Ken Loach’s classic 1967 feature debut, Poor Cow, followed on from his hard-hitting work in television, including Cathy Come Home and Up the Junction. Poor Cow brought Loach’s unique, uncompromising style to a big screen audience and helped kick start a new movement in social realist filmmaking. Ken Loach has gone on to direct countless highly acclaimed films that include Kes and Sweet Sixteen. He has won numerous awards including the Palme d’Or for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, as well as both the BAFTA and BFI Fellowship Awards.

In a gritty 1960s London, Joy (Carol White, Cathy Come Home) is a young mother who is forced to fend for herself when her brutal and uncaring husband, Tom (John Bindon, Barry Lyndon, Get Carter), is put in jail. The film follows Joy as she gets a chance of happiness, meeting with Tom’s seemingly caring associate Dave (Terence Stamp, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Limey) whilst raising her son alone in squalid circumstances.