A star-studded programme has been announced for next month’s London Film Festival.

The British Film Institutes 59th annual celebration features 238 fiction and documentary features packed in across cinemas in the West End and a choice few others around the capital – including Brixton’s The Ritzy – over 12 days.

Featuring 16 World premieres and 40 European premieres, the festival opens with a red carpet gala screening of Suffragette on October 7, which stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep.

It closes on October 18 with the European premier of Danny Boyle’s biopic Steve Jobs, which stars Michael Fassbender as the Apple bigwig. Boyle’s previous films Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and 127 Hours (2010) have also had the honour of closing the festival.

 

 

 

Other gala screenings include premieres of awards-favourites such as Carol, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; Trumbo starring Bryan Cranston;  Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch and Joel Edgerton in the crime drama Black Mass; Brooklyn, starring Domhnall Gleeson and adapted by Nick Hornby; and Maggie Smith starring in Nicholas Hytner’s adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van.

A seemingly never-ending list of Hollywood stars expected to attend includes Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Bennett, Maggie Smith, Tom Hiddleston, Colin Farrell and Cate Blanchett.

Carol director Todd Haynes is among the filmmakers giving talks at the festival while The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan will present a LFF Connects talk.

London Film Festival is from October 7 to 18. Go to bfi.org.uk/lff