Every autumn, the British Film Institute celebrates the best in cinema with a ten-day festival in London and across the UK. This year showcased a slate of compelling films – some of which are exceptional and look certain to garner industry accolades in the coming year.

The big stand-out is Elsinore, which was presented in the opening gala screening. Directed by Simon Stone, the film is likely to be Britain’s main Oscars contender, with special recognition going to its star Andrew Scott.

Scott plays the Scottish actor Ian Charleson as he prepares for the 1989 National Theatre production of Hamlet. Charleson, best known for his 1981 role as the Olympic athlete Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire, was seriously ill with Aids at the time. He died in January 1990, soon after completing the run.

Hamlet is famously a tragedy of self-doubt, and Elsinore thus lifts the conventional biopic contrast of public triumph with private tragedy by demonstrating the potential of drama to both express and elevate reality. Through his transcendentally emotional performance, Scott reveals an actor at the top of his game. Expect tears.

The festival’s closing gala The Debut provides a fitting bookend, with Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy of a timid housewife who belatedly finds her voice when auditioning for a community theatre musical.

Where Elsinore finds the tragic parallels between stage and life, The Debut offers the pleasures of theatre’s consoling fantasy. The film’s star, Julianne Moore, conveys the subtle gradations from fragility to strength in her character’s........

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