"Like Gregory’s Girl, another movie about a gangly young man struggling to communicate romantically, but through a young Mike Leigh’s harsher lens, all is hopeless. There’s a depressing scene at a disco where Freda Payne’s "Band of Gold" is playing in the background. Trevor stands to the side and refuses to dance while everyone else happily boogies to this upbeat song – upbeat to dance to, but if you’re not dancing and just paying attention to the lyrics, they’re pretty miserable. It’s such a purposeful, subtle touch that is so pure Mike Leigh that it manages to subvert any irony. I can just imagine it being the only song he liked of the disco era. And the titular kiss is pure death."

"I guess the next one would be Naked, by Mike Leigh. Mike Leigh might be my favorite living filmmaker. A lot has been said about his working method, you know. He spends about six months with his actors basically finding the characters and improvising and building these relationships. Then after that, he’ll go off and write a script based on the improvisations that took place over those six months. It results in some of the most vivid character work I’ve ever seen. The relationships in his films are so rich, and you just feel so much history there. That’s because the history has really been built. It really exists. But what people don’t really talk much about is just how wonderful a craftsman he is. His films are gorgeous and they’re beautifully made. I mean, his work with Dick Pope is just incredible, and they’re all so impeccably structured. So, I just think he’s made so many masterpieces. I toggled between Naked and Topsy-Turvy and Secrets and Lies being my favorite. But right now, Naked is the one that is coming to me."

"I’m a huge Mike Leigh fan and would love to work with him. His approach to filming sounds fascinating and exciting. I understand that he doesn’t give his actors a script but instead hands them scenes and encourages improvisation. I’m not sure if this is indeed his process, but the result is nothing short of beautiful intimate moments. And this film is full of them! At times it feels so intimate it’s almost voyeuristic. To me, that’s what makes a performance really exciting…when you’re almost embarrassed to be peeking into peoples’ lives. And that happens a lot in this perfect emotional drama."

"Maybe My Name Is Joe, to mix it up a bit. At the time when I saw this, I was just wanting to get into filmmaking and I was really fascinated by Ken Loach — and Mike Leigh — because, again, they were social realist films. Loach is more politically based. My Name Is Joe was just such a moving film and it basically portrayed a portrait of a man that basically didn’t have a choice in the choices he made because of his political situation, and then, just how that wasn’t really enough. It was a really tragic, moving film. I just love that film."

"Nic Roeg’s disturbing portrait of a creep (played almost too well by Art Garfunkel) investigates the desire that some men have for their women to just shut up and be their playthings. Mike Leigh’s Naked is one of the darkest, saddest, most hopeless depictions of corrupted masculinity in movies. David Thewlis manages to allow for slivers of humanity in his enraged wreck of a character, but Leigh seems to suggest that the world can only make room for these men at our own peril. The ultimate in Rainy Day Bummers, which are the movies I sometimes need to watch to find my center again."

"Nic Roeg’s disturbing portrait of a creep (played almost too well by Art Garfunkel) investigates the desire that some men have for their women to just shut up and be their playthings. Mike Leigh’s Naked is one of the darkest, saddest, most hopeless depictions of corrupted masculinity in movies. David Thewlis manages to allow for slivers of humanity in his enraged wreck of a character, but Leigh seems to suggest that the world can only make room for these men at our own peril. The ultimate in Rainy Day Bummers, which are the movies I sometimes need to watch to find my center again."

"A young John Hurt plays a bitter art school drop-out who forms his own fascist political movement, the Party of Dynamic Erection. It’s very proto-Withnail & I, and it’s not lost on me that George Harrison was involved in producing both Little Malcolm and Withnail. So it’s cool to think that my favorite Beatle helped make the best two movies about crazy assholes in trench coats screaming at each other in shitty apartments. Mike Leigh directed the original production of the play of Little Malcolm and I can also see how the Scrawdyke character may have informed him in creating Johnny from Naked, another misogynistic, visionary crackpot trying to assert his manhood."

"Mike Leigh might be my favorite living filmmaker. Topsy-Turvy is perhaps the most generous period piece I’ve ever seen. It is so funny and so filled with period detail and so clearly a film that doesn’t want to stop. It’s purely anecdotal; there’s no real plot. It’s structured around the writing of The Mikado, but really it’s just about the period, and every scene is so rich. As for Naked, David Thewlis’s performance is my favorite male performance ever. There’s nothing like it. It’s a bleak film, but it’s so filled with life and passion and it’s so funny. Leigh is an inspiration but not an influence. I don’t think anyone can work the way he does—nobody has the resources. He spends six months improvising characters and relationships and histories with the best actors in the world, and then he goes off and writes a script. I go to his films just to remind myself what I want out of movies about people. Ultimately I am a genre filmmaker and he’s not, but I’ve always wanted to make genre films that are rooted in character. I go to his films to pull myself a little bit out of genre and remember what it is that makes us care about any story in the first place—the people at the heart of it. But Leigh gets so much credit for his character work and his work with actors that people forget to mention what a brilliant craftsman he is."

"Mike Leigh might be my favorite living filmmaker. Topsy-Turvy is perhaps the most generous period piece I’ve ever seen. It is so funny and so filled with period detail and so clearly a film that doesn’t want to stop. It’s purely anecdotal; there’s no real plot. It’s structured around the writing of The Mikado, but really it’s just about the period, and every scene is so rich. As for Naked, David Thewlis’s performance is my favorite male performance ever. There’s nothing like it. It’s a bleak film, but it’s so filled with life and passion and it’s so funny. Leigh is an inspiration but not an influence. I don’t think anyone can work the way he does—nobody has the resources. He spends six months improvising characters and relationships and histories with the best actors in the world, and then he goes off and writes a script. I go to his films just to remind myself what I want out of movies about people. Ultimately I am a genre filmmaker and he’s not, but I’ve always wanted to make genre films that are rooted in character. I go to his films to pull myself a little bit out of genre and remember what it is that makes us care about any story in the first place—the people at the heart of it. But Leigh gets so much credit for his character work and his work with actors that people forget to mention what a brilliant craftsman he is."