Mike Leigh

Streaming: the best winners of Cannes’ Palme d’Or

Twenty-one films will vie for the top spot at the 76th Cannes film festival, which starts next week, hoping to join the roll call of past classics, from Taxi Driver and M*A*S*H to Parasite

Guy Lodge

06, May, 2023 @7:00 AM

‘Men my age aren’t good on their own. They’re needy’: Lesley Manville on being happily single and her big problem with Hollywood

The Mike Leigh favourite has become an Oscar-nominated A-lister. She talks about her glamorous mother, her on-stage stamina and being left holding the baby by Gary Oldman

Charlotte Edwardes

22, Apr, 2023 @6:00 AM

Alison Steadman: ‘We filmed the sex scene in the New Forest, so it was quite prickly’

The actor on working with Dennis Potter, channelling real life in Abigail’s Party and a groundbreaking lesbian snog

As told to Rich Pelley

30, Mar, 2023 @2:00 PM

Post your questions for Alison Steadman

Ask the British national treasure – star of Mike Leigh films aplenty, as well as countless TV and stage roles – about any of her brilliant performances by 6pm Sunday

Rich Pelley

22, Mar, 2023 @2:28 PM

Brian Tufano obituary

Cinematographer who brought his imaginative sensibilities to films such as Trainspotting, Billy Elliot and Quadrophenia

Ryan Gilbey

26, Jan, 2023 @6:02 PM

Streaming: the best hopeful films for a new year

It’s time to embrace positivity – from the underdog idealism of Rocky to the transcendent A Matter of Life and Death and the gloriously morbid optimism of Harold and Maude

Guy Lodge

31, Dec, 2022 @8:00 AM

‘Godard shattered cinema’: Martin Scorsese, Mike Leigh, Abel Ferrara, Claire Denis and more pay tribute

He was the explosively talented film-maker who changed cinema for all time. But what did other directing giants make of this movie legend – and did they find his latter films unwatchable?

14, Sep, 2022 @1:44 PM

Post your questions for Timothy Spall

Ahead of the release of thriller It Snows in Benidorm, the actor is taking your questions on his life, career and bizarre way of making tea

Rich Pelley

25, Aug, 2022 @2:41 PM

If you watch only one film … the greatest movies by the greatest directors

Some directors come with such huge back catalogues that it can be hard to know where to start. Enter our film critics, who suggest the best routes in to the works of some of our most prolific film-makers

Peter Bradshaw, Simran Hans, Catherine Bray and Danny Leigh

09, Jul, 2022 @11:00 AM

Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo: ‘I’ve never heard us described as an island of joy before!’

Radio’s odd couple take questions from actors, directors and Observer readers about optimism, the films they disagree on – and biscuits

Miranda Sawyer

01, May, 2022 @6:00 AM

‘Fancy a little top-up?’ Teens throw a new Abigail’s Party with guest list of 30

The eponymous do of Mike Leigh’s 1977 play is reimagined in Abi’s House Party, a youth production at the Watford Palace theatre. But what would Bev think?

Arifa Akbar

14, Mar, 2022 @8:00 PM

David Thewlis on new show Landscapers and the misogyny of Naked: ‘I find it much tougher to watch today’

As he stars alongside Olivia Colman in a drama about the Mansfield Murders, the actor talks about his discomfort with Naked, doing night shoots with Julie Walters – and growing old grotesquely

Zoe Williams

07, Dec, 2021 @6:00 AM