(BV)_J_(RI)_C_ observations for 185 and additional JHK observations for 53 red supergiant candidates in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are presented. The data have been reduced discussing carefully the dependence of effective wavelengths on the spectral energy distribution of the star, which is very strong especially for the Cousins R band. Non-linear colour dependences of transformation coefficients vor the V magnitude and the R-I colour have been taken into account. The mean error of the BVRI data is 0.03 to 0.04 mag, while that of the JHK observations is 0.02mag. The MK types are not given to the stars, as the classifications given in the literature are mostly very uncertain. The spectra we have obtained for 88 of the stars will be discussed in a forthcoming paper where we will give directly physical properties like Mbol and Teff instead of MK types. Most of the stars are supergiants of type late K to early M.