Mike Leigh

Known for: Secrets & Lies (1996), Naked (1993)

Mike Leigh has developed a filmmaking process unique in British cinema: he works with actors over many months of improvisation and character development before writing his scripts, producing films with a texture of lived experience difficult to achieve through conventional screenwriting. Secrets & Lies (1996) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes; Naked (1993), All or Nothing (2002), and Another Year (2010) are among the most sustained documents of British working-class life on film.