Film
Naked
Fleeing trouble in Manchester, a brilliant, embittered drifter turns up at the London flat of a former girlfriend and embarks on a long, caustic odyssey through the night-time city, unloading torrents of apocalyptic wit on everyone he meets — a lonely night-watchman, a waitress, a series of damaged strangers — while a callous landlord menaces the women he left behind.
About
Mike Leigh's Naked (1993) was a startling swerve into darkness for the director, winning him Best Director and his star Best Actor at Cannes. After the gentler humanism of Life Is Sweet, it offered a bleak, furious vision of a Britain hollowed out by the Thatcher years, and remains his most savage and divisive film.
David Thewlis gives a ferocious, motormouthed performance as Johnny, the homeless intellectual whose dazzling, nihilistic monologues — about millennial dread, the futility of work, the end of the world — pour over a series of nocturnal encounters. Leigh, working through his trademark improvisatory process, refuses to soften or redeem his protagonist, and the film's bleakness, including its disturbing treatment of cruelty between men and women, drew controversy alongside the acclaim. Thewlis's verbal pyrotechnics anchor a portrait of intelligence curdled into despair.
Critics were divided but largely awed, and the film has grown in stature as one of the defining works of 1990s British cinema. Brilliant, abrasive and deeply uncomfortable, Naked channels the rage of a wounded society into a single unforgettable character. It is Leigh at his most uncompromising — a film that offers no consolation and demands to be reckoned with. Thewlis's verbal pyrotechnics anchor a portrait of intelligence curdled into despair, and the film has grown in stature as one of the defining, most uncompromising works of 1990s British cinema.
Where to Watch
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Top Cast
David Thewlis
Johnny
Lesley Sharp
Louise
Katrin Cartlidge
Sophie
Greg Cruttwell
Jeremy
Claire Skinner
Sandra
Awards, Festivals & Mentions
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Winner × 2 — Cannes prizes: Best Director (Mike Leigh), Best Actor (David Thewlis)
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Cannes Film Festival 1993 — In Competition