Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is a retired British writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and studied further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between work for the theatre and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterized by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. His well-known films include Life is Sweet (1990), the comedy-drama Career Girls (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biopic Topsy Turvy (1999), and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing (2002). His most notable works are arguably Naked (1993) for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the BAFTA-winning (and Oscar-nominated) Palme d'Or winner Secrets & Lies (1996) and Golden Lion winner Vera Drake (2004). His films and stage plays, according to the critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."  Coveney further noted Leigh's role in helping to create stars – Liz Smith in Hard Labour, Alison Steadman in Abigail's Party, Brenda Blethyn in Grown-Ups, Antony Sher in Goose-Pimples, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in Meantime, Jane Horrocks in Life is Sweet, David Thewlis in Naked – and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years – including Sheila Kelley, Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Eric Richard, Julie Walters – "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent."  Ian Buruma, writing in the New York Review of Books in January 1994, noted: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo." Description above from the Wikipedia article Mike Leigh, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Filmography

• 2026Tender Loving Care — Director, Writer
• 2024Hard Truths — Director, Writer
• 2018Peterloo — Writer, Director
• 2015The Pirates of Penzance — Production Director
• 2014Mr. Turner — Director, Writer
• 2012A Running Jump — Director, Writer
• 2010Another Year — Director, Writer
• In Confidence
• 2009The Party — Writer
• 2008Happy-Go-Lucky — Director, Writer
• British Film Forever
• Le Cercle
• 2004Vera Drake — Writer, Director
• 2003Cinema16: British Short Films — Self - Commentary, The Short & Curlies (voice), Director
• 2002All or Nothing — Director, Writer
• 2000Welcome to Hollywood — Mike Leigh
• 1999Topsy-Turvy — Writer, Director
• 1997Career Girls — Writer, Director
• 1996Secrets & Lies — Writer, Director
• 1993Naked — Director, Writer
• Naked — Creator
• 1993Two Mikes Don't Make a Wright — Director
• 1992A Sense of History — Director
• 1991Life Is Sweet — Director, Writer
• 1989High Hopes — Director, Writer
• 1987The Short & Curlies — Director, Writer
• 1984Four Days in July — Director, Writer
• 1983Meantime — Writer, Director
• 1982A Light Snack — Director, Writer
• 1982Afternoon — Director, Writer
• Five-Minute Films — Director, Writer, Creator
• 1982Home Sweet Home — Director, Writer
• 1982Old Chums — Director, Writer
• 1982Probation — Director, Writer
• 1982The Birth of the Goalie of the 2001 F.A. Cup Final — Director, Writer
• 1980Grown-Ups — Director, Writer
• 1979Who's Who — Director, Writer
• The South Bank Show
• 1977Abigail's Party — Director, Writer
• 1977The Kiss of Death — Director, Writer
• 1976Fast Hands — Title Designer
• 1976Nuts in May — Writer, Director
• 1976Shuttlecock — Title Designer
• 1975The Permissive Society — Director, Writer
• Playhouse — Director, Writer
• 1973A Mug's Game? — Writer, Director
• 1973Hard Labour — Director, Writer
• Second City Firsts — Director, Writer
• 1972Bleak Moments — Director, Writer
• Play for Today — Director, Writer
• 1963Two Left Feet — Jim (uncredited)
• 1963West 11
• Maigret
• Untitled 13

Appearances as themselves (25)

• 2025Citizen B — Self
• 2025Humphrey Jennings: The Man Who Listened to Britain — Self
• 2024Her Name Was Moviola — Self
• 2023Cannes Uncut — Self
• Reel Britannia — Self
• Remembers… — Self
• 2021Why Are We (Not) Creative? — Self
• 2020Drama Out of a Crisis: A Celebration of Play for Today — Self – Filmmaker
• 2018Scenes from A Separation — Self
• 2016Alan Clarke: Out of His Own Light — Self
• 2014The One and Only Mike Leigh — Self
• 2013What Is Cinema? — Self
• Square — Self
• 2009Looking for Truffaut — Self
• 2009Vittorio D. — Self
• 2007All About 'Abigail's Party' — Self
• The Alan Titchmarsh Show — Self
• The One Show — Self - Guest
• The Culture Show — Self
• 2000Mike Leigh: The Conversation — Self - Interviewee
• 1998Inside the Golden Statue — Self
• 1982Mike Leigh: Making Plays — Self
• Film '72 — Self
• Omnibus — Self
• The Oscars — Self