The best films on BBC iPlayer (30th September 2024)
David Farnor | On 30, Sep 2024
Who needs to pay for a subscription when you can stream new and old cinematic gems alike for free on BBC iPlayer?
What films are currently available on BBC iPlayer? We round up the best movies on BBC iPlayer right now, with their expiry dates listed so you know how long you have to stream them. (Click here to see our reviews of the best TV shows on BBC iPlayer.)
Parallel Mothers
Pedro Almodóvar’s thrilling, thoughtful and playful melodrama is powered by two phenomenal performances
Available until: November 2024
Pain and Glory
Antonio Banderas is powerfully understated in Pedro Almodóvar’s beautifully personal meditation on film and memory.
Available until: November 2024
Decision to Leave
Park Chan-wook’s psycho-romance is the South Korean master’s most mature work to date.
Available until: 23rd October 2024
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Paul Newman is on brooding form in this powerful melodrama adapted from the Tennessee Williams play.
Available until: 27th October 2024
Copa ’71: The Lost Lionesses
In August 1971, football teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy gathered in Mexico City for a tournament attended by 100,000 fans at the historic Azteca stadium – so why has nobody heard about it since? This moving, superbly edited documentary shines a light on a piece of sporting history that has been unfairly forgotten in time.
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
A reluctant teacher is posted to the most remote school on Earth in this Oscar-nominated feel-good film from Bhutan.
A Bunch of Amateurs
This warm-hearted documentary about a film club in Bradford is a winning celebration of community and cinema.
Aftersun
Paul Mescal is heartbreakingly good in this poignant, absorbing trip through a summer memory.
Lady Macbeth
This suffocatingly intense period drama is one of the best films of 2017, with a jaw-dropping performance by Florence Pugh.
Available until: 6th October 2024
Eternal Beauty
Sally Hawkins delivers a standout performance as a woman battling depression and schizophrenia in Craig Roberts’ second directorial effort.
The Last Black Man in San Francisco
A masterful love letter to the everyday artistry of San Francisco.
Available until: 22nd October 2024
Belle
Visual spectacle and hard-hitting themes make this timely take on Beauty and the Beast a feast for the eyes and heart.
Available until: 12th October 2024
Moonlight
This brooding deconstruction of masculinity and profound tale of identity is one of the best films of 2017.
Available until: 1st October 2024
Judy
Renée Zellweger is remarkable in this enchanting biopic of Judy Garland.
Available until: 7th October 2024
Respect
Jennifer Hudson delivers a powerhouse performance in this engaging biopic of Aretha Franklin.
Available until: 11th October 2024
A Star Is Born
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga shine in this foot-stomping tearjerker of a musical.
Available until: 24th October 2024
The Young Offenders
A smartly written, brilliantly acted and very funny comedy that’s well worth seeking out.
The History Boys
Alan Bennett’s superb stage play is turned into an equally excellent film, with the inimitable Richard Griffiths as Hector, a history teacher trying to coach a class of 1980s Yorkshire lads into successful Oxbridge candidates. If the clash of backgrounds recalls Dead Poets Society, it is no bad thing, as Bennett takes the sentiment of carpe diem out of the present and into a uniquely British and altogether moving future: sometimes all you can do is pass it on.
The Proposal
Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds have chemistry to spare in this comedy about a put-upon assistant agrees to marry his strict boss.
Available until: 8th October 2024
Bill
This funny Shakespeare biopic from the Horrible Histories team is Monty Python for kids.
Available until: September 2024
Coco
This vivid celebration of family, love and memories doesn’t quite take a seat among Pixar’s greats.
Available until: 21st October 2024
Full Time
Call My Agent’s Laure Calamy is sensational in this gripping domestic drama that’s shot and edited like a high-stakes thriller.
Sicario
Denis Villeneuve’s thriller is so intense it has blisters on its blisters.
Available until: February 2025
A Bigger Splash
A steamy thriller driven by four superb performances, A Bigger Splash is cinema to soak up and savour.
Available until: 28th October 2024
Alien
This sci-fi horror classic is a precisely terrifying feat of film-making in every possible way.
Available until: 13th October 2024
Twelve Monkeys
Brad Pitt plays a convict from 2035 is sent back in time to find the cause of a virus which has wiped out most of the planet’s population in Terry Gilliam’s time travel classic.
Relic
Natalie Erika James’ thoughtful, terrifying debut is a haunted house tale with heart.
Hounded
Tommy Boulding’s timely class-conscious thriller pits dogs against underdogs in England’s uneven social landscapes.
Available until: September 2025
The Gift
Joel Edgerton is perfectly unnerving in this masterful psychological horror.
The Blair Witch Project
The definitive found footage flick is still eerily atmospheric.
The Babadook
Unsettling Australian horror tale. Widow Amelia’s worries about her highly strung young son’s behaviour worsen when a mysterious pop-up book inspires fresh fears.
Cat People
The first horror film producer Val Lewton made for RKO Pictures redefined the genre by leaving its terrors to the audience’s imagination. A Serbian émigré in Manhattan believes that, because of an ancient curse, any physical intimacy with the man she loves will turn her into a feline predator.
I Walked with a Zombie
A nurse tending a paralysed woman on a Caribbean island discovers that her charge hides a terrifying secret. Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 classic stars Frances Dee and Tom Conway.
Available until: 23rd October 2024
Ali & Ava
Clio Barnard’s beautifully warm tale of acceptance and affection is an understated delight.
Persian Lessons
A strong cast elevates this unusual, uneven but ultimately moving wartime drama.
Available until: November 2024
Suite Francaise
A rich and loving tribute to the sublime work of its original author.
Available until: 3rd October 2024
The Long Hot Summer
Drifter Ben Quck, drummed out of town for a barn-burning he had nothing to do with, moves to the town of Frenchman’s Bend and the steamy world of the Varners, a dynastic Mississippi family. Paul Newman stars.
Available until: 21st October 2024
Wildlife
Paul Dano directs a stellar cast in this enthralling all-American drama.
My Summer of Love
Natalie Press and Emily Blunt star in Paweł Pawlikowski’s drama about an unlikely relationship that develops over the course of a summer.
Man on the Moon
Jim Carrey is remarkable in this biopic of controversial comedian Andy Kaufman. Star of Taxi and Saturday Night Live, Kaufman’s unorthodox humour was often misunderstood.
Available until: December 2024
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House
Cary Grant and Myrna Loy star in this comedy about a family forced out of their Manhattan apartment court disaster when they buy a dilapidated country house, fit only for demolition.
Blue Story
Rapman leaps to the big screen with this authentic, urgently told story of young lives in a gang war.
Fort Apache
The first of John Ford’s cavalry trilogy, in which a demoted commanding officer takes his resentment out on the men of Fort Apache, a remote outpost in the Arizona desert.
Available untiL: February 2025
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Western drama with John Wayne as a US cavalry officer on his last duty before retiring, escorting two women civilians to a stagecoach. The second in John Ford’s cavalry trilogy.
Available until: February 2025
The Outlaw
Unconventional western about the life of outlaw Billy the Kid, including his partnership with Doc Holliday and clashes with lawman Pat Garrett. Stars Jane Russell and Jack Buetel.
Available untiL: February 2025
Rancho Notorious
Unusual western about a young man hunting for the brutal killers of his fiancee. A rare foray into the genre for director Fritz Lang.
Available until: February 2025
Silver Screen Classics
Silver Screen Classics: Collection 1
BBC iPlayer has the rights to a bunch of classics from old Hollywood studio RKO, including Citizen Kane (1941), King Kong (1933), Suspicion (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Top Hat (1935). Others include Angel Face (1952), Beautiful But Dangerous (1954), Blackbeard the Pirate (1952), Bringing Up Baby, Carefree (1938), Fort Apache (1948), The Gay Divorce (1934), Kitty Foyle (1940), Love Affair (1939), Miracle of the Bells (1948), Mr Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse (1948), My Favourite Wife (1940), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Sky’s the Limit (1943), The Spanish Main (1945), The Velvet Touch (1948), Vivacious Lady (1938) and Wagon Master (1950).
Available until: November 2024
Silver Screen Classics: Collection 2
Just when you think BBC iPlayer can’t spoil us any more, up pops a second wave of classic films from RKO Pictures, one of Hollywood’s Golden Age studios. This collection includes the classic Gershwin musical A Damsel in Distress, classic 1950s chiller The Thing from Another World, and more Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Cary Grant than you can shake a stick at. Other titles include: Second Chance, I Remember Mama, Holiday Affair, Bachelor Knight, Yellow Canary, Primrose Path, Sylvia Scarlett, Hotel Reserve, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars.
Available until: November 2024
iPlayer Originals and Exclusives
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
Tragicomedy directed by Ben Wheatley about the difficulty of family relations. Middle-aged Colin organises a New Year’s Eve gathering for his extended family. Read our review
Available until: December 2024
The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist
The Exorcist is, without a doubt, one of the scariest films ever made – and, without a doubt, the man most determined to convince you of that fact is Mark Kermode. The BBC critic is known for his ardent love of William Friedkin’s seminal horror, so it is no surprise that in 1998, he wound up presenting a documentary marking its 25th anniversary. 21 years on, however, it is a surprise that BBC iPlayer should bring it back to our screens for Halloween, after the documentary has existed in various cuts in various places but never available to stream legally until now. Read our full review
Available until: November 2025/a>
Family Shorts
The Gruffalo
The definitive adaptation of Julia Donaldson’s book tells the magical tale of a mouse who takes a walk through the woods in search of a nut – and tells everyone he meets of his imaginary creature.
The Gruffalo’s Child
A little Gruffalo ignores her father’s warnings and tiptoes out into the snow in search of the Big Bad Mouse in this charming sequel.
Zog
The story of a keen young dragon in his first years at Dragon School.
Room on the Broom
A kind witch invites a surprising collection of animals to join her on her broom, much to the frustration of her cat.
The Highway Rat
A greedy rat (David Tennant) travels the highway in search of other animals’ food, before his sweet tooth finally leads him to a sticky outcome.
Stick Man
Stick Man tells the tale of a happy-go-lucky father’s epic journey to make it home in time for Christmas.