A skew brace $A = (A,\cdot,\circ)$ is said to be \textit{left-simple} if $A\neq1$ and it has no left ideal other than $1$ and $A$. The purpose of this paper is to give a partial classification of the finite left-simple skew braces. A result of Stefanello and Trappeniers implies that finite left-simple skew braces correspond precisely to minimal Hopf--Galois structures on finite Galois extensions of fields.