The Glasgow Film Festival has unveiled its 2025 programme, and it’s a start-studded, premier packed lineup of hidden gems, retro re-releases, celebrity appearances, and world firsts. Across twelve days, the festival has something for everyone; the lineup will whet the appetite of any film lover. GFF 2025 is shaping up to be a kick-ass treat.
Glasgow Film Festival 2025 – Opening and Closing Films
Kicking off in February, all eyes are on the opening and closing gala films. These titles are the highlights, the darlings, of the festival calendar, holding the most prestigious spots in the lineup. They are generally great films, often with a connection to Scotland, with this year’s contenders not only being shot on location in Glasgow and the Highlands, but starring world renowned Scottish talent.
GFF 2025 Opening Film
This year, the 21st edition of the festival opens with a world premiere of John Maclean’s hotly anticipated survival thriller Tornado, starring A-lister Tim Roth and Scotland’s own Jack Lowden. Shot on location in Scotland and set in the harsh world of 1790s Britain, the film follows Tornado (played by model/songwriter Koki) as she is caught up with a ruthless criminal gang headed by Roth and Lowden. In an attempt to create a new life, Tornado seizes the opportunity to steal the gang’s gold from a recent heist; what follows is adrenaline-fuelled action, as Tornado fights to escape a violent demise.


GFF 2025 Closing Film
The festival closer on March 9th will be the world premiere of Martin Robertson’s award winning Scottish documentary, Make It To Munich. Shot in the run-up to Euro 2024, the film follows Ethan Walker, an up-and-coming young footballer from Aberdeenshire who, in the lead up to beginning a football scholarship in America, suffers life altering injuries in a road traffic accident that ends his sports career before it’s even begun. Yet, just nine months after the accident, and with the help of pioneering Glasgow surgeon Professor Gordon Mackay, Ethan decides to cycle 1200 kilometres from Hampden to Munich for Scotland’s opening match against Germany in the Euro 2024. It’s an uplifting, inspirational story; a rousing show of just how powerful the human spirit can be.


Celebrity Appearances from James McAvoy and Jessica Lange
GFF attracts not only Scottish household names, but the occasional Hollywood legend as well. This year, the festival has both in Glasgow-born James McAvoy, our very own Hollywood star, and Jessica Lange, a bonfire legend of stage and screen, appearing at the GFT in the festival’s In Conversation events.
Both actors will appear in person to talk about their upcoming films and take a look back at their illustrious careers, with Lange sitting down on March 1st and McAvoy on March 2nd. The former will appear in tandem with her film Long Day’s Journey Into Night, one of the most anticipated UK premiers in the festival lineup, showing on February 28th. These special events will surely draw substantial audiences, so be sure to book tickets when the GFF box office opens on 23rd January for GFT Cinecard holders, and 27th January for the general public.


Glasgow Film Fest 2025 – Attention Grabbing Highlights
Long Day’s Journey Into Night – Friday, 28th February
Starring Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Ben Foster, and Colin Morgan, this film adapts the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Eugene O’Neill and is helmed by renowned theatre director Jonathan Kent in his feature debut. Following the dysfunctional Tyrone family over the course of a day, the film sees married couple, James and Mary, and their two sons, Jamie and Edmund locked in a cycle of conflict and resentment as they grapple with Mary’s morphine addiction in a series of emotionally tense and violent exchanges.
Lange reprises her role as the morphine addicted Mary Tyrone, a performance that won her a Tony award on Broadway, and re-joins with Kent who directed her in the stage version. This fresh adaptation promises to show the family through an unflinching lens, as they struggle with addiction and illness in a time where outside help was limited. It’s a hard-hitting, emotionally moving story that, as raw and stomach-churning as it is, looks to speak to the human condition in a way little else can.


Hill – Thursday, 27th February
In 1996, Damon Hill claimed the Formula 1 World Championship, following in the footsteps of his legendary racer father, cementing his place in motorsport history. This unique documentary explores the impact of his fathers sudden death in a plane crash on a young Damon and how it shaped his future career. Directed by BAFTA nominated filmmaker Alex Holmes, this film is a rousing family story set against the fastest sport in the world. Stepping out of his fathers shadow, and the shadow of grief, sees Damon blossom into a racing legend; but walking, or driving, down that road was never going to be easy.