The surprise film of the London Film Festival is… “I Play Rocky”.

Filmmaker Peter Farrelly wowed the audience by joining LFF director Christy Matheson on stage at the Royal Festival Hall.

The audience guessing game at the BFI London Film Festival is officially over.

The surprise film of the 2026 festival screening at the UK capital's Royal Festival Hall - turned tradition - is Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky with new star Anthony Ippolito. Ippolito stars as Sylvester Stallone in Peter Farrelly's follow-up to the tumultuous 1976 film Boxing, which won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Farley even appeared on stage before the show on Friday evening and gave the audience a special treat. This filmmaker said: Peter Gamble sent me the script. Farrelly continued, "I thought I knew the story, but I read the script and realized I didn't know a lot about it. [...] But this story mirrors Rocky. It's so similar. It's incredible. Except I thought, 'This could be even better, because Rocky is fictional and this is reality.'

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"I could do a TED talk about Anthony Ippolito. This kid is ridiculous. When I got the script again, [which is] a masterpiece by Peter Gamble...we were talking about doing a nationwide search for Stallone," he joked about the short search for Stallone. But before the hunt began, Farley got a tape from his casting director. "Some kid sent him a tape," he said. "He followed the script and shot three scenes in his grandmother's basement on Long Island." Farley looked at Ippolito's audition and thought, "That's it. We never turned him down."

I play Rocky, also starring Matt Dillon, Anna Sophia Robb, PJ Byrne, Toby Kebbell, Tracy Letts, Jay Duplass and Kiki Seth, and produced by Peter Farrelly. Christian Baha, Toby Emmerich, Paul Currie and Michelle Weiss are also producing.

Ippolito "holds the film together," said THR senior film critic David Rooney in his TIFF review earlier this year. "[He] nails Stallone's slurred speech, grunts, swagger and massive physique, while never losing his insecurities at this unproven stage in his career," writes Rooney. "I Play Rocky" gets most of its emotional levity from the movie within the movie, but anyone with fond memories of Drumboxing—perhaps those who saw it for the first time back in the day—will feel a surge of joy the moment Bill Conti's theme music rolls in.

Last year, Tuner, starring Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman, was the LFF surprise film. Director Daniel Rohr and London star Woodall took to the stage to the delight of the crowd.

Other LFF surprise films include Saturday Night, Ferrari, The Menu and C'mon C'mon.

The 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival will continue until Sunday, October 18. Elsinore, starring Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman, opens the festival, while Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut will open. Close it

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