Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Mike Leigh is one of the most prolific living filmmakers, an acolyte of the human condition.
So obviously, now is the time to look back at his entire career.
But Leighs films dont lend themselves to simple worst-to-best rankings.
For starters, theyre all pretty great.
Even his fellow prolific contemporaries dont have a bar so high sorry, Ridley Scott.
Should you go in order of release?
Start with the ones that got Oscar nominations?
But Leighs work defies a best-worst or new-old spectrum with a kind of robust emotional diversity.
What if you could program your way through his filmography by tone?
The stuff of life, love!
While theres no question that these films are less aesthetically polished than his later refined theatrical works likeMr.
Turner, its impossible to deny that they serve as a foundation for Leighs signature tone and themes.
Her boss, Mrs. Stone (Vanessa Harris), snaps and gossips.
But for all that those around her behave poorly, its Mrs. Thornley who feels bad.
Hes impatient, rushing her along as she ekes out barely more than a couple of sentences.
Cleansing her soul wont fix anything in her life.
Mrs. Thornleys suffering weighs heavy; salvation cant lift her burdens.
Bleak Moments(1971)
For a film likeBleak Moments, the title says it all.
Sylvia is desperate to get out of her home and meet people, but she is awkward and shy.
Shes burdened by her sister, but all they have is each other.
Sylvias suffering is the audiences suffering, and Leigh wants us to know just how profound her loneliness is.
From the second the police knock on the Drake family homes door (on Christmas day, no less!
Stauntons teary clarity doubles as courage as she weathers a storm of injustice.
TRAGIC-COMIC
Hard Truths(2024)
Leighs latest is a return to contemporary setting.
And then theres her all-out verbal barrage on any stranger or customer-service individual in sight.
Trevor is an undertaker.
Leighs films often explore the wide spectrum of the parent-child relationship, from the buddy-buddy father-son camaraderie inMr.
Stans wife left when Tina was only 6 years old, leaving him responsible for his young daughter.
But as Tina has aged, Stan has only become less and less interested in caring for her.
Their fraught, almost-silent relationship demands a catharsis Leigh is unwilling to offer us.
These two gave up on each other a long time ago.
The films raw emotion is wholly consuming, but it amounts to something cathartic rather than despairing.
Ultimately,Secrets & Liesconcludes with a well-earned sense of reconciliation and is possibly Leighs most optimistic work.
Its probably the chillest film to ever tackle the Troubles.
What they lack in means, however, they make up for in love.
Over four elliptical seasons, Tom and Gerri experience joy, death, and all the stuff in between.
Mr. Turner(2014)
Timothy Spalls grumbling, mumbling take on English painter J.M.W.
Turner is one of Leighs funniest characters to grace the screen.
Not unlike the directors Gilbert and Sullivan anti-biopic biopic,Mr.
On a scene-to-scene level,Mr.
Grown-Ups(1980)
No, notthatGrown-Ups.
Leighs BBC comedy is one of the directors most formative works.
Watching his 1980 made-for-BBC film is to see the foundations of what would later becomeSecrets & LiesorHigh HopesorHappy-Go-Lucky.
As pathetic and pitiable as Gloria is, Blethyn runs away with the whole movie.
Although Nicolas pain is straight, the rest ofLife Is Sweetswings broad and brash.
It would all be so funny if only Nicola would share in the laughs once in a while.
The result is not unlike Leighs version ofWhos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?but with more sardonic flair.
For all her positivity and kindness,Happy-Go-Luckyis still set in reality.
Well, thats only half true.
