Perfect Failures is a film season by the BFI Film Academy Young Programmer Film Festival that celebrates films which were critically panned upon their release and have gone on to achieve cult acclaim. This season encourages it’s audience to critically examine the role critics play in a film's reception and how cult audiences challenge their authority as tastemakers.

With a shortlist of House, Matango,, Phantom of the Paradise and Night of the Hunter, the season was created with the idea of diversifying and elevating the typical cult film event into a more diverse and academic exploration of how films persist despite their contemporary reception.

The Perfect Failures film season will take place on Sunday 13th February, with Phantom of the Paradise screened at 3.25pm and Jennifer’s Body screened at 5.30pm.

Statement from the Young Programmers:

In searching for the perfect "perfect failures" to showcase in this programme, Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Jennifer's Body (2009) were two film choices, out of many, which stood out as great examples of films that were critical and commercial failures, in the past and in contemporary cinema. Both of these films developed into cult classics and are insights into the different ways initially maligned films can pick up audiences later on, especially seeing as these films addressed issues of their day in a manner deemed controversial for the time.

Our film season is important to audiences as it explores the ways in which films can evolve away from the critical and commercial responses they received upon release. Modern perspectives and new contexts can bring out different meanings in previously-panned films, with audiences being given the opportunity to reevaluate these films for themselves, as well as new viewers who can see the films, which initial audiences and critics overlooked, for the first time. Through this, our film season encourages audiences to ponder the role of critics in cinema and how the critic can come in conflict with the audience, and, overall, how films themselves can come into conflict with the time they were released in proving furthermore that the film did have an audience ever since the film’s initial release.

Phantom of the Paradise (15)

Sun 13 Feb, 15:25

Written and directed by Brian de Palma as a loose retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, Phantom of the Paradise stars William Finley as Winslow Leach, a talented songwriter who writes his music for the woman he loves to perform.

Book Tickets

Jennifer's Body (15)

Sun 13 Feb, 17:30

A newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates.

Book tickets