The festival will open with Steve McQueen’s “Blitz,” a film about London life in a moment of World War II, accompanied by a score from Hans Zimmer. In a UK first, special and gala screenings will feature the winners of Europe’s top three festivals: Sean Baker’s “Anora” (Cannes Palme d’Or), Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” (Golden Lion at Venice), and Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” (Golden Bear at Berlinale), a documentary chronicling the resonant return of African treasures from France to Benin. The festival will also present other notable highlights from the 2024 season, such as Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” starring Daniel Craig, Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” and “The Harvest” by Athina Rachel Tsangari, a key figure in the Greek Weird Wave movement.

For the official competition, eleven films have been selected. Among the standouts are Dea Kulumbegashvili’s “April”(the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival), which portrays the life of an obstetrician within rural Georgia’spatriarchal society, and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” also set in a mountainous region, but in Italy. Other notable entries include “The Extraordinary Miss Flower,” a film-performance from the creators of “20,000 Days on Earth,” and Irish filmmaker Darren Thornton’s comedy-drama “Four Mothers” about a writer’s weekend caring for four elderly ladies—an adaptation of Gianni Di Gregorio’s script “Mid-August Lunch,” the winner of the 2008 program.

As with last year, the rest of the BFI London Film Festival’s program is organized into thematic strands: Love, Debate, Laugh, Dare, Thrill, Cult, Journey, Create, Experimenta, Family, Shorts, and Treasures. The “Debate” section spotlights “Invasion,” a new project by Ukraine’s preeminent documentarian Sergei Loznitsa. This national portrait set against the backdrop of war serves as a natural progression from his 2014 work “Maidan.” Asif Kapadia’s “2078”offers a somber reflection on humanity’s present and potential future, reminiscent of Chris Marker’s style. Also featured in the “Debate” strand is the monumental documentary “Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989,” which reexamines the history of the Middle East conflict through the lens of Swedish television reportage.

In the “Journey” section, renowned documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer will present his fiction debut “The End,”starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon. This post-apocalyptic musical follows the last surviving family on Earth, whose sheltered existence in a lavish bunker is upended by an unexpected visitor. Oppenheimer collaborated with Mikhail Krichman, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s regular cinematographer, to bring this vision to life.

Viewers will also see the first film in six years by the esteemed British filmmaker Mike Leigh. Based on recent reviews from the Toronto Film Festival, “Hard Truths” is a tragicomedy typical of Leigh, exploring the vulnerabilities and resilience of the ordinary person in modern society. The film stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who previously delivered a powerful performance in Leigh’s seminal work “Secrets & Lies,” which won both the Palme d’Or and the Best Actress Award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.