The great prickly humanist of British cinema, Mike Leigh has forged a body of work unique in its concern for the struggles of ordinary people and the social fabric of working-class London. Famously born from a process of extensive improvisation with his powerhouse actors, Leigh’s films inhabit a register of tragicomic despair that, thanks to their unwavering compassion, never slips into miserabilism. From his early slice-of-life portraits of Thatcher-era Britain (MEANTIME, HIGH HOPES) to his award-winning international triumphs (NAKED, SECRETS & LIES) to forays into the period drama (VERA DRAKE) and relatively lighthearted comedy (HAPPY-GO-LUCKY), Leigh plumbs the darkest depths of the human condition without ever losing hope.
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1987 • United Kingdom
David Thewlis and Alison Steadman star in this 1987 short comedy by Mike Leigh about a romance between a hairdresser’s daughter and a young man who communicates only through one-liners.
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1988 • United Kingdom
Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley w...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1984 • United Kingdom
Starring Tim Roth, Phil Daniels, Gary Oldman
A slow-burning depiction of economic degradation in Thatcher’s England, Mike Leigh’s MEANTIME is the culmination of the writer-director’s pioneering work in television. Unemployment is rampant in London’s...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1990 • United Kingdom
Starring Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent
This invigorating film from Mike Leigh was his first international sensation. Melancholy and funny by turns, it is an intimate portrait of a working-class family in a suburb just north of London—...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1993 • United Kingdom
Starring David Thewlis, Lesley Sharpe, Katrin Cartlidge
The brilliant and controversial NAKED, from director Mike Leigh, stars David Thewlis as Johnny, a charming and eloquent but relentlessly vicious drifter. Rejecting anyone who might care for him...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1996 • United Kingdom
Starring Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Timothy Spall
Mike Leigh’s Palme d’Or–winning masterpiece charts the shockwaves that ripple through an already-fractured London family when Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a successful, adopted ...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1997 • United Kingdom
Starring Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman
CAREER GIRLS looks at two thirty-year-old career women who meet up after a long period apart and rediscover the relationship they enjoyed when they shared an apartment years ago. Moving, sad and funny, it’s ...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 2002 • United Kingdom
Starring Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, James Corden
Mike Leigh’s inimitable feeling for working-class lives lends tragicomic richness to this unsparing human drama set over the course of a long weekend in a London housing estate. Penny (Lesley Man...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 2004 • United Kingdom
Starring Imelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays
Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is a devoted, working-class mother in 1950s London who is both beloved and admired by everyone who surrounds her. Yet she carries a secret that few people know: she induc...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 2008 • United Kingdom
Starring Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Alexis Zegerman
Sally Hawkins made a splash with her breakthrough performance in this surprisingly feel-good foray into (relatively) sunny comedy from Mike Leigh. She stars as Poppy, a schoolteacher whose unstop...
Directed by Mike Leigh • 2010 • United Kingdom
Starring Lesley Manville, Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen
Mike Leigh traces four seasons in the lives of a contented, happily married couple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) and the troubled, significantly less stable friends and family who surround them. E...
