Derek Jarman films now available to watch online

Caravaggio (1986)

With a host of films by British maverick Derek Jarman now available to view on our video-on-demand service BFI Player, for the first time ever one of the BFI’s major filmmaker retrospectives is truly nationwide.

Complementing the two-month Jarman season at London’s BFI Southbank, BFI Player’s Derek Jarman collection encompasses some of the director’s most startling and original features. These include his 1986 artist biopic Caravaggio, featuring Sean Bean and with the screen debut of Tilda Swinton, and The Angelic Conversation (1988), a beautiful visualisation of Shakespeare’s sonnets, as read by Judi Dench. The latter was Jarman’s favourite of his own films.

• Watch Caravaggio on the BFI Player
• Watch The Angelic Conversation on the BFI Player

Alongside the feature films, the collection includes a selection of film tributes to Jarman that have followed since his death in 1994. Also available is a collection of films that have won the annual Jarman Award, bestowed by Film London on a UK artist filmmaker whose short film continues the Jarman legacy of innovation and imagination.

There’s more to come for the collection later in the year, but the current crop is a huge step in bringing the work of one of the great British filmmakers to a wider audience.

• Explore the Derek Jarman collection
• Explore the Derek Jarman Award films