Drum roll, please. The BFI London Film Festival’s surprise film for 2025 is… Tunerwith Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman. Director Daniel Roher and London star Woodall even took to the stage at the city’s Royal Festival Hall to much applause.
The heist thriller, from a screenplay by Roher and Robert Ramsey, also features Havana Rose Liu, Jean Reno, Lior Raz and Tovah Feldshuh. The film, the first story from Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Roher (Navalny), had its world premiere in Telluride in August.
Tuner follows an apprentice piano tuner, Niki (Woodall), with a hearing condition that proves useful as he attempts to ease the financial burden on his mentor (Hoffman) by moonlighting as a safecracker. Liu plays Ruthie, a driven music composition graduate student who begins a relationship with Niki.
The feature film is a late addition to an impressive LFF lineup this year: Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig and the cast of Wake Up Dead Man: A knife-edge mystery inaugurated this year’s edition at the opening gala on Wednesday. Johnson said The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet, this is her most “personal” murder mystery yet.
On Friday, George Clooney and Noah Baumbach will premiere another Netflix film, Jay Kellyand Emma Stone will join Yorgos Lanthimos and Jesse Plemons for the UK premiere of Bugonia.
On Saturday, the BFI will welcome Chloé Zhao, Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley for their critically acclaimed film Hamnetand Luca Guadagnino will present After the hunt alongside Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield. A host of late-night premieres round out a prestigious lineup of Film Talks as Zhao, Jon M. Chu, Lynne Ramsay, Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Linklater and Tessa Thompson host industry-focused sessions.
Earlier this week, BFI London Film Fest director Kristy Matheson revealed her ambitious 2025 program with THR. “We are all struck by the formal audacity of cinema this year,” Matheson said of the overall themes she picked up. “There have been so many examples of filmmakers who have really worked to expand the medium into new and interesting places. It’s really exciting.”
The BFI London Film Festival 2025 runs from October 8 to 19.
