My Name Is Joe

My Name Is Joe (1998) is a Ken Loach social drama you can watch online on iFILM, set in one of Glasgow's roughest housing estates. Joe is unemployed, a year sober, and coaching a ragtag local football team. He is holding his life together with considerable effort.

He meets Sarah, a community health worker, and something honest develops between them. But Loach doesn't let the romance stand apart from the neighbourhood — Joe's loyalty to one of his players drags him back toward people and debts he was trying to leave behind. Peter Mullan took the Best Actor prize at Cannes 1998 for a performance that never reaches for sympathy and earns it anyway.

Shot in the naturalist style Loach refined across decades, the film keeps its camera close and its judgements quiet, which makes the weight of the ending land harder than any dramatic score could. Stream My Name Is Joe (1998) online on iFILM.