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2010’s Top 10: Repeat Offenders in Mike Leigh and Ruth Sheen

Published on January 4, 2011

5. Mike Leigh and Ruth Sheen

I love the fact that Mike Leigh works with the same players and has the knack for creating such memorable, strong and plenty of times fragile female characters. In Ruth Sheen’s case this is the fifth time they’ve worked together, but you’d be hard pressed to remember the bit roles she had in 1996’s Secrets & Lies, 2002’s All or Nothing and 2004’s Vera Drake. She sort of resurfaced in a major role of just the most sane friend, wife, parent role of Gerri in Another Year, after a little bit more than having performed for him in 1988’s High Hopes.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).