Since the BFI Blu-ray catalogue has really started to grow in earnest, I thought you might find this region guide useful.

Region-free

All the Right Noises
Anti-Clock
The Bill Douglas Trilogy
Comrades
GAZWRX - The Films of Jeff Keen
Herostratus
London in the Raw
Magick Lantern Cycle (Kenneth Anger)
Man of Violence/The Big Switch (aka Strip Poker)
Nighthawks
The Other Side of the Underneath
Penny Points to Paradise/Let's Go Crazy
Permissive
Primitive London
Separation
That Kind of Girl
Winstanley

Region B

Arabian Nights
The Bed-Sitting Room
The Canterbury Tales
The Decameron
The Innocents
The Leopard
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
Privilege
Red Desert
Salo - The 120 Days of Sodom
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

If the mods make this sticky, I'll update whenever I get direct confirmation from BFI DVD Publishing. As a general rule of thumb, if it's licensed from a major, it's probably region-locked, and if it's sourced from an independent or produced/owned outright by the BFI it's probably region-free - but please don't pre-order on that basis, as there are bound to be exceptions in both categories!

I'm wishing now I would have got the bluray edition of GAZWRX, thanks for the information, this will be useful in the future.

Note that American PS3s with firmware versions 2.70 to 2.80 inclusive have apparently been unable to play The Other Side of the Underneath, although this is definitely a region-free title.

Apparently the latest firmware (3.0) corrects this glitch, and I'm just waiting for confirmation that this is indeed the case.

I got the latest firmware for my PS3 and double check my Other Side of the Underneath disc and it now plays back.

I know that MoC Blu-Rays are region free, is BFI the same deal? Or are they Region B?

EDIT: Oops, found this. A shame Salo is Region B - is there any reason why some are and some aren't? I mean, I hated Salo, but I feel odd not having it in my collection - it's been following me around ever since I saw it.

MichaelB explains it briefly in his post above: "As a general rule of thumb, if it's licensed from a major, it's probably region-locked, and if it's sourced from an independent or produced/owned outright by the BFI it's probably region-free."

Films are generally licensed for individual territories (US, Canada, UK, France, etc.) Rights owners want to be able to wring as much money from each territorial license as they can, so they write region coding and other restrictions into the licensing agreement. This ground is pretty well covered in various places around the forum, mostly in the MoC and BFI threads.

In other words, by "major", Matt means something along the lines of: it will probably be on Blu-ray in the region that works for your player eventually!

With any luck, yes. But that's not really turning out the be the case.

See above! (I'm assuming your post was originally somewhere else?)

Incidentally, MoC Blu-rays are not invariably region-free - For All Mankind is coded for Region B. Which I'm actually quite pleased about, because I was getting thoroughly sick of this myth that MoC are somehow negotiating wizards who can persuade any rightsholder to let them go region-free and the BFI have this evil "policy" (a word I see far too often in this argument) to go in the other direction - the fact is, if MoC licensed and released those titles, they'd have to region-code too.



BFI policy is to go region-free whenever possible. Unfortunately, Hollywood studios and their agents almost invariably insist on region-coding their titles, and make it a contractual condition - in other words, if the BFI ignores this and releases the disc region-free, the repercussions could be severe, affecting far more than just the BFI's Blu-ray catalogue. (It's no exaggeration to say that the BFI's entire business plan across the full range of its activities is massively reliant on maintaining good relationships with rightsholders - without those, loads of BFI projects from South Bank seasons to online projects like Screenonline and the Mediatheque to archive restorations just wouldn't be possible).

So far, the Region B titles have all come from the United Artists back catalogue, though upcoming releases like Privilege (Universal), The Leopard and The Innocents (both Fox) will also definitely be Region B, and for the same reason. The situation with For All Mankind suggests that it's also highly likely that if the BFI collaborates with Criterion on a Blu-ray release that Criterion will insist on region-coding - they region-code all their own discs to region A, and will expect their partners to do the equivalent for their territory.

Of course, you could take a stand and refuse to licence anything that's going to be compulsorily region-coded - but in doing so, you'd shut off a vast range of titles, many (if not most) of which will be amongst the most lucrative ones in the catalogue. The Leopard was a huge hit on DVD, and hopefully the Blu-ray will be similar - which means that it'll effectively subsidise the riskier releases.

Michael, we are negotiating wizards though.

I wouldn't assume that to be the case. Try and talk to them about it as soon as you can. I believe we could have worked something out if we'd approached them sooner.

Is there a good site out there to find region unlock codes for players that are currently region locked? Quite a few of the DVD players I've had over the years could, with a clever combination of buttons on the remote, be region/PAL unlocked - I wonder if it's the same way with my crappy Insignia NS-BRDVD player.

And yes, MichaelB, my post was elsewhere (in the Bargains forum), because I leapt before I looked with my questions. Thanks for all the information, though.