Leeds International Film Festival 2026 (Oct. 29–Nov. 15): How to Get Tickets, From a £36 Pass to Pan's Labyrinth in 4K

Anyone can go to the 40th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF). It runs for 18 days, from Thursday, October 29 through Sunday, November 15, 2026, in cinemas across Leeds and West Yorkshire, England. No badge or membership needed. A ticket to a feature costs £10.50 (£8.50 concessions, £6 for kids 14 and under) with no booking fee, and passes start at £36 for under-25s (£54 for everyone else, £45 with concessions). Everything books through Leeds Ticket Hub, linked from the festival's Tickets & Passes page; tickets have been on sale since October 8.

In 1888, a French inventor named Louis Le Prince set his camera at a second-floor window over Leeds Bridge and filmed the traffic crossing the river. Leeds Film calls these the world's first films, and the city's festival has been building on that claim ever since. By the organizers' count it is the longest film festival in the UK, and this year has two birthdays: LIFF turns 40, and Leeds marks 400 years since its Royal Charter of 1626. For moviegoers, that means a big-festival lineup at prices close to a normal night out.

What's Playing

Opening night, October 29. Three films open the festival: Iron Boy, a hand-painted animation from former Pixar animator Louis Clichy, for families; Mouse, from Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson; and Wicker, which kicks off Fanomenon, the cult-and-genre strand. In Wicker, Olivia Colman plays a seaside eccentric who commissions a husband woven out of wicker, with Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage and Elizabeth Debicki around her.

Pan's Labyrinth at 20, in 4K. Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale plays in its 20th-anniversary restoration on October 29 and 30 at Vue Screen 7, restored from the original 35mm negative, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post.

A Martin McDonagh preview. Wild Horse Nine is the 40th Anniversary special preview, screening October 30 through November 1. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play CIA agents sent to Easter Island shortly before the 1973 coup in Chile. LIFF and McDonagh go back: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri closed the 2017 festival.

Halloween, all day. The Day of the Dead marathon fills Vue Screen 11 on Saturday, October 31 from 1:15pm: the Japanese ghost story Never After Dark, the American horrors Recluse and Imposters, and Ghost in the Cell, a martial-arts horror comedy from Indonesia. Buy a day pass or single tickets.

Leeds on screen, and cities everywhere. Ultimate Thunder, a documentary about the city's neurodivergent DIY punk band, opens the documentary strand. The anniversary retrospective, The City Plays Itself, includes Tati's PlayTime, Salaam Bombay!, The Third Man, and Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself at Hyde Park Picture House on November 14.

The last night, November 15. Mike Leigh's Tender Loving Care plays Hyde Park Picture House and Vue on the final day. Kate O'Flynn stars as a London child-protection social worker whose aging parents face health scares of their own. Leigh has said it is most likely his last film.

Why See It With a Crowd

In Pan's Labyrinth, Ofelia stands at the long banquet table, the fairies flutter at her to stop, and she reaches for two grapes anyway. You can hear a room full of strangers stop breathing. Then the creature slides his eyes into his palms, and the whole auditorium flinches at once, including the people who knew it was coming. Your couch can't give you that shared flinch.

Tickets and Passes

• Single tickets: features £10.50 / £8.50 / £6; short-film programs £9.50 / £7.50. Concessions cover students, people 60 and over, disabled people and the unwaged.
• LIFF Lite: 6 tickets for £54 (£45 concessions).
• LIFF Buzz (25 and under): 6 tickets for £36, just £6 a film.
• Explorer 10 / 20 / 30 / 40: £85, £160, £225, £280 (concessions £70, £135, £195, £250).
• Explorer Gold: unlimited films, events and marathons for £325 (£300 concessions).

How to Get In, Step by Step

1. Plan on the official site. Browse the program on leedsfilm.com by strand or day, or grab the schedule PDF or a free printed guide.
2. Pick pass or singles. Will you use six tickets? Then LIFF Lite (£9 a film) beats singles, and under-25s pay £6 with Buzz. Passes are shareable, so two friends seeing three films each count too. For fewer films, just buy singles.
3. Buy your pass first. Complete the pass purchase on Leeds Ticket Hub before booking films. If it doesn't appear, log out and back in.
4. Book your films. Click "Book Tickets" on a film's page, then choose the pass ticket option on the seating plan. Your basket holds seats for 30 minutes.
5. Stuck? Call the Ticket Hub at 0113 376 0318 (Monday–Saturday, 10am–4pm) or email tickets@leeds.gov.uk.

Good to Know

• Share your pass. An Explorer 30 works for one person seeing 30 films, two seeing 15, or three seeing 10. Gold is for one person only, and Buzz guests all need proof they're 25 or under.
• Fancy seats cost extra. Vue's Ultra Lux seats add £3 to a single ticket, less with a pass, nothing with Gold.
• Check the venue. Screenings are spread between Vue in the Light, Hyde Park Picture House, Cottage Road Cinema, Everyman, Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds City Library and Pictureville in Bradford.
• Book the big nights early. Wicker, Pan's Labyrinth and what may be Leigh's last film will draw crowds; daytime shorts and retrospective titles are where the easy seats are.

Le Prince's few seconds of carriages on Leeds Bridge are where the movies started, and 138 years later the city still fills dark rooms for 18 days every fall. Before your Pan's Labyrinth screening, read our review of Pan's Labyrinth. Then, on the big screen, watch the hourglass Ofelia sets down in the Pale Man's lair, running out while she decides about those grapes.