The 66th BFI London Film Festival has announced that this year’s Closing Night Gala will be filmmaker Rian
Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, starring Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle
Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline with Kate Hudson and Dave
Bautista. The film will receive its European Premiere on Sunday 16 October at the Southbank Centre
in the Royal Festival Hall, ahead of its release into UK cinemas and subsequent launch on Netflix. Rian
Johnson, Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson and Madelyn Cline
will be in attendance with other names soon to be confirmed. There will also be simultaneous preview
screenings of the film taking place at additional cinemas across the UK.
In the follow-up to Rian Johnson's 2018 Knives Out, Daniel Craig reprises the role of master sleuth,
Detective Benoit Blanc, travelling to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast
of colourful suspects. Both films were produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman, who will also be in
attendance, under their T-Street banner, and the previous film earned Johnson an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Writer/Director/Producer of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson, said: “I’m
thrilled to be back at LFF with Glass Onion, and it’s an honour to be closing the festival. A proper
whodunnit really does belong in London, so it feels a bit like coming home!”
Tricia Tuttle, BFI London Film Festival Director, said: “Rian Johnson’s Knives Out was a major hit when
we hosted the European Premiere at the Festival in 2019. Our audiences adored the film’s wit and
that it tipped its very stylish hat to the wonderful tradition of British onscreen sleuths. And here, Rian
Johnson strikes gold again with the help of the year’s hottest ensemble cast. Like its predecessor, Glass
Onion is entertaining and culturally literate in equal measure, making some hilarious, razor sharp
observations about the world we live in. The European Premiere of Glass Onion: A Knives Out
Mystery will bring the house down as the Closing Gala of the 66th BFI London Film Festival!”
The BFI London Film Festival hosted the European Premiere of Knives Out at the Festival in 2019 as
the American Express Gala with Rian Johnson and his cast on the red carpet in London’s Leicester
Square to the delight of UK audiences.
The 66th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday
5 October – Sunday 16 October, 2022. The BFI LFF Programme Launch took place on Thursday 1
September, 2022.
Source: BFI
Images: Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images for BFI
