Director Mike Leigh Revisits a Little-Known 1819 Massacre in ‘Peterloo’

You might need to be something of an English-history nut to truly love Peterloo, Mike Leigh's somber and ambitious film about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which 18 people were killed and many more were injured when cavalry soldiers charged a group of roughly 60,000 citizens who had gathered peacefully in Manchester's St. Peter's Field to campaign for parliamentary reform.

You might need to be something of an English-history nut to truly love Peterloo, Mike Leigh's somber and ambitious film about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which 18 people were killed and many more were injured when cavalry soldiers charged a group of roughly 60,000 citizens who had gathered peacefully in Manchester's St. Peter's Field to campaign for parliamentary reform.