BBC iPlayer is home to some incredible movies, whether it’s Paul Mescal’s Oscar-nominated masterpiece or Emerald Fennell’s 2023 smash-hit.
For most viewers, iPlayer is where you go to catch up on The Apprentice and other shows you forgot to watch live, or to binge a box set before it finishes airing on TV.
However, it has also built up a surprisingly strong movie catalogue, packed with critically acclaimed titles, cult favourites, and genuinely excellent one-off watches.
So, if you’ve already exhausted the best films on Netflix and Amazon Prime, we’ve rounded up everything you should watch on iPlayer.
Best films on BBC iPlayer
Saltburn
- Genre: Thriller, Drama
- Year: 2023
- Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike
- Director: Emerald Fennell
- Runtime: 2 hours 11 minutes
What it’s about: Oliver, a quiet scholarship student at Oxford University, befriends his wealthy classmate Felix, who invites him (out of pity) to stay at his family’s sprawling estate for a summer that will change them both forever.
Why to watch: Saltburn is a gleefully debauched, grimmer twist on The Talented Mr Ripley for a new generation, with acerbic dialogue, bold performances (Barry Keoghan goes all out, if you know what we mean), and pulpy fun within its ostensibly elegant frame.
The Hunger Games movies
- Genre: Action
- Year: 2012 – 2015
- Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banls
- Director: Gary Ross, Francis Lawrence
- Runtime: 9 hours 8 minutes
What it’s about: Katniss volunteers to compete in The Hunger Games, a nationwide tournament that pits “tributes” from 12 districts against each other in a fight to the death.
Why to watch: The Hunger Games elevated a hit series of novels into one of the most popular and fandom-focused franchises in the world. That doesn’t happen off the back of a bad film, and the first remains a triumph of young adult moviemaking.
Not only that, but it spawned even better films; Catching Fire should be in the conversation as one of the best blockbusters of the 2010s.
It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Katniss, either: Jennifer Lawrence is to her what Sigourney Weaver is to Ripley.
Defiance
- Genre: Action, Thriller
- Year: 2008
- Cast: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell
- Director: Edward Zwick
- Runtime: 2 hours 17 minutes
What it’s about: After three Jewish brothers escape Nazi-occupied Poland, they hide out in the forest of Belarus. They join the Russian resistance, and together, they train the local community to fight against the Nazis.
Why to watch: Defiance was a casualty of timing: in the same year, Quentin Tarantino made Inglourious Basterds, an admittedly better film about hunting Nazis.
Yet, this is one of Daniel Craig’s most underrated films; heart-racing, emotional, and action-packed, with an amazing true story behind it.
Priscilla
- Genre: Drama, Romance
- Year: 2023
- Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi
- Director: Sofia Coppola
- Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes
What it’s about: When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected.
Why to watch: Austin Butler’s Elvis may have overshadowed Priscilla, but Elordi’s king of rock isn’t the star here. Spaeny’s performance as Priscilla is genuinely extraordinary; a sensitive, complex portrayal that runs the gamut of emotions. Without her, the film doesn’t work.
Miami Vice
- Genre: Thriller
- Year: 2012 – 2015
- Cast: Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Gong Li, Naomie Harris
- Director: Michael Mann
- Runtime: 2 hours 14 minutes
What it’s about: Detectives Crockett and Tubbs go undercover to stop a drug trafficking operation in Miami, but the case takes a personal turn.
Why to watch: Miami Vice, Michael Mann’s bafflingly underrated adaptation of the hit TV show, achieved a difficult feat: updating and retooling a show inseparable from its ’80s identity into a film without compromising its appeal. Just wait for that ‘Numb/Encore’ needle drop.
Coriolanus
- Genre: War, Drama
- Year: 2011
- Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave
- Director: Ralph Fiennes
- Runtime: 2 hours 3 minutes
What it’s about: Coriolanus, a formidable and fearsome general, is banished from Rome despite protecting the city from its enemies. So, he decides to team up with a sworn enemy to take his revenge.
Why to watch: Coriolanus follows Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet playbook, modernising the story with visual flair and timely resonance while retaining the original text. It’s the best possible version of Shakespeare; a bloody, furious poem about violence.
Fall
- Genre: Thriller
- Year: 2022
- Cast: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
- Director: Scott Mann
- Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
What it’s about: A year after losing her boyfriend in a mountaineering accident, Becky joins her best friend to climb a 2,000ft TV broadcasting tower… and they get stuck at the top.
Why to watch: Fall can be corny, but those moments are a reprieve from its white-knuckle, barf-bag-flooding thrills. Seriously, it doesn’t matter if you’re unafraid of heights: this thing will make you feel vertigo. In this film’s case, hell is on top of the world, not below.
World War Z
- Genre: Action, Horror
- Year: 2013
- Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz
- Director: Marc Forster
- Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes
What it’s about: Former United Nations employee Gerry Lane is called upon to help stop a chaotic pandemic that has gripped populations around the world.
Why to watch: World War Z is a peculiar creation: a zombie movie that bridges the gap between the clinicalism of Contagion, the awesome horde effects of Days Gone, and the fear factor of 28 Days Later. It’s the most successful zombie movie ever made, too.
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
- Genre: Drama, Comedy
- Year: 2018
- Cast: Neil Maskell, Sam Riley, Hayley Squires
- Director: Ben Wheatley
- Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
What it’s about: When Colin organises a lavish get-together at a country estate to celebrate New Year, plans go awry with the arrival of his estranged brother, David.
Why to watch: Happy New Year is an affirmation of Neil Maskell’s position as one of Britain’s sharpest and spikiest dramatic talents, always best utilised by Ben Wheatley. Unlike other holiday-set efforts, it never gives into the yuletide smiles and cheer; like a Bailey’s bottle filled with acid.
Starter for 10
- Genre: Comedy, Romance
- Year: 2006
- Cast: James McAvoy, Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall
- Director: Tom Vaughan
- Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes
What it’s about: A working-class teen in 1980s England arrives at Bristol University, keen to join its University Challenge team and win over a female classmate.
Why to watch: Starter for 10 is the perfect charity shop DVD. That may not sound like a compliment, but it’s a lovely, funny, unassuming rom-com you’ll be happy to watch over and over again.
Red Eye
- Genre: Thriller
- Year: 2005
- Cast: Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox
- Director: Wes Craven
- Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
What it’s about: Lisa boards a late-night flight home to Miami. She befriends Jackson, a handsome young man, in the airport, who ends up sitting next to her on the plane. Little does she know, he’s a terrorist – and she’s his target.
Why to watch: Red Eye, Wes Craven’s third film before his death, is a taut, nerve-wracking thriller with two big assets: Rachel McAdams as its lovable, smart heroine, and Cillian Murphy as the movie’s steely-eyed, menacing villain.
Citizen Kane
- Genre: Drama
- Year: 1941
- Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore
- Director: Orson Welles
- Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes
What it’s about: After newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane utters a mysterious word before his death, a journalist sets out to uncover its meaning.
Why to watch: Citizen Kane has topped all-time movie lists for decades. What else can we say to convince you to watch it, if you’re less inclined towards old black and white films?
Simply put, it is mesmerising – and it’s never boring, unfurling and propelling with more creativity than most movies today.
Scream
- Genre: Horror
- Year: 1996
- Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard
- Director: Wes Craven
- Runtime: 1 hour 51 minutes
What it’s about: A year after her mother’s death, Sidney and her friends are targeted by a costumed serial killer: Ghostface, a horror movie-obsessed murderer who could be hiding in plain sight.
Why to watch: Ghostface is a horror icon. Even now, kids and adults alike don the mask (bonus points if you had the one that pumped blood) and run around with fake knives at Halloween.
Here’s something people should remember: Scream is still every bit as effective as it was in the late ’90s, whether it’s the kills (the opening murder is extremely distressing), the performances, or its airtight, meta screenplay. Try as it might, the series has never been better.
Rye Lane
- Genre: Romance, Comedy
- Year: 2023
- Cast: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Poppy Allen-Quarmby, Simon Manyonda
- Director: Raine Allen-Miller
- Runtime: 1 hour 22 minutes
What it’s about: Yas and Dom, two newly single twenty-somethings reeling from bad break-ups, have a chance encounter and end up spending an unusual day walking around South London.
Why to watch: Rye Lane is the best rom-com of the past 10 years; grin-inducing, achingly earnest, and wonderfully performed by two perfect leads. It’s indebted to the Before trilogy’s walk-and-talk format, but still feels original and vividly alive.
Aftersun
- Genre: Drama
- Year: 2022
- Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio
- Director: Charlotte Wells
- Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes
What it’s about: At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving (but struggling) father, Calum.
Why to watch: “Masterpiece” is a word that’s thrown around willy-nilly, but Aftersun is truly deserving of that status.
This is a textured, tender, and painful drama that marries the glow of a memory with the nip of reality, and it boasts two pitch-perfect performances from Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio.
Watching it out of context isn’t advised, but its use of ‘Under Pressure’ may be the best movie scene of the decade to date.
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