Mike Leigh

An unemployed Brit vents his rage on unsuspecting strangers as he embarks on a nocturnal London odyssey.

Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.

A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.

Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.

Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.

Pansy is a woman so full of rage that every interaction she has devolves into lashing out, whether at her utterly cowed husband and son, or random strangers who have the temerity to address her. In contrast, her younger sister Chantelle lives with her two vivacious daughters and plies a successful trade as a hairdresser, putting clients at their ease all day long. Yet beneath Pansy’s abrasive exterior are hints of a more fragile psyche, one motivated by fear and damaged by repressed pain.

After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.

During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.

For nearly a decade, Gilbert and Sullivan’s collaborations have delighted the English people. But in 1884, as a London heat wave cuts into the theater trade, their latest work, "Princess Ida", receives lukewarm press. In an effort to reconcile their creative differences and drawing inspiration from Japanese culture, they went on to create the hit opera "The Mikado", one of the duo's greatest successes.

A film director decides to chart the course of a young actor as he tries to make it in Hollywood...

Just north of London live Wendy, Andy, and their twenty-something twins, Natalie and Nicola. Wendy clerks in a shop, Andy is a cook who forever puts off home remodeling projects, Natalie is a plumber and Nicola is jobless. This film is about how they interact and play out family, conflict and love.

A young college student in London moves into a flat and becomes best friends with a flatmate; the former moves into her own flat 4 years later but 6 years after their parting, the former returns to London to pay the latter a visit.

An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reforms and protest against rising levels of poverty.

Amy is a devoted social service worker who puts her heart and soul into her job to care for those in need. At home, however, she finds herself confronting new challenges as her beloved father begins to show the early signs of dementia, and she and her mother must begin to make peace with their new reality. Through it all, Amy finds comfort, perspective, and plenty of laughter through sips of wine with her lifelong friend Rosie, whose warmth and wit become a vital anchor as both women navigate the shifting rhythms of approaching middle age.

A working-class family in London's East End is struggling to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Only the mother Mavis is working; father Frank and the couple's two sons Colin, a timid, chronically shy individual and Mark, an outspoken, headstrong young man, are on the dole. This situation is contrasted by the presence of Mavis's sister Barbara, and her husband John, whose financial and social loftiness appears to be a comfortable facade over the unspoken soreness of a lackluster marriage.

Working-class couple Shirley and Cyril are in conflict over whether they should have children, their problems with 'yuppies' moving into the neighbourhood and outpricing them, and the advent of Cyril's ageing mother's seventieth birthday.

This critically acclaimed DVD contains 16 of the best classic and award winning British short films and delivers a snapshot of British cinema past and present. It includes films from Britain's most exciting new talent alongside early shorts from it's most successful filmmakers' amongst them Chris Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins), Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien), Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) and Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours). 01 About a Girl - Brian Percival 02 Boy & Bicycle - Ridley Scott 03 Dear Phone - Peter Greenaway 04 Doodlebug - Christopher Nolan 05 Eight - Stephen Daldry 06 Gasman - Lynne Ramsay 07 Girl Chewing Gum - John Smith 08 Home - Morag McKinnon 09 Joyride - Jim Gillespie 10 Inside Out - Tom & Charles Guard 11 Je T’aime John Wayne - Toby Macdonald 12 The Sheep Thief - Asif Kapadia 13 The Short & Curlies - Mike Leigh 14 Telling Lies - Simon Ellis 15 UK Images - Martin Parr 16 Who’s My Favourite Girl? - Adrian J. McDowall

Jimmy is a talented young boxer. Every punch he throws is eagerly watched by his trainer, and resented by his girlfriend. His parents, however, aren't particularly interested – until a large car and what appears to be a handsome contract arrive at the door.

Based on David Stuart Leslie's novel Two Left Feet is a story about Alan Crabbe (Michael Crawford a callow youth desperate for a date with any girl who can offer him the experience he lacks. Every time Alan tries a manful stride into the jungle of sex, his two left feet turn the attempt into a trip-and-stumble. Then he meets Eileen (Nyree Dawn Porter), the new waitress at the corner cafe, who signal unmistakable messages with her large inviting eyes.

A short comedy by Mike Leigh about the romance between a young woman and a man who communicates only through jokes and humor...

Sam likes his children to be grown-up chaps. So nine-year-old Harry is at a disadvantage in the battle of wits that develops...

Slice-of-life look at class divisions among employees of a brokerage house. Alan, with his portrait of the Queen and love of the peerage; his wife April, who raises cats; youthful and pretentious friends Nigel, Giles, and Anthony, who gather for a wine-soaked dinner party with the chatty and risque Samantha and the mousy Caroline; the plummy Lord and Lady Crouchurst, in a spot of bother needing the help of Francis, a senior partner, to assist with the family's cash flow. Alan comes home from work to find Mr. Shakespeare doing a photo shoot of one of April's cats and a wealthy stranger, Miss Hunt, waiting to purchase one. His instincts for sycophantic palaver kick in.

A quiet and put-upon house cleaner breaks her silence.

Dick and Mandy, a young working class couple, move into a council house in Canterbury, and find Mr. Butcher, one of their former teachers, living next door. Mandy's unmarried sister, Gloria, is constantly dropping in, and will not take any hints that the couple would prefer to be left alone, until her presence finally goads them to action.

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

A one-hour anthology television series of one-off contemporary and classic dramas produced by the BBC.

BBC series based on the novels by Georges Simenon which starred Rupert Davies as Inspector Maigret, a French police detective who preferred to watch and listen in order to solve crimes. The series ran from 1960-63 on British television.

Running for seven weeks from July 2007, each week focused on a different genre, examining British film by genre. Presented by Jessica Stevenson the series featured over 200 exclusive interviews with leading actors and directors including Sir Michael Caine, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Kate Winslet.

As long as there is cinema, LE CERCLE will be there. It is the only television program of critical debates 100% devoted to cinema. Each week, it offers fiery, joyful and non-condescending jousts on the films on the bill; and invites with "Le questionnaire du CERCLE" directors to come and share their passion for cinema.

In 1975, the BBC hired Mike Leigh to create a series of Five-Minute Films. Leigh, a master of kitchen sink naturalism, explained his garrulous bursts of plot and character: ‘I thought it was a cracking idea, and I would have done forty of them or fifty ‘ so you’d see them all the time, and sometimes you might see a character you never saw again, sometimes you might see somebody popping up for a moment and then be a main character in another one, or there’d be a couple of ones that would run on to a narrative. It would be a whole microcosm of the world. There was debate about whether they should be shown at the same time or they should be dotted around the channel, like currants in the pudding, as Tony Garnett, the producer, called it.’ Although these were made in 1975, they were not broadcast until 1982. Mike Leigh had originally intended to make around 50 of these five-minute stories, but only these five pilots ended up getting made.