Riff-Raff

Riff-Raff (1991) is Ken Loach's bruising tragicomedy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Stevie, played by a young Robert Carlyle, leaves a Scottish prison and heads to London chasing any kind of work.

He finds it on a building site where the crew labors for next to nothing under false names — some dodging immigration, some still drawing the dole. Loach films these men with no gloss and no pity: mud, gallows humor, and bosses who treat safety as an expense. Alongside the work, Stevie falls for Susan, an Irish woman who dreams of singing and slides toward addiction instead.

Shot almost like a documentary, built on raw improvised dialogue, the film features Ricky Tomlinson and Peter Mullan in early roles. It's a furious, funny snapshot of the working class in Thatcher's Britain — made for viewers who like social drama where the laughs sit right next to the misery. Stream Riff-Raff (1991) online on iFILM.