[RightWingAtheist]

Mike Leigh belongs to a stridently leftist "post-Angry Young Man" school of filmmakers which includes Ken Loach and Stephen Frears. He's much less polemical than Loach however, and less conventional than Frears (who has made more commercial films such as High Fidelity, Dangerous Liasons and Mary Reilly, in addition to the likes of Prick Up Your Years, The Van, and Liam), so he's my favorite of the bunch.

[CaptainK]

I've enjoyed quite a few of Frears works, though the last film of his that I saw, "Pretty Dirty Things", was quite bizarre. I figured out the twist half way through the film which shows it's overall shoddiness.
I'll give Leigh this, I hate Gilbert and Sullivan but I loved "Topsy Turvy".