Hyde Park On Hudson
Essentially an unofficial sequel to runaway hit The King's Speech , Hyde Park On Hudson is also set in 1939, covering the events of King George VI's (Samuel West) visit to Franklin D Roosevelt's (Bill Murray) New York countryside home, for a bit of international bonding in the hope of securing the United States' support during the impending war.
Directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill), Hudson could easily become the next big sleeper success story.
It's so far not confirmed whether Murray will attend the Festival (he's a hard man to get hold of) but expect big red carpet crowds if he does.
This Is England
If you're reading Total Film, there's a very real chance you've already seen This Is England .
If you haven't, here's your chance to see it on the big screen. If you have, here's your chance to see it again on the big screen, this time with a live score.
That's right, composer Ludovico Einaudi and Shane Meadows collaborator, musician Gavin Clark will be teaming to bring you an unforgettable live experience.
Get tickets for this one quickly, we expect it to sell out fast.
The We And The I
Michael Gondry's first film since the disappointing Green Hornet is a return to more experimental techniques.
The We And The I takes place in one location, over a limited period, following the school bus journey of a bunch of Bronx kids on their way home before they break for the summer holiday.
We haven't actually seen this one yet, but after Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind , we're interested in anything Gondry does.
We're hoping a return to experimentation will equal a return to form.
Quartet
Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut features a cast of sterling British talent, including Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins and Bill Connolly, in this tale of four aging opera singers who are reunited in a specialist retirement home.
From the pen of the screenwriter behind The Pianist and The Diving Bell And The Butterfly , expect this one to feature prominently during the awards season.
John Dies At The End
The ultimate cult movie finds an appropriate home in the LFF's new cult section.
John Dies At The End is essentially a slacker movie with monsters, best described as what it would look like if Lovecraft had penned Clerks .
Utterly bizarre, strangely structured and almost impossible to describe, John will divide audiences in two like an axe splitting a zombie's skull.
Put it this way, it's Don Coscarelli's oddest film. It makes Bubba Ho-Tep look like Never Say Never .
Those who hate it will probably walk out before it's finished, those who love it won't be able to stop quoting it.
See which side you fall when it screens in mid October.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Fresh from opening the Venice Film Festival, The Reluctant Fundamentalist 's complex take on terrorist ideology will come to the LFF, bringing its star-studded cast with it.
Riz Ahmed ( Four Lions ), Kiefer Sutherland ( 24 ) and Kate Hudson ( Almost Famous ) all feature in this story of how a young man from Pakistan sees his identity change in the United States after the events of September 11.
Read more about The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Sessions
Centred around a stunning central performance by John Hawkes, The Sessions deserves to be seen by packed out audiences at this year's LFF.
You might expect The Sessions to be a maudlin affair, as it follows 38-year-old Mark's (John Hawkes) mission to lose his virginity despite being confined to an iron lung after being paralysed by childhood polio, but it's far from it. Witty, warm and immensely enjoyable, The Sessions will be one of the films you'll be talking about long after the festival's finished.
Read more about The Sessions
Antiviral
With Antiviral , David Cronenberg's son Brandon proves that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and, in this instance, it's probably rotting from within because of all the maggots.
Antiviral is a dark body-horror with a premise that sounds like dad Cronenberg's early period with a modern twist: celebrity obsessives collect the diseases of their heroes, injecting themselves to get closer to their idols. Brandon Cronenberg has produced a dark tale for our times - one that's sure to get audiences talking when it makes its UK premiere at the LFF.
Read more about Antiviral
Robot & Frank
Essentially a buddy movie between a robot butler and a retired jewel thief, this well-crafted crowd-pleaser features likeable turns from its impressive cast - Frank Langella as the thief, Susan Sarandon as his librarian crush, Peter Skarsgaard as the robot - and a surprising layer of poignancy.
Funny, sad and sweet. If you want something different at this year's festival, join Frank and his robot for some weird fun.
Read more about Robot & Frank
Rust & Bone
Director Jacques Audiard’s follow-up to his acclaimed Oscar-winner A Prophet , Rust & Bone is an intense drama starring Marion Cotillard and impressive newcomer Matthias Schoenaerts.
Cotillard plays Stéphanie, a killer whale trainer who suffers a terrible accident.
Her life takes a turn for the better when she befriends Alain (Schoenaerts), a troubled street fighter struggling to raise his young son.
Screened in competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, Rust & Bone was lauded as a passionate drama that refuses to succumb to convention.
Cotillard in particular was singled out for praise for her affecting turn as Stéphanie – a performance that never strays into melodrama.
Read more about Rust & Bone
A Liar's Autobiography
And now for something completely different.
It's taken 32 years for Graham Chapman's A Liar's Autobiography to reach the big screen, and for good reason - it's a hugely complicated tale, packed with several surreal flights of fancy.
So it's fitting that this cinematic adaptation is as ambitious and experimental as the text that inspired it, with fourteen animation studios combining to bring Chapman's strange adventures to life.
Featuring sound recordings of Chapman reading passages from his book, as well as vocal contributions from other Pythons (including John Cleese and Terry Jones), this is as close to a new Monty movie as we could hope to get.
Beyond The Hills
Beyond The Hills , Cristian Mungiu's follow up to his acclaimed abortion thriller 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days , is a drama as terrifying as any horror flick.
It follows a woman's doomed journey to religious intervention, when she tries to tempt her former lover away from her Orthodox church community.
Mungiu makes high art of a fairly lurid premise - psycho ex-girlfriends! Lesbian nuns! Forced exorcisms! - with haunting performances and beautiful compositions wrenching seriousness and intensity from a true story that could've felt exploitative in the wrong hands.
Wolf Children
The latest anime from Mamoru Hosoda (who fans will recognise as the mind behind The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars ) Wolf Children uses the age-old 'girl meets wolf man, girl has wolf children with wolf man, girl loses wolf man, girl relocates wolf children to the countryside' plot and uses it to explore the nature of love and existence.
It's a departure from Hosoda's previous high concept work as, despite its fantastical plot, it's more interested in exploring the humanity of its fairy-tale story. A definite highlight of the LFF's animation section.
Celeste & Jesse Forever
A romantic comedy in reverse, Celeste & Jesse poses the question - can two best friends fall in love, get married, break up… and still remain friends?
As the titular characters, Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg use their natural likeability to sell a tough concept, subverting the rules of the rom-com to bring a fresh take on the generic love story to the LFF.
If you're a fan of 500 Days Of Summer you'll find a lot to fall in love with here.
Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Winner of both the Camera d'Or for best first film and the International Critics' Prize at Cannes this year, as well as the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Beasts Of The Southern Wild arrives in London with a wave of critical hype behind it.
And for once, the hype is justified - Wild is a magical experience, full of wonder and light, filtered through a staggering central performance by 8-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis.
You might not know the name now, but by the time Oscar season comes around, you definitely will - Wallis is a near-cert for a nomination, and there'll be an uproar if she's missing from the Academy's Best Actress list.
The film's plot follows 6-year-old Hushpuppy as she navigates a strange post-apocalyptic world, but to explain the narrative is to do the film an injustice - it's all about the experience of watching this one.
The Samurai That Night
Part of the festival's first feature competition, The Samurai That Night is a suspenseful revenge tale, concerned with seemingly mild mannered Kenichi Nakamura's quest to avenge the hit-and-run death of his wife.
To reveal any more would be to spoil the twists and turns this tale takes, but trust us when we tell you that stage-director turned film director Masaaki Akahori has crafted a masterful debut feature.
Intense and powerful, Samurai is a gem that we hope London's cult cinema fans will seek out.
For No Good Reason
This intimate documentary follows Hunter S Thompson collaborator Ralph Steadman over a period of 15 years, featuring rare footage from the Gonzo years and beyond.
With guest appearances from Johnny Depp and other celebrity admirers, this is the definitive guide to the man behind the iconic illustrations that accompanied Thompson's writing.
Nameless Gangster: Rules Of The Time
Half gripping gangster thriller, half meditation on the nature of human corruption, Nameless Gangster is essentially the Korean Goodfellas .
It follows a customs official as he becomes involved in a criminal organisation after discovering he's about to lose his job, tracking his ascension within the gang.
Featuring a typically fascinating central turn by Choi Min-sik of Oldboy and I Saw The Devil fame, packed with effortlessly cool moments, hip music cues and breakneck pacing, this is the essential film for Scorsese fans at this year's festival.
The Hunt
Mads Mikkelsen's masterful central turn won all the plaudits at this year's Cannes, and rightly so: he's superb, escalating tension through the merest of facial tics, cleverly crafting a character initially so warm and likeable that watching his journey through The Hunt is an unforgettably harrowing experience.
But this is a film packed with powerful performances - particularly from the child actors.
The Hunt is not an easy watch - after all, it's the story of a kindergarten teacher accused of assaulting one of his charges - but it's an essential one.
Seven Psychopaths
We've been worked up about Seven Psychopaths on the basis that it's writer-director Martin McDonagh's first film since the incredible In Bruges .
But now we've seen the red band trailer, and the exclusive clip screened at the LFF press launch, we're excited purely because it looks utterly brilliant.
A gangster flick with a twist - our hero is a struggling screenwriter trying to complete a film script - Seven Psychopaths features TF favorites Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits AND Christopher Walken, all having a ball with McDonagh's sparkling dialogue.
If this isn't the most quotable film at this year's LFF, we'll be very surprised.
Argo
Ben Affleck's acclaimed third feature follows the unbelievable true story of a CIA agent who pretends to make a science-fiction film as a cover to extradite six Americans caught up in the Iranian revolution.
Think Bowfinger meets Persepolis .
Affleck's Argo has been tipped for Oscar glory, London audiences will get to decide for themselves in October.
My Brother The Devil
At first glance, My Brother The Devi l might look like another Adulthood knock-off. But it's far, far more interesting than that.
A key twist - which we won't reveal here - elevates Devil , making it both a surprising and subversive take on gang movie cliches.
Featuring mesmerising central performances by kids pulled from council estates, who were filmed in Hackney during last year's riots, Devil won the cinematography award at Sundance and Best European Film at Berlin. You can see it first in its home, London.
Crossfire Hurricane
It's a world premiere for the LFF and a massive treat for rock fans - The Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane will debut at the festival, and we fully expect to see Mick Jagger and his mates roll down the red carpet.
Directed by Brett Morgen - the man behind the preposterously entertaining Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays In The Picture - and featuring unseen historical footage, new performances, commentary from Jagger, Richards, Wood and Watts, as well as contributions from former Stones Wyman and Taylor, Hurricane will be the perfect way to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary.
Sightseers
Despite the fact that Sightseers features more murders than its horror-flick predecessor Kill List , the London Film Festival has put director Ben Wheatley's dark tale into the 'Laugh' section of its programming.
And for good reason, Sightseers is a very, very funny comedy - as long as your sense of humor is darker than David Fincher hanging himself during a power cut.
Essentially a National Trust Born Killers , Sightseers follows a pair of British serial killers as they go on a caravan holiday to the Yorkshire countryside. We've seen it, we love it; you will too.
Amour
Michael Haneke's extraordinary Palme d'Or winner comes to London, offering general audiences the chance to see the film Cannes journalists fell over each other to praise.
The story of an elderly couple's struggle to cope when one of them suffers a stroke, Amour is a stunning exploration of the nature of love, and what it means to be human as we approach the end of our lives.
Almost impossibly powerful, Amour is cinema at its very best. If you only buy one ticket this year, make it this.
