London Film Festival 1989-2024: An Index

Because Films Inspire... some sort of hideous trainspotter impulse, apparentlyI started going to the London Film Festival in 1989, and I've been there every year since. Thanks to a combination of Spank Gold articles (after-the-fact writeups of the 1989-1997 festivals), reposts (pieces written for the old site between 1998 and 2005) and live blogging (since 2006), I've got a record of every single film I've seen at those Festivals.

Trying to pick your way through all of those is obviously going to be hellish, hence the index below. Similar to the equivalent index I've assembled for the Edinburgh Festival, each year links to the relevant piece on that particular LFF, including a roughly chronological list of what I saw (plus, of course, any additional films reviewed by Spank's Pals). As a bonus, you get a thumbnail-sized history of programme cover designs.

This will be updated each year after the LFF, so most of the time this page should be resident at the top of the LFF folder on the site. Have yourselves a good old browse through, and try not to think too hard about how much the tickets for all this lot have cost me over the last couple of decades.

[updated 22/02/2025 to include 2024 reviews]

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Spank's LFF Diary: The Wrap Party 2024

I think we can all agree that the absolute highlight of London Film Festival 2024 happens at the 0:35 mark in the festival trailer, where the synchronisation of Andrew Garfield's gesture with the 'come get some' refrain from I Got That Juice is pretty much frame-perfect. Actually, no, there's one person who wouldn't agree: the noisy cretin who was sat behind me at the screening of The Room Next Door, who'd obviously been given her ticket by someone else, and who complained to her viewing companion that it was a terrible trailer because it didn't tell you the names of all the films.

Some people are just too stupid to deserve movies.

Not you lot, of course, you're lovely. And to tie up the festival coverage for one more year, here are some (late) final thoughts on what got shown in 2024. Because she asked, she goes first.

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