# What is the best Mike Leigh film?

> From bleak character studies to lavish period dramas, this filmography swings between kitchen-sink realism and unexpected warmth. Which one earns your vote?

*By YPB Team · Published July 29, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-mike-leigh-film*

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## Current results (3 votes)

1. **Naked** — 66.67% (2 votes · score 1000/1000)
   Leigh's bleak 1993 odyssey through London's underbelly, led by David Thewlis's ferocious performance.
2. **Secrets & Lies** — 33.33% (1 votes · score 809/1000)
   A 1996 drama about a Black optometrist who discovers her birth mother is white and working-class.
3. **Happy-Go-Lucky** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   A relentlessly cheerful primary school teacher navigates a grumpy driving instructor and life's frustrations.
4. **Topsy-Turvy** — 0% (0 votes · score 485/1000)
   A 1999 backstage drama chronicling Gilbert and Sullivan's creation of The Mikado.
5. **High Hopes** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Leigh's 1988 satire of Thatcher-era London class divisions centered on a working-class couple.
6. **Another Year** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   A contented older couple's life is contrasted against the loneliness of the friends around them across four seasons.
7. **Vera Drake** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Imelda Staunton stars as a 1950s London housewife secretly performing illegal abortions.
8. **Mr. Turner** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Timothy Spall plays eccentric painter J.M.W. Turner in this lush biographical drama.
9. **Hard Truths** — 0% (0 votes · score 397/1000)
   Leigh's 2024 drama starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a woman consumed by anger and fear.
10. **Life is Sweet** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   A 1990 tragicomedy about a chaotic North London family and their diverging paths.
11. **Career Girls** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   Two former college roommates reunite in 1997 to revisit their shared past and how much they've changed.
12. **All or Nothing** — 0% (0 votes · score 291/1000)
   A 2002 drama following a struggling working-class family in a South London housing estate.
13. **Peterloo** — 0% (0 votes · score 162/1000)
   A 2018 historical epic dramatizing the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester.

Tags: movies, directors, mike leigh, british cinema