A tender meditation on friendship and the importance of community, Brian is also a tangential work of film criticism, one that is not removed from its subject matter, but rather explores with great feeling how art gives meaning to and enriches our lives.

Perennially on the outside, Brian has led a solitary life; he works at his local council, lunches every day at Il Castelletto café and then returns to his small flat in North London. It is an existence carefully crafted to avoid disturbance and yet Brian yearns for more. A visit one day to the British Film Institute brings film into his life, and Brian introduces a new element to his routine: nightly visits to the cinema on London's South Bank. Through the works of Yasujirō Ozu, Federico Fellini, Agnes Varda, Yilmaz Güney and others, Brian gains access to a rich cultural landscape outside his own experience, but also achieves his first real moments of belonging, accepted by a curious bunch of amateur film buffs, the small informal group of BFI regulars.