Your movies tend to be quite serious, would you say The Angel’s Share is the closest you’ve been to making a full on comedy?

Ken Loach: A number of the films that we’ve done have comedy in them because you can’t tell a story about people and not smile sometimes.  But first, the definition of comedy itself means that that there must be a happy ending as well as making you smile. So we always try to include two or three smiles in our movies.

Based on the 1968 novel, A Kestrel for a Knave, Kes is perhaps Ken Loach’s most universally beloved movie. Set in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, the film centers on the young Billy Casper (David Bradley), a 15 year old living with his mother (Lynne Perrie) and half-brother Jud (Freddie Fletcher). A misfit at home and in school, Billy spends his days wandering along the yellowing countryside where he dreams of a life that doesn’t include him going “down the pit”, like the rest of the men in the mining town.

Ladybird Ladybird opens with actor Crissy Rock’s character “Maggie” giving the performance of a lifetime: her version of Bette Midler’s “The Rose”. “Maggie” is giving this performance everything she’s got. What the audience sees is a dynamically-moving, weary-eyed delivery of this (let’s face it) kind of corny old song. Rock too is giving the performance of a lifetime, showing the spectator everything they need to know about this character in the span of just a few well-chosen moments. That is if they are paying attention. “Maggie” exists in the minutiae of Ken Loach’s deceptively realistic world as presented on screen.

No other director has become so synonymous with the working class as Loach, yet his films retain a fairytale-like quality that works almost in direct opposition to his dedication to authenticity. In films such as Ladybird Ladybird these elements work together seamlessly, woven together by Rock’s daring, risky turn. “Maggie” is a real woman, a believable, three-dimensional creation, and Rock is not just an actress pretending to be one. Her own background, filled with startling abuse insured the kind of authenticity that viewers had come to expect from a Loach film.

My Name is Joe should be remembered for a few things. It’s touching story. The stalwart direction of Ken Loach.  The cold, dark, and straight-forward visual palette befitting its blue collar central character. Most of all, though, it should be remembered for Peter Mullan’s tragic turn as the titular Joe.

Mullan embodies Joe and all of his contradictory traits from the get go. The film begins with an AA meeting where Joe is recounting his story to the group. He starts by discussing his initial feelings of denial regarding his condition, and as an audience we’re not sure where we are just yet. As he comes around to reality, so do we. He pushes past his denial into admission without much of a reason for the transition, and we realize he’s in a meeting talking to people just like him.

Perhaps Ken Loach’s most well known film, the 2006 international hit The Wind That Shakes the Barley could also be seen as his most ambitious. Set during the Irish War of Independence and then the Irish Civil War, Loach’s film is an unequivocally substantial story for locals and foreigners alike. There are gunfights, high-level government meetings, and plenty of other sets, characters, and actions that many would picture requiring a big budget.

Yet the director known for his hard-and-fast shooting style keeps his methods intact, and the picture benefits all the more from his approach. It helps that Paul Laverty’s touching script focuses on two brothers who become fed up with the crown’s oppression. Laverty and Loach, long-term collaborators who the latter described as “filmmakers” above all else, find the intimate parts of the story and maximize them in a way that conveys both the national and familial consequences.