Kes

If you liked this

Billy Elliot2000

Another northern English boy with an absent father figure finds an unlikely calling that everyone around him mocks or fails to understand; here it ends in triumph rather than tragedy.

But It's a crowd-pleaser with a soundtrack and a happy ending — Kes fans wanting the same bleakness will find this softer.

Ratcatcher1999

Lynne Ramsay's Glasgow-set film about a neglected boy in a decaying tenement estate, with the same unflinching eye for childhood cruelty and small moments of grace amid squalor.

But Even bleaker and more impressionistic than Kes, with almost no plot to hold onto at all.

The Selfish Giant2013

Clio Barnard's Bradford-set story of two excluded boys and a horse-and-cart scrapyard economy, filmed on the same kind of estates with the same non-professional rawness Loach pioneered.

But Deliberately punishing in its final act, more devastating than Kes even — go in braced for grief.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Kes

Cast

• 
  David BradleyBilly
• 
  Freddie FletcherJud
• 
  Lynne PerrieMrs. Casper
• 
  Colin WellandMr. Farthing
• 
  Brian GloverMr. Sugden
• B
  Bob BowesMr. Gryce
• 
  Bernard AthaYouth Employment Officer
• L
  Laurence Bould
• J
  Joey KayePub Comic
• T
  Ted Carroll
• R
  Robert NaylorMacDowell
• A
  Agnes Drumgoon

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