Adrian Wootton is the Chief Executive of Film London, the agency charged with developing the screen industries in the capital, and the British Film Commission, the unit responsible for promoting the UK as the best place to produce feature films and high-end television.
 
Prior to becoming the Chief Executive of Film London in 2003, Adrian was Acting Director of the British Film Institute (BFI), in addition to having been the Director of the London Film Festival (LFF), the National Film Theatre (NFT), Head of BFI Exhibition and Director of the crime and mystery film festival, Crime Scene.
 
Before his appointment to the BFI, he was founding Director of Broadway Media Centre in Nottingham and Director of the Bradford Playhouse & Film Theatre.

Adrian is a Programme Advisor to the BFI London Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Noir in Fest, Milan and the Founding Director of Nottingham’s Shots in the Dark Festival. He is also the Artistic Director of the annual Cinema Made in Italy week in London. In August 2025 Adrian is programming, for the BFI, a Sophia Loren retrospective. 
 
He regularly broadcasts and reviews films for Radio 4 and contributes articles to various newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian and Sight & Sound.
 
He frequently lectures nationally and internationally, as well as curating film programmes and retrospectives for numerous organizations, including BFI Southbank on a wide variety of subjects, as diverse as Elvis Presley, Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene, Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones.
 
Adrian co-ordinated the film and television components of the international Dickens 2012 celebrations, of which Film London was a coordinating partner with the Charles Dickens Museum. Specifically, Adrian co-curated a large film and television retrospective which toured throughout the world.  He also produced, co-wrote and co-narrated the 2012 documentary Dickens on Film for BBC Arena and Film London.
 
In 2016 Adrian co-wrote and produced All the World's A Screen, a documentary on Shakespeare and Film for BBC Arena and Film London and was extensively involved in the Shakespeare 400th Anniversary curating film programmes and lecturing at venues throughout the world.

In 2018, Adrian curated the first UK retrospective of Italian Director, Marco Bellocchio for the BFI and then the first ever comprehensive retrospective of the Italian filmmakers the Taviani Brothers, for the BFI in association with CineCitta in 2024.
 
In 2012, Adrian received an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts and was appointed Visiting Professor of Film & Media and Norwich University of the Arts. In 2014, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from The University of East Anglia. In 2017, he received an OBE in the Queens Honours list for his services to film.
 
He is the editor of 'Black Friday & Selected Stories', a collection of stories by the American crime writer David Goodis. He is currently working on two other writing projects, namely a critical study of the life and career of English novelist, Graham Greene and a monograph on the American crime writer, Raymond Chandler.
 
Adrian is also a member of the National Skills Task Force , the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA), the European Film Academy (EFA), the British Screen Advisory Council (BSAC), and a board member of the Creative Industry’s Trade and  Industry Board (CITIB).