[1] Roman Polanski's first feature-length film Knife in the Water and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie were also screened.

[1] 1967 saw the first features films directed by women screened - Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason, Agnès Varda's Les Créatures and Věra Chytilová's Daisies.

It opened with a spotlight on new Australian cinema, starting with Phillip Noyce's Newsfront and films by Bruce Beresford and Donald Crombie.

[24] The 1984 festival opened with Gremlins at the NFT on 14 November and closed on 2 December with a gala presentation at the Dominion of a new print of the 1924 version of The Thief of Baghdad starring Douglas Fairbanks with the score composed and conducted by Carl Davis.

Since 1986, the festival has been "topped and tailed" by the opening and closing galas[9] which have become major red carpet events in the London calendar.

The opening and closing galas are often world, European, or UK premiere screenings, which take place in large venues in central London.

[29][30] The festival had a "post script" the next day on 1 December with a Royal charity performance of Labyrinth attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales.

By the end of her tenure as director in 1996, the festival had grown to include screenings of over 200 films from around the world, more venues had been added, and more tickets were sold to non-BFI members.

It featured Max Ophüls La signora di tutti (1934) in tribute to former festival director Richard Roud who had died in February 1989.

It included a section Focus on Hong Kong which featured the world premiere of Jackie Chan's Armour of God II: Operation Condor.

The festival also featured the world premieres of Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet and Anthony Minghella's Truly, Madly, Deeply (under the title Cello).

[41] Due to classification issues, special permission was needed from Westminster City Council to screen Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers in 1994 and David Cronenberg's Crash in 1996.

[44] The 2002 festival was held 6–21 November, attracting a then record 110,000 visitors, opening with Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things and closing with Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me.

[1][43] The festival was held between October 222 and November 6, opening with Jane Campion's In the Cut and closing with Christine Jeffs' Sylvia.

[48] The fiftieth edition of the festival opened 18 October 2006 with the European premiere of Kevin McDonald's The Last King of Scotland.

European premieres in 2009 included Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs, Scott Hicks’ The Boys Are Back and Robert Connolly's Balibo, as well as Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni's The Well and Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's Mugabe and the White African.

In 2009, directors travelling to London to introduce their latest work included Michael Haneke (Cannes Palme d'Or winner, The White Ribbon), Atom Egoyan (Chloe), Steven Soderbergh (The Informant!

In addition to Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up in the Air, George Clooney supported his role in The Men Who Stare at Goats.

The Festival also welcomed back previous alumni such as John Hillcoat (The Road), Joe Swanberg (Alexander The Last) and Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers), whilst also screening films from Manoel de Oliveira (Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl), Jim Jarmusch (The Limits Of Control), Claire Denis (White Material), Ho-Yuhang (At The End Of Daybreak), Todd Solondz (Life During Wartime), and Joel and Ethan Coen (A Serious Man).

Clare Stewart was appointed as head of exhibition at the BFI in August 2011 replacing Hebron[46] and was the festival's director from the 2012 edition.

[1] The 2013 festival opened with Captain Phillips and closed with the world premiere of Saving Mr. Banks,[9] both starring Tom Hanks.

[55] In the first 60 years of the festival, it had shown 27 films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 19 by Satyajit Ray and 18 by Jean-Luc Godard.

Whilst it continues to be first and foremost a public festival, it is also attended by large numbers of film professionals and journalists from all over the world.

[60] The 2019 edition opened with Armando Iannucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield which was shown at the Odeon Leicester Square and at the Embankment Garden Cinema.

[62][63] The festival opened with the European premiere of Steve McQueen's Mangrove and closed with Ammonite, directed by Francis Lee.

Winners of the Sutherland Trophy, Best British Newcomer and Best Film received the inaugural Star of London award designed by sculptor Almuth Tebbenhoff.

Another woman was honoured with the Grierson Award for the best documentary; the Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom, who was shooting Sherpa as a devastating avalanche struck the Himalayas, in April 2014.

The Grierson Award for the best documentary went to Starless Dreams, filmed inside a rehabilitation centre for juvenile delinquent women in Iran.

This went to Issa Touma, Thomas Vroege and Floor Van Der Meulen for the documentary 9 Days – From My Window in Aleppo.

Touma, a Syrian photographer who regularly returns to Aleppo, said it was important for intellectuals, academics and artists not to desert the country.