The 2025 BFI London Film Festival has closed in style thanks to Julia Jackman’s superstar 100 Nights of Hero cast.
The Canadian filmmaker was joined by Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Amir El-Masry, Richard E. Grant and Felicity Jones at the city’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday night to wrap up an almighty run of premieres for the LFF. Key cast members Nicholas Galitzine and Charli xcx were not in attendance.
Jackman’s sophomore feature, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Isabel Greenberg, is a visually stunning fantasy set in a fairytale kingdom. Cherry (Monroe) is happily married to Jerome (El-Masry) and living a seemingly idyllic life. But the couple have yet to conceive an heir, so when Jerome absconds and his dashing friend Manfred (Galitzine) arrives with dastardly intentions, Hero (Corrin), Cherry’s wily and loyal maid, is forced to concoct a plan to distract Manfred by telling captivating stories about rebellious women.
“I’ve been dreaming of making this film for a long time,” Jackman said on stage. “And I actually, to be honest, didn’t know whether I’d get the chance. So to be here with you guys is incredible. Thank you so much for coming.”
Corrin, star of The Crown, Nosferatu and Deadpool & Wolverine, added about crafting the character of Hero with Jackman: “So much of it was in Julia’s incredible adaptation. … Hero’s all-knowing wisdom — she [has] confidence and knows who she is and there’s a real relief to playing someone like that. We chatted a lot about that, and [about] getting the comedy right.”
Monroe — best known for last year’s horror hit Longlegs — said Jackman’s script was “so incredible unique and so beautiful.” She said: “Even just reading the script, I could imagine this fantastical world. I fell in love with Cherry. … [There] was just this feeling of, like, needing to do this role.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s review out of Venice Critics Week — where 100 Nights of Hero earned its world premiere in August — described the feature as “eccentric, fey and surprisingly dark.” Leslie Felperin wrote that “viewers may start to expect anything could happen — like pop superstar Charli xcx showing up in a supporting role as an unlucky bride with barely any lines but a sumptuous assortment of jewel-toned gowns.”
It marks the end to another BFI London Film Festival after 11 days of star-studded screenings that had A-listers, including the likes of George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Daniel Craig, Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jacob Elordi, Josh O’Connor, Oscar Isaac, Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley and Daniel Day-Lewis, flocking to London’s Southbank.
The fest kicked off Oct. 8 with the European premiere of Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and hosted the casts of Jay Kelly, Hamnet, Frankenstein, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, After The Hunt, Die My Love, Bugonia, Ballad of a Small Player, Sentimental Value and Is This Thing On?, among others.
The fest has also hosted some of the industry’s most celebrated directors and actors for Screen Talks sessions at BFI Southbank, including Yorgos Lanthimos, Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Linklater, Jon M. Chu, Chloé Zhao and Lynne Ramsay.
“It’s not enough for a film to just have an incredible cast — the film has to really stand on its own two feet,” London Film Fest director Kristy Matheson told THR at the opening-night gala. “We’re really trying to find a program that’s got a lot of different textures in it, that really feels like it reflects the city that we are in. We want a really great geographical spread.
“We want different types of stories, because here in London,” she continued, “the cinema audiences are amazing. They’re seeing great films every day of the week here. They really do know their cinema, so we have a standard that we need to meet.”
A total of 247 titles — comprised of features, shorts, series and immersive works — from 79 countries premiered at this year’s festival, with official wins for Martel’s Landmarks (Nuestra Tierra), David Bingong’s The Travelers (Les Voyageurs), as well as One Woman One Bra by Vincho Nchogu and Coyotes, directed by Said Zagha.
