It’s back! The first year of SXSW London went so smoothly that the Austin, Texas-founded event has returned for a sophomore edition. SXSW return to the Big Smoke was confirmed last September, while the bulk of its music and film lineups were revealed in April.
SXSW London 2026 will feature more than 800 speakers, 200 music performances and 100 film screenings. Across six days venues in Shoreditch will host everyone from Ant and Dec and Pete Tong to Michelle Obama, with guests discussing a range of topics including human lifespans, creativity in the age of algorithms and, obviously, this era’s big thing: AI. The sheer number of events at SXSW is pretty daunting – which is where we come in.
Time Out is an official media partner for SXSW London 2026, so we’ve got the lowdown on who to see at this year’s event. Here are nine things – three films, gigs and talks – that are most unmissable on June 1-6.
RECOMMENDED: SXSW London 2026: tickets, lineup, timings and everything you need to know.
The best things to see at SXSW London 2026
Film
Chosen by Phil de Semlyen.
The second SXSW London film programme delivers another provocative, edgy and enticing array of movies, shorts and talks from the UK offshoot of the Austin arts fest. You’ll find new films and new voices in its line-up, as well as a few old favourites showcasing their latest big-screen offerings. There are three world premieres and 13 UK premieres at the festival – but plenty to look out for across the programme. Here’s three films to look out for.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Fresh from Cannes where it earned rave reviews, Jane Schoenbrun’s ode to slasher movies and queer lust is an unmissable headline act at this year’s SXSW. The I Saw the TV Glow director is only three films into their feature-making career and they’ve already carved out a sublime new horror subgenre for themselves: a kind of neon-infused headtrip into the realms of the meta and moving. This one combines Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson as two women drawn together by movies and queer lust.
Jun 6, 6.30pm – Barbican Centre
Jun 6, 7pm – Rich Mix
Jun 6, 7.30pm – Curzon Hoxton
The Red Hangar
The US-backed Chilean coup of 1973 offers a clammily tense backdrop to this diamond of a conspiracy thriller directed by Juan Pablo Sallato. Filmed in black-and-white and based on a true story, it follows an air force veteran charged with turning his military academy into a detention and torture facility. A true first – no other Latin American film has addressed this brutal and repressive moment in this way – it’s a Costa-Gavras-like moral thriller that lands at SXSW on the back of strong reviews out of the Berlin Film Festival. Don’t miss it.
Jun 5, 9pm – Curzon Hoxton
Jun 6, 4.30pm – Curzon Hoxton
Remake
There’s nothing else quite like Remake at the fest. An aching poignant documentary, it picks up at the end of another classic doc, indie filmmaker Ross McElwee’s classic 1986 doc Sherman’s March, to reflect on a life of ceaseless creativity and the deep low of his son’s death and asks if they were somehow connected. McElwee looks back on what followed that unique, Sundance-wowing hybrid of Civil War documentary and ultra-personal biography with more heartbreaking candour than you’ll find in a hundred other films. It’s a tear-stained magnum opus.
Jun 5, 1.15pm – Rich Mix
Jun 6, 3.45pm – Rich Mix
Music
Chosen by Ed Cunningham.
As with the first edition, SXSW’s music contingent leans heavily on emerging, mostly-undiscovered talents. In 2026 over 200 musicians will play the event, which has been curated with help from the likes of BBC Introducing, the British Music Embassy and the BRIT School. A lot of the SXSW music experience is about letting yourself trust the curation and discover new talents – but if you’re after specific, notable names, here’s who to see.
Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt (Thebe Kgositsile) has now been a hip-hop pioneer for the best part of 15 years. First he was Odd Future’s darkest, most tortured soul, in the late 2010s Earl reinvented his sound with tumbling flows and expressionistic poetry. He remains as ahead-of-the-curve as ever, this year releasing a joint-collaborative album called Pompeii // Utility with rapper MIKE and producer collective Surf Gang. Catch him at NOTION’s showcase at Shoreditch Town Hall.
Jun 2, 10pm-11pm, Shoreditch Town Hall (Assembly Hall).
Rachel Chinouriri
Croydon’s own Rachel Chinouriri is one of the UK’s most ascendant music stars. She’s gone from humble beginnings as a teenager on Soundcloud to a BRIT-nominated indie pop-rocker with a very solid debut album (2024’s What a Devastating Turn of Events), a viral social media hit (‘So My Darling’) and an intensely loyal fanbase called The Darlings. Chinouriri has been most recently bringing her momentous, charming pop to support slots on Sabrina Carpenter’s world tour – this is your chance to see it in a far more intimate setting.
Jun 3, 9.15pm-10.15pm, Shoreditch Town Hall (Assembly Hall).
DJ AG
If you’re anywhere near social media, you’ll be well aware of DJ AG (real name Ashley Gordon). Time Out’s 2024 Londoner of the Year has grown a vast fanbase with open-air livestreams, having welcomed everyone from Skepta and JME to Jorja Smith to livestreams that have hundreds of millions of monthly viewers. The Tottenham DJ and producer is known for his genre-shifting: he’s played UK garage, drill, grime, dub, afrobeats at schools and care homes, in squares and, famously, outside King’s Cross station.
Jun 3, 4.30pm-8.30pm. Truman Brewery (Ely’s Yard).
Talks
Chosen by Ed Cunningham.
By design, SXSW’s speaker lineup is impossible to pigeonhole. The whole point is that whatever you like or are interested in, there’ll be something to get stuck into. This year’s edition features the likes of London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, actress Claire Foy, Spice Girl Mel B and much, much more.
Michelle Obama
The former First Lady of the United States was a comparatively late addition to SXSW London’s 2026 lineup (she was only announced this week) but she’ll surely be one of the more essential talks. Obama will be with her brother Craig Robinson for a live recording of podcast IMO – a show which sees the duo answer questions about listeners’ lives. Very excitingly, they’ll be answering an audience member’s question live.
June 2, 11am-12.15pm, Truman Brewery (SXSW London Stage).
Russell T Davies
The award-winning creator of groundbreaking, excellent TV series like Queer as Folk, Years and Years and It’s a Sin will join SXSW to talk through his career and legacy. As well as the aforementioned shows, expect Davies to dip into Torchwood, Doctor Who and The War Between the Land and the Sea, as well as discuss future projects. As shown by his recent chat at BFI Flare, Davies is a captivating, eloquent speaker – his talk at Christ Church Spitalfields is sure to be illuminating.
June 5, 6pm-7pm, Christ Church Spitalfields (The Nave).
Audrey Tang
Taiwanese software developer Audrey Tang is one of the planet’s foremost figures in civic tech. Not just Taiwan’s first digital minister (from 2016 to 2024) but the world’s first openly non-binary cabinet minister, Tang is now a ‘cyber ambassador’. If you’re keen to learn more about the boldest ideas when it comes internet freedom, government transparency and open-source technology, get yourself to Tang’s chat with the University of Oxford’s Dr Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green.
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