Fridays are movie night on BBC Two as BBC Film announces a British Film Premiere season focused on talented writer/directors, including five breakthrough films from new, exciting filmmakers all made in partnership with the BFI.
The season celebrates writer/directors offering fresh perspectives, through their varied lenses, on life in the UK. Set and shot around the UK in rural Yorkshire, city centre London, industrial North Wales, Edinburgh, Oxford and the Isle of Lewis, with covering genres as wide-ranging as horror, musical rom com, psychological thriller, dark comedy, social realism, surreal fantasy and historical folk drama, there’s something for everyone in this curated season of British films.
Eva Yates, Director of BBC Film, said, “With this season, we are delighted to celebrate the creative vision of these filmmakers presenting the UK and the wider world in unexpected, engaging and exciting ways. Included are five debut directors, fresh new forces in British genre filmmaking, who make us excited for what they will bring to the screen next.”
British Film Premiere will present a brand new premiere on each Friday night of the season on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The eight feature films in this latest British Film Premiere season were all supported by BBC Film, the feature filmmaking arm of the BBC.
Friday July 31
Chuck Chuck Baby
Set in present-day industrial North Wales, Chuck Chuck Baby, starring Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey and Sorcha Cusack, is a film of love, loss and music set amongst the falling feathers of a chicken factory. The film had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and won two BAFTA Cymru Awards for Best Feature and Best Breakthrough (for Janis Pugh).
Friday August 7
Hoard
1984, London: 7-year-old Maria and her mother live in their own loving world built on sorting through bins and collecting shiny rubbish. One night, their world falls apart, and we join Maria a decade later, living with her foster mother. An older stranger, Michael, then enters their home, opening the door to past trauma, magic and madness.
Hoard received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it received three prizes, including the Audience Award and the Award for Most Innovative Film. Writer/Director Luna Carmoon was BAFTA nominated for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer and the film received six BIFA nominations, including recognition for the performances of Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Hayley Squires and Joseph Quinn. Luna Carmoon’s second feature, To Make Ends Meat, developed and backed by BBC Film, and starring Naomi Ackie, Alison Oliver, Éanna Hardwicke, and Armande Boulanger, was shot in the UK during the spring of 2026 and is currently in post-production.
Friday August 14
On Falling
On Falling was written and directed by Laura Carreira in her feature film debut. Carreira was selected as a ‘BAFTA Breakthrough’ and for Screen International’s ‘Rising Stars Scotland’ spotlight. Telling the story of Aurora, a Portuguese warehouse picker working in a vast fulfilment centre in Scotland, On Falling is an intimate and unwavering portrait of an isolated migrant and her relationship to the precarious labour that constrains and defines her.
On Falling had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its European premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it won the Silver Shell for Best Director. The film also won the Sutherland Award at the BFI London Film Festival, was awarded the Discovery Award for Best European Debut at the European Film Awards, won two BAFTA Scotland Awards (for Best Film and Best Writer) and received four BIFA nominations, including for Best Debut Writer and Best Debut Director.
Friday August 21
Silent Roar
Silent Roar is the feature film debut of writer/director Johnny Barrington, who received a BAFTA nomination for his short film Tumult and was a Screen International ‘Rising Stars Scotland’ honouree.
On the island of Lewis, Scotland, Dondo, a young surfer, refuses to accept the death of his fisherman dad, despite being missing at sea for over a year. Unlike quiet, dreamy Dondo, his clever classmate Sas is never afraid to rub people up the wrong way. Dondo and Sas’ unlikely bond will help them find their path in their rural community, through waves, beliefs, and hellfire. Silent Roar, which stars Louis McCartney, Ella Lily Hyland and Mark Lockyer, was the opening night film for the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Friday August 28
Tuesday
Writer/Director Daina O. Pusić presents her feature film debut Tuesday, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew. A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.
Tuesday is a heart-rending fairy tale about the echoes of loss and finding resilience in the unexpected. The film received its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
Friday September 4
Harvest
Athina Rachel Tsangari directs Harvest, which she co-wrote with Joslyn Barnes and which stars Caleb Landry Jones and Harry Melling, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Jim Crace. Over seven hallucinatory days, a village with no name, in an undefined time, disappears.
Harvest is a neo-Western about townsman-turned-farmer Walter Thirsk, benevolent lord of the manor Charles Kent, and childhood friends about to face an invasion from the outside world: the trauma of modernity. The film received its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it was In Competition for the Golden Lion.
Friday September 11
Club Zero
Miss Novak joins the staff of an international boarding school to teach a ‘conscious eating’ class. She instructs that eating less is healthy. The other teachers are slow to notice what is happening, and by the time the distracted parents begin to realise, Club Zero has become a reality. For its world premiere, Jessica Hausner’s film was In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to win the European Film Award for European Original Score.
Friday September 18
Starve Acre
Starve Acre is a British folk horror film and the second feature from writer/director and BAFTA nominee Daniel Kokotajlo, based upon the novel by Andrew Michael Hurley and stars Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark.
1970s, rural England. Richard and Juliette’s seemingly idyllic family life is thrown into turmoil when their son Ewan starts acting out of character, creating an insurmountable wedge between the once happy couple. Starve Acre received its world premiere in competition for the Sutherland Trophy at the BFI London Film Festival.
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