Looking for the best BBC films available on BBC iPlayer? BBC streaming service iPlayer is at the forefront of the revolution in how we watch television. Some of the best BBC dramas and shows are released in their entirety on iPlayer so viewers can binge their favorite shows long before they air.
It's the same with movies, meaning BBC productions are no longer blink-and-you-miss-em moments. If you didn't catch Aftersun, Ali & Ava or Small Axe at the cinema or on TV, then you've still got months to watch them at your own leisure.
There are plenty of great movies on iPlayer right now. But which are the top BBC-produced films currently on offer?
The best BBC films available right now in iPlayer
Aftersun (2022)
Paul Mescal, who's going to be seen in Gladiator 2, won a first Oscar nomination for this coming-of-age drama, written and directed by Charlotte Wells. It follows an 11-year-old Scottish girl called Sophie (Frankie Corio) who goes on a formative holiday with her divorced young father Callum (Paul Mescal). In the present day, we see grown-up Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who lives with her wife and young child, looking back on the video footage she took of that holiday.
Duration: 101 minutes
Certificate: 12
What the critics say: What the critics say: The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote: "Wells's movie ripples and shimmers like a swimming pool of mystery; the way Wells captures mood and moment, never labouring the point or forcing the pace, reminded me of the young Lucrecia Martel."
Ali & Ava (2021)
Ali & Ava is a romance about two lonely people, devoted mother and grandmother Ava and charismatic Ali, who's estranged from his wife but lives with her for the benefit of his relatives. Teaching assistant Ava (Claire Rushbrook) is offered a lift home from school one day by Ali (Adeel Akhtar). The pair soon find they have plenty of common including a love of music and start a romance in the story set over a month.
Duration: 95 minutes
Certificate: 15
What the critics say: The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote: "There's a tremendous human warmth to this love story from writer-director Clio Barnard, a social-realist tale that you might compare to Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss."
Small Axe (2020)
Oscar-winner Steve McQueen turns his focus to race relations in London in the 1970s in Small Axe, an anthology set in the Caribbean community of West London. Each film is jaw-dropping stories that are based on real events.
Education is a case in point: it tells the heartbreaking story of 12-year-old Kingsley, who struggles at school because of his undiagnosed dyslexia. Kingsley is quickly excluded from normal school and sent to a special educational needs school, where it becomes apparent there is a deliberate policy of segregating black children on almost any pretext.
Another film, Lovers Rock is a pure recreation of a house party on All Saints Road and we’re not sure any do has been captured with such authenticity – the a cappella rendition of Janet Kay’s Silly Games is worth an award all of its own.
Small Axe also includes "Alex Wheatle", "Mangrove" and "Red, White and Blue", starring John Boyega.
Duration: 63-127 minutes
Certificate: 15
What the critics say: Variety – "In any year… Small Axe would be a historic achievement. But in 2020, amid a worldwide reckoning on racial injustice while a pandemic has wreaked havoc on the entertainment industry — blurring the lines between film and TV — this five-part series is an auspicious game-changer."
The Eichmann Show (2015)
Subtitled The Nazi Trial of the Century, this docu-drama revolves around the capture and subsequent trial of one of the infamous principals of the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann in 1961. Simultaneously, it shows the battle of TV producer Milton Fruchtman (Martin Freeman) and director Leo Hurwitz (Anthony LaPaglia) to get his trial televised. The men fought to ensure the evil of the Nazis would be shown to the world just as far-right politics once again began to stir.
The film combines real footage from the original trial with the story of the TV production, lending it an authentic feel. With The Responder star Martin leading the way, and fine support from the likes of Rebecca Front, it is a solid addition to important films about the Nazis that include Schindler's List and Downfall.
Duration: 90 minutes
Certificate: 15
What the critics say: denofgeek.com – “Here, the interweaving of archive footage took bold effect. It had to. The testimonies are difficult, terrifying and almost beyond comprehension. Recreating them would seem too jarring and they were smartly left as they were presented at the time, leaving the witnesses to speak and letting the audience listen.”
Effie Gray (2014)
A Victorian love triangle featuring Greg Wise as real-life art critic John Ruskin starring alongside Hollywood star Dakota Fanning. With heartthrob Tom Sturridge, Greg’s wife, Emma Thompson, and legendary actress Julie Walters also in the mix, how could it possibly go wrong?
It doesn't. In fact, it's a modest treat of a retelling of a drama that shocked the society of its day. The story, written by Emma, revolves around 50-something Ruskin marrying teenager, Effie Gray (Fanning). As if that wasn't scandalous enough, Effie tires of her unconsummated marriage to Ruskin and life as a pretty appendage in high society and falls for the young rebellious painter, John Everett Millais (Sturridge). As you'd expect, this unleashes all manner of polite scorn in this uptight society.
Duration: 99 minutes
Certificate: 12A
What the critics say: Variety – “There’s presumably more heated drama behind the screen than there is upon it in Effie Gray, a literate, lovingly mounted and exceedingly well-behaved historical biopic that has sidled into British theatres after two years of less polite legal conflicts.”
The Mother (2003)
Prepare to be stunned by this jaw-dropping family drama in which the wonderful Anne Reid (Last Tango in Halifax) plays a recently bereaved woman who falls for her daughter’s builder-turned-boyfriend (played by a pre-Bond Daniel Craig).
Directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill) and written by controversial author and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, The Mother will not be to everyone's taste, as its tale of deceit, duplicity, and betrayal features some scenes of an adult nature. However, the film is expertly acted (Reid won the 2004 London Critics Circle award and was nominated for a BAFTA for her performance) and is certainly a unique take on the dynamics of a dysfunctional family, so has its rewards. Not one to watch with your own mother!
Duration: 105 minutes
Certificate: 15
What the critics say: The Guardian – “Anne Reid and Daniel Craig are two first-rate performers who submit to their pairing with professionalism and dedication. They deserved a better film than this.”
Bill (2015)
From the team that produces Horrible Histories, Bill stars The Wrong Mans and Ghosts actor and writer Mathew Baynton as a very different version of William Shakespeare. This incarnation sees Bill during his "lost years" as a young, hopeless wannabe lute player who is caught up in a tale of murder and intrigue, a far cry from the famous playwright we know today.
Bill becomes tangled up in a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, and the events that follow change him and his priorities; Bill is never really about how he becomes the greatest writer the English language has ever known. A preposterous narrative, of course, but Bill is broadly enjoyable because of the amount of Carry On-level humor and thanks to the film's winning recreation of Elizabethan England.
Duration: 88 minutes
Certificate: PG
What the critics say: The Telegraph – “The tone is almost identical to the Horrible Histories television series, albeit very slightly fruitier, with jokes that should play just as well to intelligent children and immature adults.”
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018)
The Bursteads are the kind of family that makes us realize how lucky we are not to live among a group of resentful, vindictive, bitter, and vicious relatives like the unholy lot at the center of Ben Wheatley's comedy-drama. In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Colin hires a country manor for a New Year's get-together with his dysfunctional extended family.
This lot makes the Machiavelli family seem like the Von Trapps! King Gary actor Neil Maskell stars as Colin, who just wants to gather his family for an old school celebration, but when mischievous sister Gini (Hayley Squires) invites black sheep brother David (Sam Riley), the Dorset manor house turns into open warfare.
Duration: 89 minutes
Certificate: 15 (very strong language)
What the critics say: Empire – “It is all horribly resonant: the petty jealousies sting, while the long-running feuds, manifested in barely repressed hatred, are painful.”
