This morning in Leicester Square, the line up for this year's Times bfi London Film Festival was revealed – and it's a doozy. Between the opening film of The Constant Gardener and George Clooney's closing film, Goodnight, And Good Luck a plethora of exciting new films are going to be available to the British public for the first time.
Among the galas are Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix; Separate Lies with Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson; Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer; The Brothers Grimm from Terry Gilliam; The Proposition, written by Nick Cave and starring Guy Pearce; Cannes winner L'Enfant; Caché, a French thriller from Michael Haneke with Danieul Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, and March of the Penguins, the nature documentary that has taken the US box office by storm.
On the basis of the clips shown this morning, Caché, Walk the Line and Goodnight, and Good Luck were the films that garnered the most buzz among the assembled crowds – at least from the list of galas. For there are many more besides, and here are just a few.
Lars von Trier is unveiling his Dogville follow-up, Manderlay, for one, while fellow indie star Atom Egoyan brings his already-controversial Where The Truth Lies to town. Cameron Crowe is bringing Elizabethtown, Park Chan-Wook is showing Sympathy For Lady Vengeance and John Madden's Proof with Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Everything is Illuminated is getting its day in the sun, as is Pierce Brosnan's film The Matador and hit US sports documentary Murderball. Steve Martin and Anand Tucker are bringing Shopgirl, while soon-to-be-cult fantasy Mirrormask gets a look in too.
Other entries include the drama Stoned, about the life and death of Rolling Stone Brian Jones; Takeshi Kitano's Takeshis'; Rwandan drama Shooting Dogs from director Michael Caton-Jones and starring John Hurt and Hugh Dancy; the Steve Buscemi directed Lonesome Jim and Love+Hate, a British drama about love and racism from Dominic Savage.
The full timetable and list of films showing will be available on the official festival website soon.