Directed by Mike Leigh • 1988 • United Kingdom
Starring Phil Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré
True to its title, this slice-of-life satire is one of director Mike Leigh’s warmest and most optimistic films—though it’s still laced with more than a touch of bittersweet melancholy. Focusing on counterculture couple Cyril (Phil Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen)—a pair of generous, pot-smoking Marxists wrestling with the decision of whether or not to have a baby—and their materialistic, middle-class extended family, HIGH HOPES offers an at once affectionate and slyly critical portrait of generational, social, and class divides within Thatcher-era Britain.
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Meantime
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1984 • United Kingdom
Starring Tim Roth, Phil Daniels, Gary OldmanA 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...
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Life Is Sweet
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1990 • United Kingdom
Starring Claire Skinner, Jane Horrocks, Jim BroadbentThis 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—...
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Naked
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1993 • United Kingdom
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, the volcanic Johnny hurls himself around London on a n...
