An unreel line-up

The 50th London Film Festival kicks off with its usual flashbulb-popping flair, as British stars stud the red carpet for The Last King Of Scotland at Odeon Leicester Square.

An eagerly anticipated adaptation of Giles Foden's best-seller, directed by Kevin Macdonald (Touching The Void), it's the dryly comic tale of a Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) who travels to Africa with the vague idea of 'doing his bit' but gets swept up in a corrupt Ugandan regime as advisor to charismatic but brutal dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker).

It's a strong start to what is expected to be an above-average golden anniversary line-up. There's Bobby, Brat Pack-actor-turned-director Emilio Estevez's take on the Kennedy assassination with an enviable ensemble cast: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood and (surprisingly) Lindsay Lohan.

There's Fast Food Nation, this year's Super Size Me, a dramatised take on Eric Schlosser's exposè of the US junk food industry. And there's the intriguing Will Ferrell wild card Stranger Than Fiction, about a solitary tax man who wakes to find a woman's voice narrating his life as it happens - then discovers he's a character in her novel.

If that all sounds a bit Hollywood, you can also catch Venus - a Hanif Kureishi screenplay starring national treasures Leslie Phillips and an award-tipped Peter O'Toole as two old British thesps who never hit the big time.

Also of Brit interest is Breaking And Entering, Anthony Minghella's longdelayed return from 2003's Cold Mountain with his own screenplay (a complex, multifaceted drama set in modern London co-starring Jude Law and The Office's Martin Freeman).

These are all just the big-name highlights: with almost 200 other films making their British premieres at cinemas across the capital, plus special events, this hugely popular 'festival of festivals' (ie, it scoops up a lot that's already been shown at Cannes and Venice) truly has something for all. Break out of the multiplex and try it.

Tonight until Nov 2, various venues, times and prices. Tel: 020 7928 3232. See www.lff.org.uk for programme details.