The international premiere of Academy Award-winner Steve McQueen’s Widows will open this year’s 62nd BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday October 10 at the Cineworld, Leicester Square.

Co-written by McQueen and best-selling novelist and screenwriter Gillian Flynn and starring Academy Award-winner Viola Davis, Widows is a complex thriller about a group of women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. A star-studded ensemble cast includes: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya and Jacki Weaver with Robert Duvall and Liam Neeson.

From Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and co-writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) comes a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime, passion and corruption. Taking place in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of political and class turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Oscar-winner Viola Davis), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms. Widows also stars Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Lukas Haas and Brian Tyree Henry. Based on the TV series “Widows” by Lynda La Plante, the film sees Steve McQueen serve as producer, together with Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Arnon Milchan.

Widows will be released in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on November 9, 2018.

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express takes place from Wednesday October 10 – Sunday October 21, 2018.