He has won many prizes at major European film festivals. Virtually all notably he won a Better Director award at Cannes for Naked in 1993 and the ''Palme d'Or in 1996 for Secrets & Lies''.

He won a Leone 500'Oro for a better film at the International Venice Film Festival in 2004 with Vera Drake. the film gained him a 2005 Academy Award nomination for direction.

Earliest plays like Nuts in May and Abigail's Party tended more towards bleakly yet humourously satirising middle-class manners and attitudes, while later films such as Naked and Vera Drake are somewhat starker, more brutal, and concentrate more on the working-class. The commitment to realism and humanism however is evident throughout.

Mike Leigh utilizes extended improvisations developed on top the period of weeks to build characters & plot line for his films. He starts by having a select few sketch idewhen of how else he thinks items can grow, however doesn't reveal tons his intentions by using a cast world health organization discover their fate & work out their reactions as their destinies come bit by bit revealed.

Initial preparation is in camera by using a director so a actors come introduced to both more in the sequentially that their characters would stand met in their dwells. Intimate moments come explored that might non possibly exist as referred to in the final film to build insight & understanding of history, character & inner motivation. A critical scenes in a eventual story come performed & recorded fully-costumed, real-period improvisations in which the actors encounter first recently characters, cases or even facts which will dramatically affect their character's endures.

Final motion-picture photography is additional traditional when definite feel of story, action & dialogue is so in situ. A director reminds a cast of poop from either a improvisations that he hopes to capture in film.

Within 2005, Leigh returned to directing for the stage fallowing numbers of years absence sustaining his recently play 2 Thousand Years. the play deals by using a divisions in a left-wing secular Jewish family while one of a immature members finds religion. These are a number 1 instance Leigh has drawn in his Jewish background for inspiration.

Filmography
Bleak Moments (1971) Hard Labour (1973) Nuts in May (BBC Play for Today, 1976) ''Abigail's Party (BBC Play for Today, 1977) Grown-Ups (1980) Meantime (1983) The Short and Curlies (1987) High Hopes (1988) Life Is Sweet (1990) Naked (1993) Secrets & Lies (1996) Career Girls (1997) Topsy-Turvy (1999) All or Nothing (2002) Vera Drake'' (2004)