BFI Southbank


Tucked almost out of sight under the arches of Waterloo Bridge, the British Film Institute contains four cinemas that screen thousands of films each year (many art-house), a gallery devoted to the moving image, and a mediatheque where you can watch movie and TV highlights from the BFI National Archive.

The BFI is the major venue for the BFI London Film Festival, which screens some 300 films from around the world each October.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Hayward Gallery

0.05 MILES

Part of the Southbank Centre, the Hayward Gallery hosts a changing roster of contemporary art in a 1960s brutalist building. It doesn't have a permanent…

2. Southbank Centre

0.07 MILES

Southbank Centre, Europe's largest space for performing and visual arts, is made up of three brutalist buildings that stretch across seven riverside…

3. Roupell St

0.29 MILES

The backstreets of Waterloo hide some amazing architecture. Roupell St is an astonishingly pretty row of low-rise workers' cottages, all sooty bricks and…

4. Somerset House

0.3 MILES

Designed in 1775 for government departments and royal societies – perhaps the world's first office block – Somerset House now contains galleries,…

5. London Eye

0.3 MILES

It’s hard to imagine South Bank without the London Eye (officially named the lastminute.com London Eye after its current sponsor), the world’s largest…

6. Leake Street Arches

0.35 MILES

A grungy road under Waterloo station seems an unlikely place to find art, theatre and restaurants, but Leake St is the latest of London's railway arches…

7. Two Temple Place

0.35 MILES

This neo-Gothic house built in the late 1890s for William Waldorf Astor, of hotel fame and once the richest man in America, showcases art from UK museum…

8. Sea Life London Aquarium

0.37 MILES

Mostly geared towards kids, the Sea Life London Aquarium includes a shark tunnel, ray lagoon and Gentoo penguin enclosures that will keep little ones…