Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF, August 13-19) has selected 38 modern feature films for its 2026 edition, with 21 world premieres inc
Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF, August 13-19) has selected 38 modern feature films for its 2026 edition, with 21 world premieres including Simon Ryninks’ UFO conspiracy feature Out There starring Michael Sheen.
Out There is one of 10 titles, all world premieres, competing for the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence. Further titles in the section include Lindsay Ryan’s houseboat holiday comedy Capsized starring Rhys Ifans, and Paul Wright’s Mission starring George MacKay and Rosy McEwen.
Scroll down for the full list of modern features
The EIFF out of competition section includes the world premieres of Carlos Conceicao’s body horror noir Bodyhackers, Marc Turtletaub’s adaptation of Jay Parini’s memoir Borges And Me about poet Jorge Luis Borges, and Empty Heaven, an Iranian dissident thriller from Abdolreza Kahani, winner of last year’s Sean Connery prize for Mortician.
Titles coming to EIFF from previous festival berths include Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Sheep In The Box from Cannes, Molly Manners’ Extra Geography and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex from Sundance, and Lance Hammer’s Queen At Sea from Berlin. The latter will screen alongside the world premiere of Amaretti, the low film directorial debut of actor Stacy Martin.
The festival will present its inaugural Outstanding Contribution to Cinema Award to Kenneth Branagh, who will take part in a conversation about his career.
A programme titled Special Retrospective Screenings will be headlined by a 30th anniversary screening of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, featuring a live commentary from the film’s cast and crew, followed by a club night with DJs Irvine Welsh, writer of the original novel, and Darren Emerson of Underworld, who wrote the film’s celebrated ‘Born Slippy .NUXX’ track.
The festival will also show a 30th anniversary screening of Branagh’s Hamlet, while other back catalogue screenings include Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Glazer’s debut Sexy Beast, and Hal Ashby’s Coming Home.
The Midnight Madness strand will include the world premiere of Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution, and UK premieres of Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death and Caleb Phillips’ Imposters.
An industry programme will run across the duration of the festival, and will include the UK Film Conference, opening with a discussion between BFI CEO Ben Roberts and Picturehouse imaginative director Claire Binns.
The festival’s public In Conversation events will include conversations with actors Bruce Dern and Ewan McGregor, producer Christine Vachon, and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
The festival previously announced Louis Paxton’s The Incomer as its opening film, and Louise Lockwood’s documentary Bel as its closing title.
“Heading into the third edition of our revamped, reimagined and reinvigorated Edinburgh International Film Festival feels like hitting a stride we have been working towards since the start of 2024,” said EIFF CEO and festival director Paul Ridd, who heads up the event alongside festival producer Emma Boa. “With stellar competitions, fantastically varied and essential new films from Scotland, from the wider UK and from the rest of the world, and more world premieres than we have ever screened before, this year’s line-up offers a panoramic vision of cinema at its most exciting, dynamic and full of potential. Edinburgh is quite simply the only place to be in August. Bring it on.”
“EIFF 2026’s programme is replete with Scottish talent, from the opening and closing titles to the 30th anniversary of Trainspotting,” said Isabel Davis, executive director at Screen Scotland. “The festival’s role as the home of independent cinema in the UK is coming into its own: strengthening its international premiere platform and bringing together filmmakers and the screen community for the urgent conversations affecting our industry.”
EIFF 2026 feature films
Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence competition
Capsized, dir. Lindsay Ryan
First Zone, dir. Thom Lunshof
Mission, dir. Paul Wright
Out There, dir. Simon Ryninks
Pretty Babies, dir. Tyler-Marie Evans
Sacred Creatures, dir. Frieda Luk
Skintown, dir. Kieron J. Walsh
Snapshot, dir. Joseph Archer
The State Of Us, dirs. Ollie Gardner, Jake Harvey
The Mad World Of Harvey Kurtzman, dir. Bart Simpson
Out of competition
The Incomer, dir. Louis Paxton – opening film
Bel, dir. Louise Lockwood – closing film
Bodyhackers, dir. Carlos Conceicao
Borges And Me, dir. Marc Turtletaub
Douglas Gordon By Douglas Gordon, dir. Finlay Pretsell
Empty Heaven, dir. Abdolreza Kahani
Extra Geography, dir. Molly Manners
Goodbye Cruel World, dir. Felix de Givry
Her Private Hell, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
I Want Your Sex, dir. Gregg Araki
Mi Amor, dir. Guillaume Nicloux
My NDA, dir. Miriam Shor
Northbound, dir. William Scoular
Queen At Sea, dir. Lance Hammer
These Violent Delights, dirs. Christopher Hampton, Oscar Sansom
Sea Of Glass, dir. Alexis Alexiou
Sheep In The Box, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
The Best Summer, dir. Tamra Davis
The Education Of Jane Cumming, dir. Sophie Heldman
The Last Resort, dir. Maria Sodahl
The Peril At Pincer Point, dirs. Jake Kuhn, Noah Stratton-Twine
The Arrow At Rest At Every Instant Of Its Flight, dir. Theodore Schaefer
Midnight Madness
Bad Day at the Office, dir. Chee Keong Cheung
Faces Of Death, dir. Daniel Goldhaber
Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution, dir. Nick Nevern
Imposters, dir. Caleb Phillips
Hungry, dir. James Nunn
Abandoned, dir. Joby Stephens
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