11 star-studded LGBTQ+ films you need to see at BFI London Film Festival 2026
Frank and Percy, Club Kid and Rose will screen at the London Film Festival. (BFI)
The 2026 London Film Festival is just around the corner, and this year’s programme features a host of much-anticipated LGBTQ+ films.
The film festival, running from 7 to 18 October, includes some of the most exciting titles still to come this year.
The festival will present 251 titles from 88 countries, opening with Simon Stone’s Elsinore and closing with Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut.
Alongside films, there are also screen talks from Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo and All of Us Strangers’ Andrew Scott to look out for.
Here are the LGBTQ+ films at London Film Festival we recommend you seek out tickets for…
A Long Winter
Gay filmmaker Andrew Haigh, director of the critically acclaimed Weekend and All of Us Strangers, returns with A Long Winter. Based on the 2006 short story by Colm Tóibín, the sensitive drama follows Mike (Fred Hechinger) whose life is upended when his mother disappears during the first blizzard of the season.
As Mike joins the ongoing search party, he must face the possibility that he will not find her. Simultaneously, Mike is coming to terms with his emerging sexuality.
The drama gradually exposes the cracks in Mike’s family unit, revealing unspoken truths. The film also stars Heartstopper‘s Kit Connor and The Bear’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
Get tickets for A Long Winter here.
Black Church Bay
Gay mystery-thriller Black Church Bay is certainly a drama worth seeking out at the London Film Festival. Queer filmmaker Rhys Marc Jones’ film follows the relationship between a teacher and his student that descends into a dark, tense and thought-provoking drama.
Set in a Welsh fishing village, school teacher Barry (Weekend’s Tom Cullen) and his openly gay sixth form student Jasper (Heartstopper’s Joe Locke) spend a weekend together. But the following week, Jasper doesn’t return to class and goes missing.
The film then centres on the lengths Barry will go to hide the details of his private life. Jasper’s disappearance throws Barry’s life into the spotlight as long-buried secrets surface and the community’s harmony is threatened.
Get tickets for Black Church Bay here.
Coward
Set in 1916, in the midst of the First World War, young soldier Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia) serves on the Belgian front alongside his comrades. He is desperate to prove himself in the trenches, but one day, Pierre meets the flamboyant Francis (Valentin Campagne).
Francis is unlike the other men, and Pierre joins him to stage a theatre show to entertain the troops.
A burgeoning romance blossoms in this unlikely location, where their lives are already on the line. Both seek an escape, and a shared investment in theatrics gives them a reprieve, even if only for a moment.
Lukas Dhont, director of Girl and Close, received a 12-minute standing ovation following the film’s Cannes premiere. The film holds a personal connection for him, as he grew up in Belgium, surrounded by war cemeteries.
Get tickets for Coward here.
Club Kid
Comedian Jordan Firstman made a splash at Cannes, delighting audiences with his comedy drama, Club Kid. The film follows washed-up underground party promoter Peter (Firstman) as his life takes an unexpected turn. Suddenly, he is forced to care for 10-year-old Arlo, his son, whom he never knew he had.
Firstman wrote, directed and stars in the film, alongside Cara Delevingne and Diego Calva. In typical comedic fashion, the director was elated that his film was premiering at the Théâtre Claude Debussy. He announced: “What an honour to play in the Debussy theatre. I love Debussy. I can’t wait for my film to screen in Debussy.” After the film’s screening, a bidding war erupted among six studio competitors. In the end, Club Kid secured a $17million sale to A24.
Get tickets for Club Kid here.
Elsinore
Simon Stone’s biographical drama Elsinore chronicles the life of gay Scottish actor Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott). Scottish stage and film actor Charleson is best known for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire.
The film will follow Charleson as he prepares to perform in Hamlet at the National Theatre in London. However, during this time, he is dying of AIDS and under the care of his doctor (Olivia Colman).
Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986. He died of AIDS-related causes in January 1990 at the age of 40. Also, his death came eight weeks after his incredible performance as Hamlet. He was among the first celebrity deaths in the UK openly attributed to the illness.
The film will also star Joe Locke, Doctor Who’s Billie Piper, Ripley’s Johnny Flynn, Bridgerton’s Monica Dolan and Bend It Like Beckham’s Juliet Stevenson.
Get tickets for Elsinore here.
Frank and Percy
Filmmaker Sean Mathias’ Frank and Percy stars Roger Allam and Ian McKellen as two men finding connection later in life. The unlikely pair, Frank and Perry, find friendship while walking their dogs. What begins as a platonic friendship blossoms into something tender.
This adaptation of the West End play, which also starred Allam and McKellen, will now debut on screen. The tale of late-blooming love is a warm-hearted and affectionate gem that is quietly powerful.
Alongside the acting legends, also joining the cast are star-studded names Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Derek Jacobi, Ncuti Gatwa and Siân Phillips
Get tickets for Frank and Percy here.
La Bola Negra
Los Javis, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, may no longer be together romantically, but their creative partnership is as strong as ever. The pair are back with La Bola Negra, an epic drama following the interconnected lives of three gay men. The plot shifts between 1932, 1937, and 2017.
Loosely adapted from the work of renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, La Bola Negra stars some big names, like Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close. However, early reviews praise the film for its period-drama ambition and scale.
Speaking to ScreenDaily, the pair emphasised that they focused on honouring the queer community. Ambrossi shared: “One of the main driving forces was this question: as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, do we honour, like we should, the people who were murdered, who endured repression, who fought for our rights? Would they look at us and be proud? I ask myself this very often.”
Calvo also added: “We also wanted to explore the idea of inheritance – the inherited hatred and shame – and how that is pervasive even today.”
Get tickets for La Bola Negra here.
Rose
Sandra Hüller stars as a 17th-century female soldier who disguises herself as a man to gain acceptance in a brutal farming community in Rose. Markus Schleinzer’s film follows Rose as she arrives in a secluded Protestant village. By posing as a man, she declares herself the heir of a long-abandoned farmstead and weasels her way into the strict rural community.
Rose then marries the daughter of a local farmer, Suzanna (Caro Braun), bringing another layer of gender-defying performance to Hüller’s complex role. The black-and-white drama promises to be an unflinching look at gender-based prejudice and intolerance. Rose was selected as the Austrian entry for the Oscars.
Get tickets for Rose here.
Sweet Milk Lake
Writer-director-actor Harvey Zielinski’s Australian coming-of-age drama Sweet Milk Lake follows a young trans man who’s mistaken for his cisgender twin brother. The film then chronicles the unexpected consequences of going along with that mistake. However, it’s not anyone making that mistake; it’s his estranged and dying dad.
When Jake doesn’t correct his father about his identity, he finds himself experiencing male bonding that he never had. It’s quietly rewarding and life-altering, but he just has to keep up with the lie. Sweet Milk Lane offers a distinctly original and fresh take on the complexities of family relationships and how important truth is.
Get tickets for Sweet Milk Lake here.
The Man I Love
The Man I Love, from Passages director Ira Sachs, is a highly anticipated film for the festival. The film is a musical fantasy drama set in the 1980s follows a New York theatre performer’s life after he’s diagnosed with AIDS.
Rami Malek plays the theatre performer Jimmy George facing an impending death with so much life left to live. Malek has shared that he was hesitant to be part of the film. He said he feared The Man I Love’s themes were “too similar” to his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody: “I started to really think about what I was afraid of.”
Malek also shared: “Was it the similarities? Was it the singing? Was it what was going on in the period? I knew I had to address the fear. If there’s anything Freddie taught me, it was address the fear.” The film also stars Tom Sturridge as Jimmy’s boyfriend Dennis, Luther Ford, Rebecca Hall and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.
London Film Festival will also host The Man I Love: Remembering the AIDS Crisis, a reflection on the legacy and lasting impact of the AIDS epidemic.
Get tickets for The Man I Love here.
Queer Edward II
This all-archival documentary presents the behind-the-scenes of Derek Jarman’s Edward II, set against the backdrop of the anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation of 1980s Britain. In Spring 1991, two simultaneous events unfolded: Jarman began adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film, and queer life was under attack in Britain.
Unravelled with behind-the-scenes footage from Seamus McGarvey of Jarman’s set, Queer Edward II brings archival footage onto the big screen. The documentary serves as a reminder it’s impossible to separate art from life and politics.
Get tickets for Queer Edward II here.
Other LGBTQ+ films screening at London Film Festival:
Animol: Ashley Walters’ directorial debut is a portrait of youth set in a young offenders institute.
Clarissa: Arie and Chuko Esiri’s sun-soaked re-imagining of Mrs Dalloway, set in contemporary Lagos.
Easter: A Korean trans burlesque performer is the star of this film about living life to the full
Elephants in the Fog: Nepal’s kinnar community is disrupted by a parent’s search for their missing child.
Fruit Gathering: Aung Phyoe’s striking drama charts a homoerotic friendship between two young Burmese women.
Geronto: Mark Pluck’s short film follows a man in his twenties and another in their sixties meeting at a discreet London pub.
In A Whisper: A young queer woman returns home to Tunisia for a funeral, but finds her uncle’s death shrouded in mystery.
It Gets Worse: Leo Reich’s series follows the twists and turns of young Londoners.
La Gradiva: High school students travel to Naples on a school trip that becomes a portrait of desire against the backdrop of Pompeii’s ruins.
Iván & Hadoum: Set in southern Spain, Ian de la Rosa’s film follows newly promoted Iván falling for co-worker Hadoum.
Masc: Bertil Nilsson’s film follows a young, queer, autistic man in search of a place to belong.
Marie Madeleine: Actor-director Gessica Généus’ film follows the friendship between a sex worker and a preacher’s son.
Mouse: The lifelong friendship between Callie and Minnie is put under pressure when they are forced to find themselves without the other.
The Blood Countess: Isabelle Huppert is the Blood Countess in this delightful and high-camp gothic fantasy.
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