaries
Fresh perspectives on familiar themes give a new relevance, as proven by our choice of the best in modern documentaries.
Best of BAFTA
A selection from the nominees and winners, past and present, honouring the worldβs most inventive storytellers. Woop
Margo test
Unmissable films from an essential source: the worldβs wisest film magazine, whose annual list sets the standard.
Cult Rentals
Camp controversies and obscure outsiders: Cult Cinema champions the underground unloved and the fervently rediscovered.
LGBTQ+ Best of 2018
Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspireβ¦
Working Class Heroes
A collection of films lit up by the charisma of working-class stars; a celebration of fine actors and remarkable leading roles.
Thriller
Who Can You Trust?
Trust few and fear all in a collection of films packed with paranoia and conspiracy.
American Indie
US independent films made away from the pressures and glitz of Hollywood have offered directors a greater creative freedom.
Coming of Age
Filmmakers love it, audiences live it. The rites-of-passage film enables us the chance to relive the past with wisdom, but not angst.
Black Star
The UKβs biggest ever celebration of black screen talent, shining a spotlight on the charisma and creativity of trailblazing performers.
Women with a Movie Camera
Great films incite, others vex, a few elate. From pre-war to the present day, these remarkable works by international women directors do all that and more.
Sex
How has cinema approached sex? Leave your inhibitions at the door and find out.
BFI London Film Festival Presents
A place to meet the world's top films and their creators, the BFI London Film Festival represents global cinema at its deep, diverse best.
Backed by BFI
From the Free Cinema movement to todayβs Lottery Film Fund, this collection is a selection of titles made by outstanding talent, and supported by UK public money.
Unavailable on DVD
This collection showcases a selection of hard-to-see features that are unavailable to watch anywhere else (legally) in the UK.
Halloween
Uncommon terror β and a few laughs β links them, and they show vintage names such as Dario Argento and Hammer Films, alongside perverse visions minted much more recently. Served chilled.
Chinese Cinema
From the 1930s Golden Age to the urgent, socially conscious cinema of Jia Zhangke, Chinese cinema contains many riches to discover.
Sci-Fi - Days of Fear and Wonder
Take a trip around the blazing worlds of sci-fi as we undock a blockbuster celebration of this most spectacular of movie genres.
Cannes Film Festival
Celebrate the Cannes Film Festival with our collection of major prize-winners and contenders from previous festivals.
The Biopic
Fascinating, diverse and frequently controversial, the biopic crosses genres to dramatise real lives in engrossing ways.
Ken Loach
Britainβs most garlanded working filmmaker has been an unyielding presence for half a century, rattling authorities and raging against injustice from the campaigning Cathy to Come to his two Palmes dβOr.
LGBTQ+ Best of 2017
Stories with hunger, lust and courage, adventures from the community to rouse and inspireβ¦
Girlfriends
Letβs hear it for the badass buddies, inseparable gal-pals and the wisecracking girl gangs of cinema.
LGBT Britain
This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.
German Cinema
A country once divided produces filmmakers of uncommon talent, storyteller reflecting the human story through national identity.
South Asian Britain on Film
Discover a rich history reaching back over a century as we celebrate South Asian communities and culture across Britain.
The Arts on Film
Behind the canvas with a movie camera: you can almost smell the turpentine in these fascinating portraits of artists at work.
The Pleasure Principle
From Victorian voyeurism to Soho striptease: how a hidden film industry emerged to satisfy the sexual appetites of (male) viewers.
Alan Clarke
Described as 'the best of us' by Stephen Frears, Alan Clarke was the most radical and uncompromising of the generation of directors who forged their careers on British TV.
Jean-Luc Godard
Cinemaβs perpetual provocateur has been inciting audiences for over half a century.
Inside Film
The camera flips inward to film the creative process. Watch rarities, exclusives, documentaries and special features from the artists and obsessives who make the films.
India on Film
Celebrating the diversity of Indian filmmaking and films about India.
Punk
Punkβs mad parade burnt bright and quick, feeding on the publicβs limitless love of disgust. Works from Julien Temple and Captain Zip immerse you in the movement, with music from The Undertones and more.
Soho Stories
Long linked to flesh and pleasure, Londonβs infamous district merits a closer look. Here youβll find jazz clubs, garrets, lewdness and lidos.
Other Grooves
An eccentric excursion to the furthest fringes of youth culture and alternative lifestyles, as captured in archive film and TV.
Best Films of 2017
Cinema can be sharpest at its edge. This yearβs chart has small stories told well, and grand adventures that magnetiseβ¦
Best Films of 2016
Cinema's big beasts assemble in our most popular rentals of the last 12 months.
Best Films of 2015
If you seek lazy reboots and prequels, go elsewhere. These films dabble in the distinctive, be it real-life stories, potent dramas or history with a twist. They show the wild diversity of films and their creators, and they indicate a medium in rude health.
LOCO London Comedy Film Festival
Comedy gold from the UKβs only international comedy film festival.
Refugee Week
To mark this year's Refugee Week, BFI and Counterpoints Arts have compiled a collection of films that explore refugee experiences in the past and present and across different parts of the world.
Shakespeare on Film
All the world's a cinema! How a century and more of filmmakers have raided, remade and refashioned the bard.
Cinema of WWI
A young film industry just settling into its own home - the cinema - found itself enlisted to record, report and dramatise a war unlike any other.
Sonic
Personal, powerful and lyrical, this is where music and film collide, a meeting place for rock biopics, probing documentaries, groundbreakers and old stagers.
Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival
Europeβs largest South Asian film festival is now online. Discover the best independent Indian cinema, from features and documentaries to on-stage highlights from the festival itself.
Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film
Gothic horror and romance tales feed on our darkest fears and desires, and conjure the creatures of the night into being.
Alfred Hitchcock
Bathed in blood and often shaded in blonde, the work of our most revered director is vivid proof of how film can awe.
Jewish Britain on Film
Jewish life on screen: a century of insights and hidden histories
Forgotten Features
Mischievous mermaids, murderous minors and military mayhem are among the highlights of this collection of long hard-to-see titles.
Family Films
Films for kids have changed dramatically over the last 100 years, as seen in this family-friendly collection.