Elsewhere Mike Leigh gets a surprise nomination in the original screenplay category for Another Year.
Mike Leigh's work remains as relevant to Britain today as it was in 1977 when Beverly famously put the Beaujolais in the fridge.
The festival opened in grand style, with the British film Secrets and Lies, by Mike Leigh, shown on a towering six-story outdoor screen.
Spall has had a hugely successful career since first appearing in the show, starring in numerous TV series and films, including several for director Mike Leigh.
Previous recipients include Mike Leigh, Kenneth Branagh and John Hurt.
The star clinched the accolade for his role in the film Topsy Turvy, directed by Mike Leigh, in which he plays Gilbert of the operetta team Gilbert and Sullivan.
Director Mike Leigh will be showing Happy Go Lucky, his first film since Vera Drake, while Tilda Swinton's performance as an alcoholic in Julia is guaranteed to please the critics.
Although the recipient of an OBE, the Palme d'Or, numerous Bafta awards and plaudits from around the world, Mike Leigh is still very much an outsider in his own country.
Britain's Lesley Manville missed out on the best actress prize for her performance in Mike Leigh's Another Year, a gong won last year by her compatriot Kate Winslet for The Reader.
Smith's former Two Pints co-star Natalie Casey won the best supporting actress in a play for the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party, which also won Best Play Revival.
BBC: Sheridan Smith and Rupert Everett shine at theatre awards
Further north, on Peckham Road, is the small but influential South London Gallery (SLG) and the Camberwell College of Arts, whose alumni include Mike Leigh, a filmmaker, and Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's legendary acid-casualty guitarist.
Take a pinch of Goodness Gracious Me, My Beautiful Launderette, East is East, etc and add Alison Steadman's brilliant Abigail (pinched with gusto by the fabulous Juliet Stevenson from Mike Leigh's "Abigail's Party") and you have it.
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