If there was one scene that perfectly captured this year’s BFI London Film Festival and its growing importance on the awards calendar, it was around midday on the festival’s first Sunday at Soho House’s glitzy hangout 180 The Strand.
In a chaotic room overflowing with guests and elbow room at all costs, Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Colin Farrell, Rian Johnson, Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones and Kelly Condon greet each other politely and trays of canapés move among the bodies with expert precision. Meanwhile, away from the hustle and bustle and toward the slightly less crowded outdoor pool area, Guillermo de Toro was holding court at a table, and further back, Noah Baumbach was casually chatting with a group that included award-winning Lisa Tabak.
Netflix’s annual brunch has been a popular spot at LFF since its inception just a few years ago, giving voters, industry insiders, and the press the chance to listen to (well-crafted) Bloody Marys and have a short, friendly, PR-coordinated chinwag with the streamer’s handful of film talent. In 2024, “Emilia Perez” star Selena Gomez brought A-list buzz to the event (and sparked multiple selfie requests). But the 2025 edition was different. As one guest pointed out, Netflix was “serious about it.”
That wasn’t all.
LFF may be a public-facing event, but for many in the industry it also stands as the unofficial starter gun for awards season (at least in terms of international courting), with studios, streamers and indie distributors pouring in resources and star power like never before.
“It’s like having a film festival and other awards festivals running alongside it,” says one award-winning veteran. He points out one of the main reasons. London has the highest concentration of AMPAS voters outside the United States. Around 800 people live in the UK, accounting for 7% of the total, while across Europe the number is more than double to 1,750, or 15% (many of whom have flown in for the film festival). And these are numbers that are steadily increasing.
This year’s Oscars highlighted the importance of the ever-growing international bloc, with Palme d’Or winner Anora taking home multiple awards, including Best Picture, and a surprise win for Latvian silent indie animation Flow. London is a very efficient starting point to easily reach a large portion of these voters at once.
With that in mind, and with the 2025 festival lineup including nearly every title expected to enter awards contention, this year saw more industry productions, special screenings, and Q&As than ever before, with many films participating in multiple events. Insiders hinted at notable boosts for Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, del Toro’s Frankenstein, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt and Nia DaCosta’s Hedda. (Of course, there were some notable absentees: Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” already considered a failure in the awards race, didn’t make it to London).
“There was real confidence from the studios and independent sector that LFF represents a great opportunity to aggressively launch an awards campaign,” said Sam Ross, vice president of awards at DDA, the morning after the night, where his team oversaw five events. Ross points out that while most films may have premiered at other festivals and already had the “weird” awards screening in the U.S., LFF “is the first time all these films are coming together at one festival. So from our perspective, it’s a jam-packed 10 days of quality films and top talent filling screening rooms and attending all the festival-adjacent events.”
And these events are becoming more elaborate, impressive, and expensive. In addition to festival screenings and red carpets, there have been multiple screenings and Q&As for BAFTA voters, AMPAS voters and various guilds, as well as dinners, receptions, taste-setting events and parties. One awards official said the popular London screening venue had been “booked out for months” (and remained booked until the end of the year). And then there are third-party events, with AMPAS hosting its annual reception for new members and the Golden Globes joining the fray. Channing Tatum (The Roofman), Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ang Lee), Tessa Thompson (The Hedda), Claire Foy (Hoke) and more attended this year’s cocktail reception at the Dorchester Hotel.
For “Hamnet,” BAFTA voters were given three opportunities to see the film, once with a Q&A with Chao and the lead cast, including Paul Mescal and Jesse Buckley, and once with Chao and department heads.
Meanwhile, “Frankenstein” hosted a Netflix brunch and several other special events with Elordi, Isaac, Goss and del Toro in attendance, as well as an entire exhibit including props, artwork and costumes from the film at the Old Selfridges Hotel, located next to the famous department store. Ahead of the general release, Netflix bused guests from a special screening of the film at BAFTA headquarters to the exhibition, where del Toro and the stars made introductions. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the Mexican auteur’s last film, had its world premiere earlier in London in hopes of winning the best animation Oscar.
London’s status continues to rise, and talent seeking a vote on the court will have to make a far greater effort than the short 24-hour visit of the past.
“Now a lot of people come to town and spend a few days here, and we do multiple events during that time,” Ross says. The distributor is currently planning a Europe-wide tour around the film’s London release.
The busy schedule has not gone unnoticed, with talent traveling to and from the capital for concurrent events. Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington and other stars of director Rian Johnson’s LFF opening night film Wake Up Dead Man: Knives Out Mystery took to the Royal Festival Hall stage to screen the film. Rushed across the Thames to the Ham Yard Hotel, the film was filmed for Netflix’s Sensemaker screening Q&A (where Josh O’Connor, who unfortunately missed the premiere after returning home), then returned to the opening night party.
Although director Jon M. Chu didn’t even have a film on the festival’s program – Wicked: For Good doesn’t open until November – he probably went on a diary-breaking charm offensive during the festival’s first half in hopes that international voters might nab him the Oscar nomination that eluded him last time. In addition to his extensive on-screen talk at BFI Southbank, Mr Chew was also honored at a special BFI Lunch, joining the cast of the West End musical Wicked on stage at the Apollo Victoria Theater and being featured in special screenings of Singin’ in the Rain and 2001: A Space Odyssey at the popular arthouse Genesis Cinema.
With voter numbers growing and more production and talent moving to the UK, London’s newfound status as the premier award season bellwether, which has been building for several years, doesn’t seem to be fading any time soon. But further growth may require at least one change.
One attendee at the Netflix brunch said, “Next time we need to get a bigger venue.”
