London — When the 51st London film festival opened last week with David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises,” the message was clear. When it comes to film, as with so much else in the arts and culture, London is back — thanks in part to more welcoming government policies and tax credits. Mr. Cronenberg’s movie follows a recent parade of world-class films that seem to have grown off the streets of this city, including “Atonement,” which will open in America in December, “The Bourne Ultimatum,” and, though “world-class” is debatable, “The da Vinci Code” and Woody Allen’s “Match Point” and “Scoop.”

But the strength of the festival lies in the thick and exciting program of mostly European independent movies making their premieres this week. new British films include Geoffrey Smith’s “The English Surgeon,” about a tortured British neurosurgeon trying to improve Ukrainian health care, and John Crowley’s “Boy A,” the story of a former child criminal from Brighton trying to leave his past behind. There are a whopping 14 French films, including Philippe Ramos’s prequel to “Moby dick,” “Capitaine Achab” (Captain Ahab), and Céline Sciamma’s “naissance des Pieuvres” (“Water Lilies”), which explores the ups and downs of dawning womanhood as only French movies can. Elsewhere are vivid offerings from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Russia, with Alexey Balabanov’s controversial “Cargo 200,” a movie that turns any lingering Soviet nostalgia on its head with a recounting of political corruption and rape.

The festival has its share of big-name American-made premieres (which is only fair for a city as starstruck as this one). Among them are Steve Buscemi’s “Interview,” with Sienna Miller, and Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution.” But the biggest by far is “Lions for Lambs,” a controversial drama about the war on terror starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford, which had its premiere last night with all three stars present.

Five years ago such a movie would not have opened at the London Film Festival. nor would there have been such an impressive selection of smaller-budget films. Something has changed. Broadly speaking, there has been a shift from New York eastward, as artistic types, moviemakers, and actors want in on the revamped glitz and glamour of this city. The head of Film London, a government-funded agency and consortium, Adrian Wootton, said: “London is at a real creative peak. It is one of the great global cities, able to benefit from extraordinary buzz. You never have to persuade talent to come to London — everyone wants to engage in the zeitgeist.”

But there have been more tangible changes too, brought about by the formation of Film London in 2004. The mayor and government bodies were keen to promote the economy and tourism through film and knew that the systems in place were tortuous in the extreme. “Pre-2004, London was a bureaucratic, difficult, slow place to film. directors filmed here to spite themselves,” Mr. Wootton said. “What we have done is cut through the different processes and procedures. When filmmakers from all over the world set us challenges, by and large we have been able to deliver on these challenges.” He mentioned hanging a 2-ton truck in the Tate Modern for “Children of Men” and opening Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament five nights running for “V for Vendetta.”

In 2005, a new system of tax credits was introduced, enabling filmmakers to get a 20% tax rebate on movies made for under $48 million. (Mr. Cronenberg cites this as a reason for making “Eastern Promises” in London.) Another improvement is the geographical opening up of London for filming — directors used to have to make do with little more than Trafalgar Square, pretty red buses, and men in top hats. now a far realer city is revealed; “Eastern Promises” lurks around lesser-seen Clerkenwell and the East End.

London beyond the red buses is also the subject of Sarah Gavron’s much-anticipated “Brick Lane,” based on Monica Ali’s book about Bangladeshi immigrants living on the curry-scented, bustling road. Filmed on the street itself, the audience will see a side of London as true to life as any.

“Lions for Lambs” couldn’t be further from a gritty London flick. It spans Washington, D.C., California, and an Afghanistan wrought in high Hollywood drama. The film weaves together the stories of a politician and a journalist with that of a professor and his students, two of whom idealistically go off to fight, with tragic results. The film is deeply, though intelligently, critical of the American war on terror and shows that any gap in artistic view between war-shy Europe and America has closed.

“Lions for Lambs” sits in good company at this festival with Brian de Palma’s “Redacted,” about the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers, and nick Broomfield’s British-made “Battle for Haditha,” again about American atrocities in Iraq. The message of all three films is that America’s response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, has been a front for political greed, hypocrisy, and in the latter two films, barbarism. The main difference is that “Lions for Lambs” makes the point with a far bigger budget, an all-star cast, and, to be fair to it, an unexpectedly wide-angled view.