Part of the series When Carolco Ruled.

The film that transformed Sharon Stone into an international star, Basic Instinct reunited her with Paul Verhoeven following her scene-stealing performance in the director’s previous Carolco production, Total Recall (1990). It also proved a spectacular succès de scandale for the studio, becoming the highest-grossing film at the UK box office in 1992. Stone is mesmerising as Catherine Trammell, the bestselling crime novelist and suspected ice-pick murderess whose cool composure reaches its apotheosis in cinema’s most infamous police interrogation scene. A Hitchcockian blonde ice queen who appears to thaw in the company of SFPD detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas)—though whether this is genuine vulnerability or yet another act of manipulation remains tantalisingly unresolved—Trammell dominates a film of predatory eroticism that moves with pantherine grace. Complemented by one of Jerry Goldsmith’s finest late-career scores, Verhoeven’s thriller sustains an atmosphere of sensuality and menace that has lost none of its intoxicating power.

Award-winner Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) plays the title role in this razor-sharp reimagining of Molière’s classic dark comedy. Telling the truth isn’t always that simple. Alice, a brilliant novelist, despises the carefully constructed lies of modern society. But the more she challenges those around her, the fiercer the backlash becomes. Soon, she must confront the price of speaking her truth in a world that would rather silence her. Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Indhu Rubasingham directs Martin Crimp’s (Cyrano de Bergerac) highly anticipated play.

Runtime TBC. Interval TBC.

Part of the series When Carolco Ruled.

The film that transformed Carolco from a fledgling production outfit into a genuine Hollywood powerhouse, Ted Kotcheff’s First Blood was the runaway success that announced the company’s arrival among the major players of the American film industry. A taut, muscular adaptation of David Morrell’s acclaimed 1972 novel, the picture introduced Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo: a traumatised Vietnam veteran whose explosive potential lay beneath a haunted, withdrawn exterior. Arriving in the small town of Hope, Washington, after attempting to pay his respects to a former army comrade lost to the long-term effects of Agent Orange exposure, Rambo finds himself targeted by local sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy), whose casual abuse of authority turns a routine encounter into an act of provocation with devastating consequences. Mistaking a damaged survivor for a drifter and a threat, Teasle unwittingly awakens the combat instincts of one of America’s most formidable cinematic antiheroes. Part survival thriller, part psychological drama, and part reckoning with the unresolved wounds of the Vietnam era, First Blood became not only a landmark action film but the cornerstone of Carolco’s ascent — the breakthrough that proved the company could compete on the biggest stage and paved the way for its future as one of Hollywood’s most ambitious independent studios.

A vanished wife. A borrowed name. A house in the Portuguese countryside. Grieving and aimless, quiet geography teacher Fernando slips into another man's identity as a garden - and finds, in the friendship that follows, a life that isn't his own. A tender and hopeful story about connection and purpose.

Revered filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon) returns to the silver screen with HER PRIVATE HELL. As a strange mist unleashes an elusive darkness, a young actress (Sophie Thatcher) and an American GI (Charles Melton) find their lives intertwined in a hypnotic, neon-drenched moodscape where memory, reality, and survival collide.

The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.  Iñárritu's latest - shot entirely in VistaVision - features standout performances from Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller and Michael Stuhlbarg. Think Iñárritu crossed with Dr. Strangelove and you're on the right track.

A timeless celebration of wonder, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory remains one of cinema’s most enchanting fantasies. When the elusive confectioner Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) announces that five golden tickets hidden within his chocolate bars will grant their finders access to his mysterious factory—and a lifetime supply of sweets—the world is swept into a frenzy. Among those dreaming of discovery is the kind-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), whose modest circumstances make the prospect seem impossibly distant. What follows is a journey into a world where rivers flow with chocolate, inventions defy belief and every corner conceals a new surprise. Anchored by Wilder’s unforgettable performance, this remains a beloved classic 55 years on.

This year marks the centenary of Lotte Reiniger’s landmark masterpiece The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). Inspired by the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, Reiniger’s pioneering feature is presented alongside three further fairy-tale films, offering a rare opportunity to experience the full breadth of her imagination. Created entirely by hand from intricately cut card silhouettes and animated with remarkable precision using sheets of lead beneath the camera, these films conjure worlds of astonishing invention. Witches, enchanted kingdoms, courageous princes and radiant princesses emerge in a dazzling interplay of shadow, colour and light.

Screening on 35mm, followed by a Q&A with the film's producer (and IIFF Executive Producer), Richard Johns. E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire inhabits the liminal space between cinematic myth and historical fiction, reimagining the making of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu as a dark fable of artistic obsession. As Murnau pursues absolute authenticity, the boundaries between performance and reality begin to dissolve with the arrival of the enigmatic Max Schreck. Willem Dafoe’s extraordinary portrayal of Schreck, alongside John Malkovich’s fiercely driven Murnau, anchors a film steeped in gothic wit. Both homage and provocation, Shadow of the Vampire remains a cult classic of contemporary cinema and a richly atmospheric meditation on ambition and the monstrous price of immortality through film.

Producer in attendance.

Screening on VHS. Emerging from the restless energy of New York’s underground arts scene, Variety stands as one of the defining independent works of the 1980s. Written by the iconoclastic Kathy Acker and directed with remarkable precision by Bette Gordon, the film follows Christine (Sandy McLeod), who takes a job at a pornographic cinema in Times Square. What begins as an ordinary act of employment evolves into a provocative journey through desire, fantasy and self-discovery. Refusing easy categorisation, Variety turns the gaze back on itself, offering a radical exploration of female voyeurism rarely seen on screen. Sensual, unsettling and hypnotic, it lingers like a half-remembered dream of a vanished New York—a film in which looking becomes longing, and the city itself seems to stare back.

John Huston’s elegiac anti-western The Misfits, Marilyn Monroe’s final completed film, marks the centenary of the screen icon’s birth. Written by Arthur Miller, the film unfolds across a stark, sun-scorched Nevada landscape, where broken-hearted cowboys, drifting dreamers and fractured marriages collide in a world already slipping into the past. Tender, melancholy and quietly strange, The Misfits dismantles the mythology of the American West to reveal lives haunted by promises that could never be fulfilled. At its centre, Monroe gives one of her most affecting performances—fragile, luminous and deeply human, carrying within it the ache of everything that might have been.

Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys across the American West in search of a vanishing institution: the small-town movie theatre. Along forgotten highways and through fading communities, he encounters abandoned cinemas, theatres slipping into disrepair, and the devoted few determined to keep their screens alive. Both elegy and celebration, The Last Picture Shows captures a cinematic landscape at a crossroads, where memory and modernity collide. Yet beneath its melancholy lies a profound sense of hope. These theatres remain more than buildings: they are places of wonder, contemplation and shared experience—oases of belonging in an increasingly fragmented world, and enduring reminders of cinema’s power to bring us together.

Set against the windswept isolation of wartime Orkney, BAFTA-nominated director Richard Hawkins’ acclaimed period satire uncovers one of the Second World War’s most improbable stories. In 1943, a disparate group of artists, soldiers and civil servants are brought together to undertake a clandestine government experiment: the production of a series of adult films intended to bolster morale among troops on the front line. As the project unfolds, personal histories, wartime scars and conflicting ambitions begin to surface, exposing the fragile boundaries between duty, desire and propaganda. At its centre are a disgraced soldier, an aspiring actress and an exiled filmmaker whose interrupted careers and bleak futures converge in unexpected ways. Blending sharp humour with poignant insight, the film explores the psychological cost of war and the enduring power of cinema as both escape and instrument. Elevated by a superb ensemble cast, it is a richly textured reflection on resilience, sacrifice and the human need for connection in times of upheaval.

Edinburgh, 1810. Teachers Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods open a boarding school, seeking an independent life together. Their world shifts when a wealthy aristocrat enrols Jane Cumming, her “illegitimate” 15-year-old granddaughter from India. An outsider at first, Jane slowly becomes entwined with the teachers’ lives, especially during a summer spent in their care. As affection deepens, professional boundaries blur and an unconventional household forms. But Jane’s growing need for intimacy strains the fragile balance. Feeling excluded, she demands to return to her grandmother. A devastating accusation follows, turning their lives into an existential struggle, resulting in a decade-long legal battle that scandalises Scottish establishment. Based on true events.

Following The Velvet Queen, award-winning photographer Vincent Munier once again finds extraordinary beauty in the overlooked, inviting us to slow down, pay attention and discover the wonders hiding in plain sight. Delving deep into the woodland realms, where lynxes, bears, deer, owls, capercaillies, and other river creatures roam, Munier not only seeks to pay tribute once again to the visual splendour of nature but also to capture the forest’s poetic sounds. The whispers of the woods are echoing the whispers passed from Munier’s father to himself, and now to his own son. This becomes a heartfelt declaration of Munier’s love for his father, intertwining familial bonds with the untamed beauty of the natural world.

Set against the backdrop of a politically charged Paris in 1968, Moi-même is a remarkable cinematic excavation that bridges generations and artistic movements. Conceived by acclaimed theatre visionary Lee Breuer and a group of collaborators who would later form the groundbreaking experimental company Mabou Mines, the film follows thirteen-year-old Kevin as he navigates the chaotic and often absurd process of trying to make a film of his own. Shot as an unscripted silent satire, the project was abandoned before completion and remained unseen for decades. In the final year of Breuer’s life, filmmaker Mojo Lorwin returned to the original footage, restoring and reimagining the material in a unique collaboration between father and son separated by more than half a century. Featuring a rare cameo by Jean-Luc Godard, documentary glimpses of student demonstrations outside the Sorbonne, and early appearances by future members of Mabou Mines, the film captures a pivotal moment when artistic experimentation and political upheaval were inseparable. Part rediscovered artefact, part contemporary creation, Moi-même transforms unfinished material into a meditation on memory and creative persistence. Playful and self-reflexive, it reflects on the ambitions of youth, the afterlife of abandoned projects and the enduring influence of the revolutionary ideas that shaped a generation of artists. 

Director in attendance.

This enduring coming-of-age classic transforms the familiar setting of a suburban high school into a poignant exploration of identity and belonging. Over the course of a single Saturday detention, five students find themselves confined together under the watchful eye of an authoritarian principal. What begins as a clash of stereotypes gradually evolves into something more profound, as each reveals the fears, pressures and vulnerabilities hidden beneath carefully constructed personas. Through humour, honesty and unexpected connection, The Breakfast Club dismantles assumptions about adolescence and social division, offering a timeless reflection on the search for acceptance and self-definition.

A cinematic love letter to the machine that shaped modern filmmaking, Her Name Was Moviola explores film editing through Academy Award-winning editor Walter Murch. Invented in 1922, the Moviola became the dominant editing machine in English-language cinema for much of the 20th century. Murch and collaborators reconstruct a Moviola editing suite, revealing how individual shots become a cohesive cinematic language. Using two scenes from Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, reverse-engineered from digital files onto 35mm film, they demonstrate painstaking frame-by-frame editing craft. Part technical masterclass, part cinematic history, Her Name Was Moviola celebrates the craft at the heart of filmmaking.

Director in attendance.

Celebrated as Canada’s first queer film, David Secter’s debut is a quietly assured portrait of friendship, desire and the ache of unspoken longing. Set against the University of Toronto in the 1960s and filmed through a snowbound winter, Winter Kept Us Warm follows Doug, a charismatic campus star, as he becomes increasingly drawn to Peter, a shy, bookish freshman. Tender and understated, the film captures the fragile intensity of a love that cannot quite find its voice. First screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966, this landmark returns in a new 4K restoration, reaffirming its enduring place in queer cinema history.

Just prior to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, producer/director/co-writer and cinematographer Russ Meyer first unleashed his singular vision of full-throttle violence and vengeance with this 1965 shocker: When a trio of psycho bikers launches a sexual assault and murder spree in a desert town, the local veterinarian (Alex Rocco of The Godfather fame in his screen debut) teams with a rage-ravaged vixen (the incredible Haji in her own first film role) to settle the score. Steve Oliver (Werewolves on Wheels), Lane Carroll (The Crazies), Timothy Scott (The Farmer) and Russ himself co-star in this “slick, violent and well made” (Variety) Meyer milestone, scanned in 4K from the original negative restored by The Museum of Modern Art in association with The Russ Meyer Trust.

Amid the cultural chaos of 1968 and armed with a budget of only $70,000, Russ Meyer transcended sexploitation by crafting this “bosomacious melodrama” (Time Magazine) about racism, communism, bush pilots, draft dodgers, and a ferociously free-spirited wife named Vixen (the incredible Erica Gavin of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Caged Heat). Despite attempts at censorship that included one of the first-ever X ratings and 23 separate U.S. prosecutions for obscenity, it became one of the year’s top-grossing movies, forever transformed independent film, and remains the creative template for Meyer’s unapologetic vision of American cinema. Vixen is now scanned in 4K from the original negative restored by The Museum of Modern Art in association with The Russ Meyer Trust.

Bringing together a distinguished group of filmmakers and industry voices, this wide-ranging conversation explores one of the defining questions facing every filmmaker: how do you finance a film? Acclaimed director Sophie Fiennes joins filmmakers Claire and Anthony Bueno alongside producer and creative strategist Adam Gee for an insightful discussion on the realities of raising money for projects of every scale. From self-financing and crowdfunding to grants, investment and alternative funding models, the panel examines the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities that accompany each route. An essential event for emerging and established filmmakers alike, offering practical insight into turning creative ambition into a sustainable production.

Acclaimed non-fiction filmmaker (and IIFF Patron), Sophie Fiennes, will be joined by members of Cheek By Jowl for a Q&A following the film.

In 2021 Sophie Fiennes joined forces with Cheek By Jowl to create the first in-depth documentation of the acclaimed theatre company’s unique process and philosophy. The end result is a richly detailed and thrilling celebration of the company’s vital method of creating theatre. Fiennes operated as a single shooter with the camera harnessed to her body, offering audiences immersive and privileged access into Cheek By Jowl’s work. After receiving its UK premiere at the 2024 Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), Acting went on to premiere internationally at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November of that year.

Director in attendance.

It's the first BIG IIFF Film Quiz, an evening of cinematic knowledge and spirited competition. Hosted by Ipswich Film Society’s David Clare, expect friendly rivalry, challenging questions and prizes worthy of the silver screen. Whether you’re a devoted cinephile or simply in it for the fun, gather a team of up to four and put your film knowledge to the test.

Fresh from its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Barbara Forever is an expansive, immersive exploration of the life, work, and ongoing cultural impact of filmmaker Barbara Hammer – a pioneering artist who lived boldly, created urgently, and transformed cinema through her singular vision. Her films were an extension of herself: sensual, experimental, and unapologetically lesbian, rooted in a profound desire for connection and an insistence on telling her own story. Driven by her canon of over eighty films, a vast collection of unreleased archival materials, and extensive audio interviews, Brydie O’Connor’s portrait allows for Hammer’s voice and images to shine through, becoming both a tribute and an extension of her legacy.

Both a loving portrait of a larger-than-life personality and a vivid record of New York’s 1970s downtown demimonde, this captivating documentary follows Tally Brown - cabaret chanteuse, underground film star, and a staple of Andy Warhol’s Factory - as she takes filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim on a tour through the grit and glamour of the city that made her. Capturing Brown’s mesmerising performances (including her breathtaking bilingual cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes”) as well as her social world among fellow queer cult icons like Holly Woodlawn, Divine, and Taylor Mead, Tally Brown, New York is an essential snapshot of a scene that has passed into legend. Restoration by the Deutsche Kinemathek.

Screening on 35mm. Few films have expanded cinema’s philosophical horizons as profoundly as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Following the discovery of a mysterious object beneath the lunar surface, the film traces humanity’s encounter with the unknown, mediated by HAL 9000, an apparently infallible intelligence whose serene logic reveals far-reaching ethical tensions. Across vast temporal and cosmic scales, Kubrick contemplates evolution, consciousness, technological agency and the limits of human knowledge. Almost 60 years after its release, the film remains an enigmatic meditation on origins and the possibility of meaning. This rare presentation screens from the only 35mm print in the UK, offering an opportunity to encounter Kubrick’s masterpiece in its original photochemical form. (incl. interval)

Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director René Laloux’s animated marvel La Planet Sauvage, a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction. The film is set on a distant planet called Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue native inhabitants (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags’ oppression and violence. With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor; brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer; and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.

John Waters’ gloriously grotesque second feature erupts in a carnival of depravity, where robbery, murder and blasphemy become the stuff of outrageous spectacle. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters’ native Baltimore, Multiple Maniacs is a gleefully anarchic assault on the peace-and-love idealism of its era, replacing flower power with filth, fury and fearless irreverence. At its centre is the Cavalcade of Perversion, a travelling sideshow populated by a troupe of misfits whose shocking proclivities are surpassed only by their magnetic leader: Divine, towering, outrageous and utterly unforgettable. Equal parts provocation and performance, the film remains a delirious testament to Waters’ singular cinematic vision.

Written and directed by esteemed experimental filmmaker Christina Hornisher, and beautifully captured by camera operator Jean-Pierre Geuens, Hollywood 90028 offers a vivid time capsule of 1970s Los Angeles in the bleak story of an aspiring cameraman turned serial murderer. Mark (Christopher Augustine) is a disturbed loner who toils in the sub-basement of the movie business as a cameraman shooting porno films for swinish boss Jobal (Dick Glass). When Mark pursues a romantic interest in Michelle (Jeannette Dilger), a model who he films in one of Jobal's sleazy movies, the grim reality behind the fantasy leads the frustrated cinematographer to shoot a different kind of Hollywood ending. The film's only UK release was on VHS as Insanity.

A beautiful blend of pop culture and B-movies, Explorers features childhood film debuts from Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise) and River Phoenix (Sneakers), as well as an epic score by Jerry Goldsmith (Alien). Inspired by his vivid flying dreams and elaborate electrical grids, 8th-grader Ben convinces his friend Wolfgang to build a matching circuit board from Ben's hazily-sketched diagrams and the board eerily begins to program itself...

Screening on 35mm. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds transforms the occupied landscapes of wartime France into a thrilling meditation on cinema, memory and revenge. At once a revisionist war epic and a celebration of the power of the moving image, Tarantino’s film explores cinema as both refuge and weapon, capable of shaping collective memory and rewriting the past itself. Anchored by Christoph Waltz’s unforgettable performance as Colonel Hans Landa, Inglourious Basterds remains one of the defining films of the twenty-first century. This special screening is presented on 35mm, offering audiences the rare opportunity to experience its richly textured imagery as Tarantino intended.

Following the film, join acclaimed film writer Jay Glennie for an evening exploring the stories behind some of cinema’s most celebrated films. Known for his deeply researched, richly illustrated making-of books on films including Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter and Tarantino's own Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Glennie has built a reputation for uncovering the people, personalities and creative battles behind the screen. Jay will remain on-stage to sign copies of his new book, The Making of Inglorious Basterds following the conversation.

The IIFF concludes by turning its gaze towards the future of cinema with the Young Filmmakers Awards. Showcasing works from emerging filmmakers across Suffolk, the programme offers a platform for new voices whose creativity, curiosity and distinctive perspectives reflect the vitality of contemporary filmmaking. Bringing local talent into dialogue with an international festival, the evening embodies IIFF’s commitment to fostering connections between regional storytellers and the wider cinematic community. Across fiction, documentary and experimental forms, these films reveal the promise of a generation already shaping its own creative language. The presentation culminates in the first IIFF Young Filmmaker of the Year Award, honouring the filmmakers whose work points towards cinema’s future horizons.

Censored for more than half a century, Ken Russell’s visionary masterpiece returns to the big screen fully restored in 4K and cut to Russell’s direction - the first publicly released version of the film as intended by the filmmaker. Unveiled at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, the definitive version arrives 55 years after the film’s original release. Starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, Ken Russell's The Devils remains a landmark exploration of religious persecution, hysteria and institutional corruption.