The best films on BBC iPlayer (19th November 2022)
James R | On 19, Nov 2022
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.)
A Christmas to Savour
After being persuaded to go on a holiday cooking getaway, ambitious chef and restaurant owner Scarlett is reunited with a rival chef from her past, who offers some lessons in life.
Christmas in Toyland
Data analyst Charlie is sent by her boss to see why one of their stores is kicking the downward sales trend. There, she meets manager Grant, who has a contempt for corporate life.
Falling in Love at Christmas
Miranda, a tech guru, has developed an app to help Christmas shoppers select the perfect gift for their loved ones.
Christmas a La Carte
When food correspondent Carly gets a shot at her own show, she is sent to Angel Heights to help Grant open his diner and film it as a holiday special for her TV show.
Heart of the Holidays
When her job transfer falls through, stockbroker Sam Wallace is forced to return home to upstate New York, where she has to confront her high school sweetheart.
Fixing Up Christmas
Party planner Holly must persuade architect Theo that a festive event will build his business, while he thinks a digital presentation is enough to win the commercial contract he is after.
Baking All the Way
Accomplished restaurateur and cookery book author Julie Wilson finds herself in Wisconsin, attempting to wrangle a gingerbread recipe from baker Kris Thompson.
Dancing Through Christmas
When widower Michael meets Olivia, his daughter’s dance teacher, a flame is sparked in the firefighter’s heart.
Booksmart
This entertaining, warm-hearted high school movie is one of 2019’s funniest films.
Available until: February 2023
Easy A
A starmaking turn from Emma Stone, a serious lesson and an endlessly quotable script make this teen movie an A-grade classic.
Available until: 11th December 2022
Singin’ in the Rain
A radiant cast, impeccable choreography and catchy songs make this one of the most feel-good movies of all time.
Available until: 27th November 2022
After Love
Joanna Scanlan delivers a knockout performance in this moving, delicate exploration of grief and identity.
Available until: December 2022
His House
Remi Weekes’ directorial debut is a chilling, timely tale of a house haunted by more than ghosts.
Available until: 1st December 2022
Host
Rob Savage’s scarily innovative Zoom chiller is one of the best horror movies of 2020.
ParaNorman
This wonderfully dark horror comedy has heart, scares and spectacle for kids and adult alike.
Available until: 22nd November 2022
Ghost Stories
This chilling and entertaining adaptation of the stage play is a theatrical triumph.
Available until: 30th November 2022
What We Do in the Shadows
Taiki Waititi’s vampire comedy is moving, clever and mercilessly quick, but most of all, it’s exceedingly funny.
The Omen
Richard Donner’s veritable classic finds an American politician suspecting that he and his wife have adopted the antichrist. A string of horrible deaths and accidents ensue, from an innovative use of a glass pane to a grisly interruption to a family party – and, most memorable of all, a in-spired cameo from Doctor Who himself, Patrick Troughton, as a priest who sees what’s going to happen.
Available until: 23rd November 2022
Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Can your favourite stop-motion duo work as a feature-length film? By heck, they can: Aardman’s 85-minute adventure is full of visual slapstick, verbal wit and endless puns, not to mention Ralph Fiennes in his first truly comedic role – and, of course, a giant monster rabbit. It’s when you stop noticing the action set pieces are made out of clay that you realise just how superb it is.
Available until: 21st November 2022
The Evil Dead
Sam Raimi’s iconic cabin-in-the-woods horror is still groovily entertaining.
Available until: 21st November 2022
Drag Me to Hell
Scary, funny, and absolutely terrifying, Drag me to Hell is a great modern horror.
Available until: February 2023
The Babadook
Six years after the death of her husband, Amelia struggles to discipline her out of control 6 year-old Samuel, a son she finds difficult to love. Samuel’s dreams are plagued by a monster he believes is coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook called The Babadook turns up at their house, Samuel is convinced that the Babadook is the creature he’s been dreaming about. The Babadook astutely unites the wry, modern storybook incarnation with the genre’s disturbing past. The result is one of the horror movies of recent years.
Available until: November 2022
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
Night of the Living Dead
George A Romero’s 1967 classic, which sees a group of people barricaded in a farmhouse to survive the reawakening of the dead, remains as chillingly relevant as ever.
Available until: September 2024
Coraline
A pleasingly unpleasant bedtime story.
Available until: 22nd November 2022
Moonlight
This brooding deconstruction of masculinity and profound tale of identity is one of the best films of 2017.
Available until: November 2023
If Beale Street Could Talk
A beautiful story of love, dignity and respect, this lyrical masterpiece is one of the best films of the year
Available until: 2nd December 2022
Spooks: The Greater Good
Peter Firth returns as Harry Pearce in this entertaining big-screen outing for the BBC spy franchise.
Available until: 12th December 2022
A Little Chaos
Alan Rickman and Kate Winslet are charming in this low-key Louis XIV drama.
Available until: 17th December 2022
A Fish Called Wanda
Kevin Kline is hysterical in this screwball farce that might be the funniest British movie ever made.
Available until: 13th December 2022
The Lady in the Van
The true story of Miss Shepherd, an eccentric woman of uncertain origins, who ‘temporarily’ parked her broken-down van in writer Alan Bennett’s London driveway for 15 years.
Available until: 10th December 2022
Paddington
A charming, funny film that embraces everyone in the audience, regardless of age or origin.
Available until: December 2022
The Girl with a Bracelet
This understated legal drama may have you questioning your own means of judgement.
Available until: December 2022
Sorry We Missed You
Ken Loach’s powerful drama about a delivery driver struggling to make ends meet in the modern gig economy is a heart-wrenching watch.
The Truffle Hunters
Take a deep dive into the world of sniffing for truffles in Italy in this intimate and surprisingly moving documentary.
Available until: February 2023
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Featuring a career-best performance from Chloë Grace Moretz, Desiree Akhavan’s coming-of-age drama is an honest and moving depiction of finding one’s identity.
Young Ahmed
The Dardennes’ portrayal of a radicalised teen is a powerful drama that grips and enlightens.
A Farewell to Arms
Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper are on iconic form in this adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel about an American serving as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, who falls in love with a nurse.
I Am Greta
This intimate documentary gives us a personal insight into the young woman who’s become one of the most prominent climate activists of our generation.
Available until: November 2022
Wildlife
Paul Dano directs a stellar cast in this enthralling all-American drama.
Available until: November 2022
One Man and His Shoes
This excellent, unflinching documentary charts the story of the Air Jordan phenomenon, showing the sneakers’ social, cultural and racial significance and how groundbreaking marketing strategies created a multi-billion-dollar business.
Available until: November 2022
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 2022
Twelve Monkeys
Brad Pitt is excellent in this time-travel thriller in which 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.
Available until: December 2022
Young Ahmed
The Dardennes’ portrayal of a radicalised teen is a powerful drama that grips and enlightens.
The Human Voice
A beautiful story of love, dignity and respect, this lyrical masterpiece is one of the best films of 2019.
Available until: February 2023
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
This documentary about Björn Andrésen is a sad tale of fame and exploitation told with sympathy and empathy.
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.
Available until: February 2023
Zappa
Alex Winter’s lovingly assembled portrait of an unconventional artist is a fascinating watch
Available until: February 2023
The Young Offenders
A smartly written, brilliantly acted and very funny comedy that’s well worth seeking out.
County Lines
The dark realities of child drug trafficking come to light in this bleak, powerful drama.
Blue Story
Rapman leaps to the big screen with this authentic, urgently told story of young lives in a gang war.
The Plank
Two workmen struggle with a plank of work as they attempt to move it from a timber yard to their building site in this classic silent comedy directed by and starring Eric Sykes.
Jellyfish
This superbly acted coming-of-age Brit flick isn’t exactly what you’d call a comedy – but it’s a helluva set.
The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil
This intense, action-packed flick hardly ever lets up.
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 2023
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 2023
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 2023
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 2023
Starter for 10
James McAvoy is on starmaking form in this winning coming-of-age comedy that gets every answer right.
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 2022
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 2022
Run
Mark Stanley delivers an intense lead turn in Scott Graham’s poignant road movie to nowhere.
Available until: November 2022
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: February 2023
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: December 2022
Family Favourites
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.
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