"Director: Mike Leigh"

• Peterloo | DVD | (11/03/2019) from £7.55   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From acclaimed director Mike Leigh, Peterloo is 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 reform and protest against rising levels of poverty. Many protesters were killed and hundreds more injured, sparking a nationwide outcry but also further government suppression. The Peterloo Massacre was a defining moment in British democracy which also played a significant role in the founding of The Guardian newspaper.

• Abigail's Party | DVD | (26/05/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £10.50 (191.26%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Originally screened as part of BBC's Play for Today series in 1977, Abigail's Party is among Mike Leigh's most celebrated pieces, with his then-wife Alison Steadman appallingly brilliant as what Alan Bennett described as the "brutal hostess" at a ghastly suburban soiree. The Abigail of the title never appears--rather, the dull thud of her lively teenage party forms a distant backdrop (and contrast) to an excruciating evening of chilled red wine, olives and the music of Demis Roussos. Steadman plays the overbearing Beverley, an Amazonian mass of frustrated sensuality in a low-cut party frock. Tim Stern is her small, stressed estate-agent husband. The guests are Janice Duvitski as Angela, a nurse whose quite spectacular gormlessness shields her from the stilted social awkwardness quietly raging around her, John Salthouse as Tony, her taciturn husband and Harriet Reynolds as Sue, the gangly and miserably nervous mother of Abigail. Rather than play for gags, Leigh and his actors mercilessly turn the screw of embarrassment through a series of too-true-to-life exchanges of dialogue, the stuff of all our collective worst memories of encounters with neighbours, aunts and office colleagues. Often misread as a satirical parade of suburban grotesques, Abigail's Party probes deeper than that, touching on nerves of anxiety and repression that throb behind the net curtains of modern England, culminating not in farce but tragedy. Decades on, Abigail's Party is as psychologically true and close to home as ever--hard to bear but utterly brilliant. On the DVD: Abigail's Party is perfectly reproduced here in all its 1970s garishness. The one extra is a short featurette, focussing on Alison Steadman's playing of Beverley, with comments from the original actors in the TV series and Peter York marvelling at her "paint-scraping" voice. --David Stubbs

• Happy-Go-Lucky | DVD | (18/08/2008) from £5.98   |  Saving you £14.01 (234.28%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The uplifting story of Poppy, a boho Camden-nite, who must come to terms with a whole new way of thinking after her beloved bicycle is stolen.

• Secrets & Lies | DVD | (23/02/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  If a film fan had never heard of director Mike Leigh, one might explain him as a British Woody Allen. Not that Leigh's films are whimsical or neurotic; they are tough-love examinations of British life--funny, outlandish and biting. His films share a real immediacy with Allen's work: they feel as if they are happening now. Leigh works with actors--real actors--on ideas and language. There is no script at the start (and sometimes not at the end). Secrets and Lies involves Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), an elegant black woman wanting to learn her birth mother's identity. She will find it's Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who is one of the saddest creatures we've seen in film. She's also one of the most real and, ultimately, one of the most loveable. Timothy Spall is Cynthia's brother, a giant man full of love who is being slowly defeated by his fastidious wife (Phyllis Logan). There is a great exuberance of life in Secrets & Lies, winner of the Palme D'Or and best actress (Blethyn) at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival--not Zorba-type life but the little battles fought and won every day. Leigh's honest interpretation of daily life is usually found only on the stage. Secrets & Lies is more realistic than a stage production, however, especially when Leigh shows us uninterrupted scenes. Critic David Denby states that Leigh has "made an Ingmar Bergman film without an instant of heaviness or pretension." If that sounds like your cup of tea, see Secrets & Lies. --Doug Thomas

• Mike Leigh: The BBC Collection | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £29.05   |  Saving you £-4.05 (N/A%)   |  RRP £25.00

  Hard Labour: Mike Leigh's first TV drama for the BBC in 1973. Shot entirely on location in Leigh''s native Salford Hard Labour depicts the grinding daily routine of stoical domestic cleaner Mrs Thornley and her cantankerous family. The Permissive Society: The title is ironic - a popular expression in mid-70''s sexually liberated Britain but a far cry from the gentle innocent warmth of this short play shot entirely in a television studio. Funny and moving a tentative awkward first date in a Lancashire high rise flat is interrupted by the young man''s elder sister returning prematurely after being stood up. Nuts In May: Follow Keith and Candice-Marie a rather self-righteous vegetarian couple in their exhausting attempt to enjoy an idyllic camping holiday in Dorset. Their rigid notions of peace and quiet are somewhat challenged by other campers with a more relaxed approach to life the resulting conflict posing the questions who are really the good guys? The Kiss Of Death: David Threlfall gives a brilliant performance as Trevor an off-beat undertaker''s assistant with a dry sense of humour and a healthy resistance to conformity. He and his best friend Ronnie are confronted by and finally escape the clutches of two predatory and fiercely conventional young women Sandra and Linda. Filmed on location in Oldham. Who''s Who?: A film about toffs and snobs. Richard Kane stars as Alan an obsequious autograph hunter who works as a clerk for a City stockbroker and whose wife breeds pedigree chinchilla cats. Through Alan''s eyes we look at the lives of his upper class employers and the younger Sloane Ranger set at his firm. Abigail''s Party: Immediately after its smash-hit run at The Hampstead Theatre London this 1977 stage-play was wheeled by Mike Leigh into an electronic TV studio - like The Permissive Society it isn''t a film. A suburban evening of hilarious disaster gross embarrassment and untimely death is presided over by the monstrous Beverly for which performance Alison Steadman won two best actress awards. Grown-Ups: A young working-class couple Dick and Mandy move into a council house to find their old teacher living next door with his wife. Their new life is plagued by endless visits from Mandy''s lonely elder sister Gloria a situation that finally erupts into a major catastrophe involving the neighbours. Home Sweet Home: The tragic-comic tale of a lonely postman the social workers who chivvy him about his estranged teenage daughter and his secret affairs with the wives of his fellow postmen. Four Days In July: A wonderfully engaging and bitterly humorous take on The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Set (and shot) in Belfast in July 1984 around the annual 12th July Loyalist Parades the film examines the communities on both sides of the divide. Through the depiction of a Catholic couple and a Protestant couple each on the brink of the birth of their first child Mike Leigh explores the daily lives of the divided community. Five-Minute Films: This collection also includes a rare treat five short films written and directed by Mike Leigh - Afternoon Birth of the Goalie Old Chums A Light Snack and Probation. Originally filmed in 1975 these five films lasting five minutes each were intended to be the first in an ongoing series but weren''t actually broadcast until 1982 during a season of Leigh's work on BBC.

• Naked | Blu Ray | (29/11/2021) from £15.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Johnny (David Thewlis) is a frenetic and destructive outsider who tears through the lives of others like an emotional tornado. On the run from Manchester, he seeks sanctuary with his ex-girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp) in London, where he immediately targets her vulnerable housemate Sophie (Katrin Cartlidge) with his unique blend of predatory charm. From there he embarks on a nocturnal odyssey across the city, dragging other disaffected souls into his orbit as he spirals towards his own personal apocalypse. Mike Leigh's Cannes-winning film is a masterful, controversial, and totally unforgettable exploration of society in free-fall at the tail end of Thatcher's Britain. Naked has been newly remastered by the BFI National Archive and is available on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

• Topsy-Turvy | DVD | (11/09/2000) from £18.37   |  Saving you £-5.38 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  1880's London. The popular comic operas of Gilbert (words) and Sullivan (music) have never failed, but their latest, 'Princess Ida' receives a lukewarm press.

• Naked | DVD | (18/08/2008) from £10.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (77.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mike Leighs controversial epic stars David Thewlis as a deeply frustrated idealist. Disappointed with the material world at the end of the last century and the impending millennial apocalypse Johnny is aggressive and confrontational but also eloquent sexy and charming. With a virtuoso script brilliant cinematography by Dick Pope and a cast of stunning performances headed by co-stars Katrin Cartlidge and Lesley Sharp Leighs masterpiece is by turns hilarious terrifying and thought-provoking. Naked won many awards notably Best Director and Best Actor at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.

• Vera Drake | DVD | (25/04/2005) from £5.35   |  Saving you £14.64 (273.64%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Vera Drake is a loving mother and wife in a 1950's working class family, but she also lives a secret life of an abortionist.

• High Hopes | DVD | (13/04/2015) from £10.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (77.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mike Leigh writes and directs this class struggle comedy drama which portrays the intertwined lives of an extended working class family in London during the Thatcher years. The story follows left-wing bike messenger Cyril Bender (Philip Davis), his girlfriend Shirley (Ruth Sheen) and Cyril's conservative mother (Edna Dore), who lives in the last council house on her street next to the appallingly upper class Boothe-Braines (Lesley Manville and David Bamber). Cyril's consumerist sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) and her car salesman husband Martin (Philip Jackson) join the family to throw a surprise 70th birthday party for Mrs. Bender but, despite their best intentions, the event descends into disaster.

• High Hope | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.08   |  Saving you £6.91 (85.52%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Wayne left home because of an argument about pies. Cyril would like to machine gun the Royal family. Rupert and Laetitia Boothe-Brain play yuppie sex games while deep in suburbia Valerie fails to arouse her husband Martin with a suggestion that he be Michael Douglas and she a virgin. Mrs Bender gets locked out of her house and is criticised by her neighbour for selfishly occupying a whole house in an increasingly fashionable area. And Cyril's girlfriend Shirley wants to start a family but gets no encouragement from Cyril who feels that the world should be spared more babies until everyone already here has a job a place to live and enough to eat.

• High Hopes | Blu Ray | (13/04/2015) from £14.83   |  Saving you £5.16 (34.79%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Mike Leigh writes and directs this class struggle comedy drama which portrays the intertwined lives of an extended working class family in London during the Thatcher years. The story follows left-wing bike messenger Cyril Bender (Philip Davis), his girlfriend Shirley (Ruth Sheen) and Cyril's conservative mother (Edna Dore), who lives in the last council house on her street next to the appallingly upper class Boothe-Braines (Lesley Manville and David Bamber). Cyril's consumerist sister Valerie (Heather Tobias) and her car salesman husband Martin (Philip Jackson) join the family to throw a surprise 70th birthday party for Mrs. Bender but, despite their best intentions, the event descends into disaster.

• Topsy-Turvy (1999) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (19/10/2020) from £21.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The world of GILBERT AND SULLIVAN comes to vivid life in this extraordinary dramatization of the staging of their legendary 1885 comic opera The Mikado from MIKE LEIGH (Naked, Secrets and Lies). JIM BROADBENT (Moulin Rouge, Iris) and ALLAN CORDUNER (Yentl, Vera Drake) brilliantly inhabit the roles of the world-famous Victorian librettist and composer, respectively, who, along with their troupe of temperamental actors, must battle personal and professional demons while mounting this major production. A lushly produced epic about the harsh realities of creative expression, featuring bravura performances and Oscar-winning costume design and makeup, Topsy-Turvy is an unexpected period delight from one of contemporary cinema's great artists. Special Features: Director-approved digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Dick Pope, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition Audio commentary featuring director Mike Leigh New video conversation between Leigh and the film's musical director, Gary Yershon A Sense of History, Leigh's 1992 short film written by and starring actor Jim Broadbent Deleted scenes Featurette from 1999 including interviews with Leigh, stars Broadbent and Allan Corduner, and other cast members Theatrical trailer and TV spots PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Amy Taubin

• Secrets & Lies | Blu Ray | (02/03/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  If a film fan had never heard of director Mike Leigh, one might explain him as a British Woody Allen. Not that Leigh's films are whimsical or neurotic; they are tough-love examinations of British life--funny, outlandish and biting. His films share a real immediacy with Allen's work: they feel as if they are happening now. Leigh works with actors--real actors--on ideas and language. There is no script at the start (and sometimes not at the end). Secrets and Lies involves Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), an elegant black woman wanting to learn her birth mother's identity. She will find it's Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who is one of the saddest creatures we've seen in film. She's also one of the most real and, ultimately, one of the most loveable. Timothy Spall is Cynthia's brother, a giant man full of love who is being slowly defeated by his fastidious wife (Phyllis Logan). There is a great exuberance of life in Secrets & Lies, winner of the Palme D'Or and best actress (Blethyn) at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival--not Zorba-type life but the little battles fought and won every day. Leigh's honest interpretation of daily life is usually found only on the stage. Secrets & Lies is more realistic than a stage production, however, especially when Leigh shows us uninterrupted scenes. Critic David Denby states that Leigh has "made an Ingmar Bergman film without an instant of heaviness or pretension." If that sounds like your cup of tea, see Secrets & Lies. --Doug Thomas

• Another Year | DVD | (28/02/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Mike Leigh's ANOTHER YEAR will be released in the UK and Ireland on 5 November by Momentum Pictures.

• Secrets & Lies (1996) (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (26/04/2021) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Writer-director MIKE LEIGH (Naked) reached new levels of expressive power and intricacy in his ongoing contemplation of unembellished humanity with this resonant exploration of the deceptions, small and large, that shape our relationships to those we love. When Hortense (RoboCop's MARIANNE JEAN-BAPTISTE), a Black optometrist who was adopted as a child, begins the search for her birth mother, she doesn't expect that it will lead her to Cynthia (Pride & Prejudice's BRENDA BLETHYN, winner of the Cannes Film Festival's best actress award), a desperately lonely white factory worker whose tentative embrace of her long-lost daughter sends shock waves through the rest of her already fragile family. Born from a painstaking process of rehearsal and improvisation with a powerhouse ensemble cast, Secrets & Lies is a Palme d'Orwinning tour de force of sustained tension and catharsis that lays bare the emotional fault lines running beneath the surface of everyday lives. Special Features: New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Mike Leigh and director of photography Dick Pope, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New conversation with Leigh and composer Gary Yershon New interview with actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste Audio interview with Leigh from 1996 conducted by film critic Michel Ciment Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• Life Is Sweet | DVD | (17/03/2008) from £9.53   |  Saving you £6.46 (67.79%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Life is Sweet is the remarkable story of an unremarkable British family told in the classic tragi-comedy style that is uniquely Mike Leigh's. It covers issues of unemployment anorexia failure nervous breakdown and hope as they affect one suburban London family and their friends and acquaintances. The characters and story were created with and by the actors - giving a special edge and momentum to the unfolding events. Leigh's sharply satirical and unsentimentally compassionate view of life strikes a chord with audiences and critics alike. Life is Sweet brings together an impressive cast - including Alison Steadman ('Let Them Eat Cake') Jim Broadbent ('The Avengers') Jane Horrocks ('Little Voice') and Timothy Spall ('Topsy Turvey') - many of whom have worked with Leigh in the past as has producer Simon Channing-Williams.

• Life is Sweet + A Running Jump (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (25/09/2017) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Mike Leigh's acclaimed social comedy Life is Sweet is one of the director's finest achievements. Depicting a summer in the life of a modern family at odds with itself, this hilarious yet tragic domestic portrait features a stellar ensemble cast - including Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent and Timothy Spall - and remains a potent and pointed satire. Leigh returns to the colour and terrain of his 1990 classic with A Running Jump. Commissioned by BBC Films and Film 4 to mark the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the film portrays Perry Conroy's (Eddie Marsan) frenzied efforts to sell a second hand car with the help of his frenetic family. Special Features: Fully illustrated booklet with new writing on the film and full credits Other extras TBC UK | 1990 + 2012 | colour | 99 + 35 mins | English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles | cert 15

• All Or Nothing | DVD | (21/01/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Three-time Oscar-nominated writer/director Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy Secrets & Lies) delivers this rewarding picture about an ordinary family dealing with the complexities of life and a crisis that takes them on a tumultuous emotional journey. In a crowded South London apartment building Penny a working mom struggles to keep her dejected daughter her lazy son and her disillusioned partner on the right path. But when tragedy befalls her loved ones she finds that support comes from the most unexpected places...and brings the most surprising results.

• Secrets and Lies | DVD | (22/07/2019) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a young, black optometrist whose adoptive parents have recently died. Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) is a sad, unmarried mother who works in a factory and lives in a shabby terraced house with her confrontational daughter Roxanna (Claire Rushbrook). Cynthia's brother Maurice (Timothy Spall) is a successful photographer who lives comfortably in suburbia with his wife Monica (Phyllis Logan). In a misplaced effort to re-unite the family, Maurice & Monica throw a small barbecue party for Roxanne's 21st birthday. When Cynthia brings along her new friend Hortense, chaos ensues and some painful truths are revealed.