04 Nov 2025
Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) – the city’s home of cinema for over 85 years – has revealed its programme for November and Christmas 2025. Highlights include:
Christmas Programme
For many Glaswegians, Christmas wouldn't be complete without a festive film at GFT. This year, the cinema’s long-standing bestseller, It’s A Wonderful Life returns to the big screen in crisp 4K, along with beloved classics The Bishop’s Wife and White Christmas. Families can enjoy The Muppet Christmas Carol, Home Alone and Elf, whilst those who prefer unconventional Christmas films can choose from Die Hard, Anna and the Apocalypse, In Bruges, The Holdovers, Gremlins, Eyes Wide Shut and Batman Returns. The GFT Bar will serve mulled wine and mince pies throughout the Christmas period.
When Harry Met Sally will also screen as the December film in GFT’s regular Movie Memories slot, which provides a monthly dementia-friendly film in a safe and social environment, with tickets available for just £3.
Festival Highlights
French Film Festival
An annual highlight in the GFT calendar, French Film Festival returns to the cinema in November, offering audiences the chance to experience the latest and greatest cinema from across the Channel. GFT will screen UK premieres of Colours of Time, Wild Foxes, The Great Arch, Little Sister, A Magnificent Life, The Shepherd and the Bear, Arco, and The Girls We Want, including a Q&A from director Prïncia Car.
The cinema will also present screenings of Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, which dramatizes the creation of Jean-Luc Godard’s French masterpiece Breathless; black comedy A Private Life, starring Jodie Foster; François Ozon’s adaptation of The Stranger; and the Cannes sensation Sirât.
Taiwan Film Festival in Scotland
GFT will host four special screenings from Taiwan Film Festival – a celebration of contemporary Taiwanese cinema that delves into the intricate tapestry of identity, memory, and societal transformation. This festival serves as a luminous platform of encounter, where Taiwan's cinematic imagination dialogues with Scotland's cultural landscape, aiming to foster a lasting cultural exchange.
Screenings will include the poignant drama Sleep With Your Eyes Open; touching tale of modern romance Salli; black and white exploration of trauma and forgiveness, Yen and Ai-Lee; and the European premiere of Ça Fait Si Longtemps (It’s Been a Long Time).
Havana Glasgow Film Festival
November also marks the return of the Havana Glasgow Film Festival, which invites Scottish audiences to connect with Cuban cinema and culture, celebrating the special connection between the twin cities of Havana and Glasgow.
GFT will screen the UK premiere of the award-winning documentary Life is Dance by Havana Glasgow Film Festival Directors Eirene Houston and Hugo Rivalta, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. The feature will be preceded by short film Kimera (2024) by Yoel Infante and Alejandro Valera.
Q&As
The cinema will host several Q&As with special guests through November. On Tuesday 18 November, Demented Cinema will include two new films featuring Ron Coleman, who sadly passed away in October. Ron was a creative artist living with dementia who called himself The Demented Poet. These films show what an incredible artist, activist and human being he was and how his dementia diagnosis did not define or limit him. Both films are directed by BAFTA-winning director Ian Bustard, who will participate in a Q&A after the screening.
A special screening of new thriller Game on Wednesday 26 November will be followed by a Q&A with producer/co-writer Geoff Barrow (one of the members of the band Portishead), as well as actors Jason Williamson (from the band Sleaford Mods) and Marc Bessant, and director John Minton, who worked on the visuals for Oasis’s live shows this summer.
Fiume o morte! sees the citizens of Fiume (today called Rijeka) retell and reinterpret the bizarre story of the 16-month occupation of their city in 1919 by the Italian poet, dandy and preacher of war Gabriele D’Annunzio. A special screening on Monday 24 November will be followed by a Q&A with director Igor Bezinović.
Special Screenings
CinemaAttic specialises in pop-up film screenings, underground events and retrospectives on Iberian and Latin American cinema. They will present two special screenings of films by Argentinian filmmaker Maria Luisa Bemberg at GFT in November, in collaboration with Cinema Mentiré and Cinema Rediscovered. I, Worst of All (Yo, la peor de todas), which narrates the final years of the celebrated Mexican poet and nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, will screen in a new 2K restoration, along with a 4K restoration of Nobody’s Wife (Senora de nadie), which tells the story of an upper-middle-class housewife whose comfortable life falls apart when she learns of her husband’s infidelity. Made under the military regime, its story of a woman’s move from the family home to a life outside ‘the system’ was dangerously challenging, and Bemberg struggled for five years to get her script approved by censors, who saw her criticism extending from family to state.
Screening to mark the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Saturday 29 November, GFT will present a special preview of Kaouther Ben Hania’s acclaimed dramatisation of real-life events, The Voice of Hind Rajab, ahead of its release in January 2026.
After a hugely successful opening week at GFT, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another will return from Friday 28 – Sunday 30 November, playing from the only 70mm print available in the UK.
Two of GFT’s long-running seasons will also continue in November, with Burn After Reading screening as part of Coen Brothers of the Month, and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant screening as part of Queer Cinema Sundays, with an introduction by Jamie Dunn, Film Editor at The Skinny.
New Releases and Re-releases
GFT will screen a packed slate of new releases in November with some of the most anticipated films of 2025 arriving on the big screen, including the next instalment in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series, Wake Up Dead Man; Bugonia from Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite); Alpha from Julia Ducournau (Titane); The Running Man from Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver); and Die My Love from Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here).
Other new releases and re-releases arriving in November include Relay, Palestine 36, Pillion, Anemone, The Thing With Feathers, Left Handed Girl, The Wild Geese, City on Fire, Testimony, Zodiac Killer Project, The Ice Tower, and Dragonfly.
Accessible Screenings
In addition to an extensive programme of captioned and audio described screenings, GFT has announced the November editions of its long-running accessible film events.
Access Film Club, delivered in partnership with the National Autistic Society Scotland, includes a film screening and post-film chat in a friendly and welcoming environment. For the November event, GFT has programmed the spoof biopic, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Dr Casci Ritchie, a fashion and cultural historian, writer and lecturer, will give a 10-minute presentation about country music fashion before the screening. Tickets are priced £6.90.
Visible Cinema, GFT’s monthly Deaf-friendly film event, returns in November with a special screening of sci-fi classic Total Recall (1990) followed by a Q&A with Calum MacDonald, Director of Gibbet FX. There will be full access for Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing cinema-goers at this screening. The film will have descriptive subtitles, and the introduction and discussion will have Live Captioning and BSL interpretation. Tickets are priced £6.90.
Movie Memories, GFT’s dementia-friendly film event, will screen the classic melodrama All That Heaven Allows, as part of GFT’s Too Much: Melodrama on Film season, which is made possible thanks to the BFI Film Audience Network, through funding from the National Lottery. Designed to enable people living with dementia to socialise in a safe and welcoming environment, tickets for Movie Memories cost £3 and include free refreshments and live music.
Tickets for GFT’s November programme are on sale now from glasgowfilm.org and the GFT Box Office.
GFT is operated by Glasgow Film, an educational charity which also runs the award-winning Glasgow Film Festival and Glasgow Youth Film Festival, and is the lead organisation for Film Hub Scotland. GFT is the city’s original independent arthouse cinema and the home of film in Glasgow. Glasgow Film is funded by Creative Scotland, Screen Scotland and Glasgow City Council.
