Ken Loach

Ken Loach's best-known film is Kes: Billy Caspar, a working-class boy, and the kestrel that lets him escape the monotony of a school with no interest in him. His real breakthrough came in television. Cathy Come Home, broadcast in the BBC's The Wednesday Play slot, was watched by six million people on the night of transmission in November 1966, and it showed the reality of homelessness. He has worked mostly with unknown performers and drawn unforgettable playing out of them, and a humour of his own runs under the hard subjects. My Name Is Joe and Sweet Sixteen were written by Paul Laverty, a collaborator of his over many years. Two Palmes d'Or stand to him, the first for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and the second, ten years on, for I, Daniel Blake.