12 Greatest 'Performance' Directors Of The 21st Century

7. Mike Leigh

Directed Memorable Performances In: All or Nothing (2002), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) and Another Year(2010)

Best of the Best: Imelda Staunton in Vera Drake (2004)

More than perhaps anyone else on the list, Leigh is THE name for performance-centric filmmaker. Spending much of the production schedule on his films rehearsing with his actors on all of the scenes in the script. Blocking them out, making all the lines flow effortlessly and managing the emotions of the moment, Leigh has a rapport with his cast unlike any other director working today.

Making slice-of-life dramas about down-to-earth people having to deal with extraordinary circumstances, Leigh precisely and methodically paces his stories making sure the dramas he depicts are as organic and true-to-life as possible. Making his name with a post-Thatcher England cross-sectional examination in Naked (1993), he has continued to make down-to-earth naturalistic movies about working-class people.

It was more than ten years later with Vera Drake that help to cement Leigh's legacy as a character-director. Imelda Staunton plays the titular character a post-WWII era English house-wife who on the surface is a simple home-maker, but her secret job contrasts mightily with her everyday life. Helping to induce abortions for women who can't otherwise pay for a clinical abortion. Staunton is quietly powerful as the house-wife that hides much behind her public persona, and her scenes towards the end when the walls start to close in on her are heart-breaking realized. Garnering an oscar nomination for both the lead actress and director more than shows that it was in Vera Drake that the two were at the top of their game.