Tender Loving Care

Mike Leigh made Tender Loving Care after Hard Truths, and has said it is most likely his last film, citing the physical toll of illness. It was shot in London, developed through the long improvised rehearsals that have shaped his work since the 1970s, and produced by his regular collaborator Georgina Lowe with Film4 and Thin Man Films. It premiered at Telluride in September 2026, then played Special Presentations at Toronto, the main competition at San Sebastián and the Main Slate of the New York Film Festival.

Kate O'Flynn leads as Amy, a devoted social worker; Alice Bailey Johnson plays Rosie, her friend and colleague, and Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson are Amy's parents. Over a week of casework and family life, the film moves between the flats and kitchens of Amy's clients and the house where her father's memory is beginning to slip. Lucy Bristow is the cinematographer, and the comedy, as ever with Leigh, comes out of the characters.

Reviews were close to unanimous: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 86, with Deadline calling it one of his best. It takes Leigh back to the small domestic scale of Life Is Sweet and Another Year, and to the subject he has never left, decent, ordinary people doing their best with little. This time he also makes room for the professional carers, whose work British cinema rarely stops to look at.