25th anniversary of Gary Oldman’s Nil by Mouth celebrated with BFI re-release and Oldman season at BFI Southbank

We’re delighted to announce a celebration of award-winning actor, writer and director Gary Oldman, marking the 25th anniversary of his BAFTA-winning directorial debut Nil by Mouth (1997). Since first appearing on our screens in the early 1980s, Gary Oldman has established himself, across an impressive and prolific career, as one of the most successful film stars of the modern era, widely recognised as one of the finest actors of his generation.

This major BFI project launches with the world premiere of the BFI National Archive 4K remaster of Oldman’s singular directorial masterpiece Nil by Mouth at this year’s 66th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express. Nil by Mouth screens on 12 October at BFI Southbank, ahead of the film’s re-release by the BFI both in cinemas UK-wide and on BFI Player from 4 November, and on a limited edition 25th anniversary 2-disc BFI Blu-ray on 5 December.

Oldman’s only outing as director to date, Nil by Mouth, starring Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke, remains a work of ferocious power, with an unflinching authenticity rarely seen in British cinema. Shot with a visceral, up-close intimacy, the impact of which remains every bit as searing today, the film has been remastered in 4K from the original camera negative by the BFI National Archive with the funding support of Simon and Harley Hessel.

Immediately following the BFI London Film Festival, BFI Southbank will host a season of Gary Oldman’s work from 18 October to 29 November. The season features some of his career-best performances, including his Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA-winning portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (Joe Wright, 2017), which offers proof aplenty of the actor’s remarkable talents in creating vividly memorable characters. At the centre of this retrospective season, the BFI is delighted to welcome Gary Oldman to BFI Southbank on 20 October for an In Conversation event to discuss his remarkable career with season programmer Geoff Andrew.

In the late 1980s, having already won acclaim in theatre, Gary Oldman quickly established himself as a major new force in cinema, renowned for the range, power and subtlety of his performances. His playing of real-life figures such as Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (Stephen Frears, 1987), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991) and Herman J Mankiewicz in Mank (David Fincher, 2020) provided evidence of his extraordinary versatility, not to mention an admirable readiness to portray less than attractive qualities in a character. 

At the same time, his tonal range extended from the frighteningly powerful, as Clive Bissel in The Firm (Alan Clarke, 1989) and seductively charming as the eponymous count in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992), to the quietly reticent George Smiley in Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011). In film after film the actor retreats, invisibly, behind the character, who takes over completely – and utterly credibly in each performance.