injury and adversity

His films obsessively explore physical and psychological trauma, from a boxer's deterioration in The Wrestler to a ballerina's mental breakdown in Black Swan.

He documents how systemic adversity and poverty devastate ordinary lives with unflinching realism in films like I, Daniel Blake and Kes.

His compassionate narratives examine how people endure emotional and social wounds, from family fracture in Nobody Knows to grief and loss in Shoplifters.