Glasgow Film Theatre Announces Programme for March 2026

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Glasgow Film Theatre Announces Programme for March 2026

Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) – the city’s home of cinema for over 85 years – has revealed its programme for March 2026, following Glasgow Film Festival (GFF) which runs from 25 February – 8 March.

Highlights include:

A season celebrating the work of British filmmaker John Schlesinger
Programmes from Glasgow Short Film Festival and Catalan Film Festival
Return screenings of films nominated for the 2026 Academy Award for Best Picture
Mother’s Day screenings of Mildred Pierce and Mermaids

Seasons and Festivals

john schlesinger

GFT’s popular CineMasters programme celebrates directors and key figures from filmmaking history. It returns in March with a season celebrating the titan of British cinema that is John Schlesinger. One of the few openly gay directors working in mainstream cinema in the mid-20th century, Schlesinger brought an unusual frankness to questions of sexuality on screen. Midnight Cowboy (1969) made history as the first X-rated film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, while Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) broke new ground with its portrayal of a bisexual protagonist and a same-sex relationship. Both films will screen alongside two other Schlesinger classics, The Innocent and Marathon Man.

Downriver a Tiger

Glasgow Short Film Festival (GSFF), the leading event of its kind in Scotland, returns to GFT and other venues in the city from 18 – 22 March, showcasing ground-breaking works of visual storytelling. The programme begins with an Opening Event screening of Downriver a Tiger – a captivating, dreamlike portrait of Glasgow seen through the eyes of a young photographer from Barcelona – presented in partnership with Catalan Film Festival.

Clyde Reflections

Other highlights include screenings of the shortlisted films within the festival’s two major competitions: the Bill Douglas Award and the Scottish Short Film Award; Clyde Reflections, which sees vignettes of life on the river Clyde screened alongside rarely-seen archive films in a response to Louise Welsh and Jude Barber’s podcast, ‘Who Owns the Clyde’; and the festival’s Award Ceremony and Winners Screening on Sunday 22 March.

Romeria

In addition to the GSFF Opening Event, Catalan Film Festival will bring three of the best new films from Catalonia to GFT from 27 – 29 March. The line up includes a screening of Golden Bear-winner Carla Simón’s semi-autobiographical Romería; a Q&A with director Jaume Claret Muxart following their queer coming of age tale, Strange River; and Gemma Blasco’s La Furia, winner of two Gaudi awards for Best Actress and Best New Director.

With the Academy Awards fast approaching, GFT will offer film fans another chance to enjoy many of the Best Picture nominees back on the big screen in March, with screenings of Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value and Sinners.

Special screenings

On Thursday 12 March, GFT will screen a new production of Shakespeare’s Othello, filmed live at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London. Directed by Tony Award-winner Tom Morris OBE (War Horse, Dr Semmelweis, The Grinning Man) with music by PJ Harvey, the star-studded cast includes David Harewood OBE (Homeland, Best of Enemies), Toby Jones OBE (Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Detectorists), Caitlin FitzGerald (Succession, Masters of Sex), Vinette Robinson (Boiling Point) and Luke Treadaway (A Street Cat Named Bob).

Mermaids

To mark Mother’s Day on Sunday 15 March, GFT pairs two tales of messy, complicated motherhood – noir melodrama Mildred Pierce and coming-of-age classic Mermaids.

Earth’s Greatest Enemy

On Tuesday 24 March, Inclinations Film Festival will present the Scottish premiere of Earth’s Greatest Enemy, a film that uncovers a shocking blind spot in the climate conversation: the U.S. military. Exempt from international climate agreements and rarely scrutinised in mainstream reporting, the Pentagon is revealed here as the world’s single largest institutional polluter. The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with the film’s director, investigative journalist Abby Martin, hosted by filmmaker, writer and programmer, Rastko Novaković.

Pink Narcissus

The March screening in GFT’s Queer Cinema Sundays programme will be James Bidgood’s Pink Narcissus — an experimental art film that visualises the erotic fantasies of a gay male sex worker.

New releases and re-releases

In addition to the Best Picture nominees, a number of Academy Award contenders will play on GFT’s screens in March, including If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Best Actress – Rose Byrne), Sirât (Best International Feature Film and Best Sound), and Arco (Best Animated Feature).

The Testament of Ann Lee

Other new releases and re-releases showing at GFT in March include The Testament of Ann Lee (with select screenings on 70mm), Soul to Soul, Sound of Falling, The Love That Remains, Wasteman, Everybody to Kenmure Street, Dead Man’s Wire, Hard Boiled (4K restoration), Orwell 2+2=5, DJ Ahmet, La Grazia and Midwinter Break.

Accessible Screenings

In addition to an extensive programme of captioned and audio described screenings, GFT has announced the March editions of its long-running accessible film events.

Visible Cinema, GFT’s monthly Deaf-friendly film event, returns in March with a special edition of RCS Curates Deaf Shorts, presented by Glasgow Short Film Festival. Curated by students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s BA Performance for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Actors, these shorts explore Deaf lives and cultures, widening the margins on how Deaf stories are told on-screen. There will be full access for Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing cinema-goers at this screening. The film will have descriptive subtitles, and the introduction and discussion will have Live Captioning and BSL interpretation. Tickets are available on a Pay What You Can scale, ranging from £5 to £9.

Paper Moon

Movie Memories, GFT’s dementia-friendly film event, will present a special screening of Paper Moon – the film that made history when 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1974, making her the youngest person ever to win an Oscar in a competitive category. Designed to enable people living with dementia to socialise in a safe and welcoming environment, tickets for Movie Memories cost £3 and include free refreshments and live music.

Tickets for GFT’s March programme are on sale now from glasgowfilm.org and the GFT Box Office.

GFT is operated by Glasgow Film, an educational charity which also runs the award-winning Glasgow Film Festival and Glasgow Youth Film Festival, and is the lead organisation for Film Hub Scotland. GFT is the city’s original independent arthouse cinema and the home of film in Glasgow. Glasgow Film is funded by Creative Scotland, Screen Scotland and Glasgow City Council.