The 10 Most Hyped Films at London Film Festival 2014

The 58th London Film Festival kicks on in the capital this week, with nearly 250 films from all around the world showing over twelve days, and even more shorts, events and archival screenings on top of that. Like any major film festival, there’ll be a lot of chin-stroking French dramas, ponderous art movies and twee indie flicks, but there’s also some proper big films headlining as well. The LFF is now firmly established as a pit stop on the road to the Oscars and the awards season. It gives Londoners a chance to see some the films picking up major buzz already, and there’s also a few other big movies see the light of day for the first time. Even if you’re not going anywhere near the festival, these are movies that you’ll be expected to have an opinion on early next year. So here are the ten films at LFF that everyone is talking about – expect Brad Pitt in tank, Benedict Cumberbatch winning the war, Adam Sandler being serious and Eric Cantona.

Last time Brad Pitt took on the Nazis it was in Quentin Tarantino’s hyperviolent alternative-history cartoon Inglorius Basterds. This time though he’s got his more serious Oscar-bating hat on, as a US Army Sergeant leading a one-tank, five-man mission behind enemy lines in late World War II. Backing him up are Logan Lerman as the obligatory rookie on his first mission, End Of Watch’s Michael Pena, The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal and professional crazy person Shia LaBeouf. It’s written and directed by David Ayers, the man behind Training Day and End Of Watch, so expect the gritty street-level realism of those films transferred to a muddy field somewhere in Europe. But also with tanks blowing stuff up. Everything’s more fun with tanks. The closing night premiere is being beamed to cinemas across the country, so you can see Brad Pitt introduce it at your local multiplex. Or, y’know, just wait for it to be on general release. 

Alan Turing was a true British hero—a proto-computer scientist and pioneer in the field of artificial science. During World War II he was instrumental in breaking the Enigma code, which Churchill himself said was single biggest contribution to the Allied victory over the Nazis. So how did Britain repay him? Convicting him of the then-crime of homosexuality and forcing him to undergo medical treatments to remove his libido. Turing ended up taking his own life. Benedict Cumberbatch, cast staggeringly against type as a posh awkward genius, stars as Turing in this thriller-slash-biopic intercutting his heroic codebreaking with other important moments from his life, with back-up from Keira Knightly, Mark Strong and Game of Thrones’ Charles Dance. The film is the opening night gala, so good luck getting a ticket.

Do you remember there was a point when we all kinda hated Channing Tatum, and just thought he was a dumb, bulked-up pretty boy? That seems so long ago. Moneyball director Bennett Miller returns with another true-life sports drama, but unlike that Brad Pitt movie, this is a much, much darker tale. Tatum stars as an Olympic wrestler (the real-sport amateur version, not the fun type of wrestling where people get hit by chairs), whose brother is murdered by a paranoid schizophrenic. Also featuring Mark Ruffalo and an unrecognisable Steve Carrel, it’s bleak, brooding and promises the ever-popular attraction of seeing Hollywood stars look all ugly and like normal people.

The great JK Simmons—a character actor you might recognise as Spider-Man’s editor, Juno’s dad or a crazy racist from HBO prison drama Oz—finally gets a lead role in this frantic music drama. He plays the ranting, raving mentor to Miles Teller’s shy drumming prodigy, who’s struggling to make it a cut-throat music college. The film was the toast of this year’s Sundance festival—the prime breeding ground for America indie breakouts—and thunders along like a frenetic drum solo. We’re sure it’ll be a ‘hit’ (like a drum, which is a thing you hit, right? Get it? Look, coming up with drum puns is harder than you think).

Juno and Up In The Air director Jason Reitman returns with this ensemble drama about how a group of teenagers and their parents have changed the way they communicate—and feel isolated—in the age of iPads and social media. It’s got a great cast including Emma Thompson, Dennis Haybert, Jennifer Garner and Judy Greer, but real reason to pay intention is the appearance of one Adam Sandler. Yup, it’s time to sound the ‘Adam Sandler In A Serious Movie Klaxon’, as the much maligned comedian turns his hand to proper acting again. Whatever you think of The Waterboy (be honest, you love it), Sandler has put in great performances when he’s stopped trying to make us laugh. He’s brilliant in both Judd Apatow’s Funny People and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, and if he really put his mind to it he could have the dramatic career that both Jim Carrey and Robin Williams had.  

Jack O’Connell has come a long way from being that loud-mouth Northern scally in Skins. After his terrifyingly raw performance in low-key prison drama Starred Up earlier this year, he takes the lead in this Northern Irish period thriller. Set at the height of The Troubles, he plays a rookie soldier who gets separated unit during a riot and has to survive on the streets. There’s more than just shades of the Bourne movies’ Paul Greengrass in here—it’s an ultra-tense, nerve-obliterating film, which literally grabs you in a headlock from the very first frame then shakes you about violently for the next 99 minutes. In a good way.

Did you enjoy watching Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper don funny period costumes in American Hustle? Well, J-Law and B-Coops re-team for Serena, and the theme for this fancy dress party is the Great Depression. Jokes aside though, this looks like it could be a great historical epic. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by author Ron Rush, the film focuses on timber magnate George Pemberton (Cooper) struggling to keep his empire together following the Wall Street Crash. Lawrence plays his beautiful but manipulative young wife, who goes full Lady Macbeth after the couple discover they are unable to have children. 

To celebrate it’s twentieth anniversary, the stone-cold, official greatest hip-hop album (don’t even try to argue Reasonable Doubt) gets it’s own feature-length documentary, with contributions from the like of Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip, as well as Nasty Nas himself. Nas can often be as monosyllabic in interviews as he is eloquent on the mic, and we’re not sure what is necessarily going to separate this from the sort talking head doc that fills the Friday night schedule on BBC4. But on the other hand—come on, this is Illmatic. You’re going to watch it whatever. If there’s one record in hip-hop that deserves a film like this, if there’s on record of the 90s that deserves this treatment, it’s Illmatic.

A Danish western might seem like an eyebrow-raising choice, but this 1870s set revenge story looks like it could be fantastic. It’s a Casino Royale reunion as Bond villain and Bond Girl reunite with Mads Mikklesen and the gorgeous Eva Green headline a great cast. Mikklesen stars a Dane settler whose attempts to avenge his family’s death encourage the rather of a notorious gang leader (Watchmen’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and finds himself on the run. Mikklesen’s always fun to watch, but what’s got us really excited is the casting of none other than Eric Cantona as the lead enforcer hunting him down. That’s right, it’s a film with Eric Cantona as a badass Wild West assassin. We knew you’d be interested.