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Kenneth Branagh

Born 1960-12-10
📍 Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Born in Belfast and raised primarily in Reading, Berkshire, Branagh trained at RADA in London and served as its president from 2015 to 2024. His accolades include an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Olivier Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2012 and was given Freedom of the City in his native Belfast in 2018. In 2020, he was ranked in 20th place on The Irish Times's list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Branagh has directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006). He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director for Henry V and Best Adapted Screenplay for Hamlet. He directed Swan Song (1992), which earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He also directed Peter's Friends (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Thor (2011), and Cinderella (2015). For his semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021), he was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director and won Best Original Screenplay.

Branagh directed and starred as Hercule Poirot in the Hercule Poirot film series (2017–present). He has also acted in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), and Valkyrie (2008). His portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011) earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He played supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's films Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), and Oppenheimer (2023).

Branagh has starred in the BBC1 series Fortunes of War (1987), the Channel 4 series Shackleton (2002), the television film Warm Springs (2005), and the BBC One series Wallander (2008–2016). He received a Primetime Emmy Award and an International Emmy Award for Best Actor for portraying SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the HBO film Conspiracy (2001).

Filmography 138

Mayday
as Nikolai Ustinov
2026
Atonement
as Michael Reid
2026
The Devil Wears Prada 2
as Stuart
2026
Tea with Judi Dench
as Self
2025
The American Revolution
as (voice)
2025
The King of Kings
as Charles Dickens (voice)
2025
BLUE EYE SAMURAI
as Abijah Fowler (voice)
2023
A Haunting in Venice
as Hercule Poirot
2023
Oppenheimer
as Niels Bohr
2023
Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba
as Self
2022
Denzel Washington: A Model American
as Self
2022
This England
as Boris Johnson
2022
Remembers…
as Self
2022
Death on the Nile
as Hercule Poirot
2022
Fireheart
as Shawn Nolan (voice)
2022
Looking at the World in a New Way: The Making of ‘Tenet’
as Self
2020
Tenet
as Sator
2020
Lost Lives
as Narrator
2019
The Kelly Clarkson Show
as Self
2019
All Is True
as William Shakespeare
2018
Avengers: Infinity War
as Asgardian Distress Call (voice) (uncredited)
2018
Murder on the Orient Express
as Hercule Poirot
2017
Dunkirk
as Commander Bolton
2017
Branagh Theatre Live: The Entertainer
as Archie Rice
2016
Mindhorn
as Himself
2016
Branagh Theatre Live: The Winter's Tale
as Leontes
2015
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
as Self
2015
Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe
as Self
2014
Late Night with Seth Meyers
as Self
2014
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
as Viktor Cherevin
2014
National Theatre Live: Macbeth
as Macbeth
2013
Stars in Shorts
as Mark Snow
2012
Marvel Studios: Building a Cinematic Universe
as Self
2012
London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isles of Wonder
as Isambard Kingdom Brunel
2012
My Week with Marilyn
as Sir Laurence Olivier
2011
Discovering Hamlet
as Hamlet (archive footage)
2011
Thor: From Asgard to Earth
as Self
2011
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
as Self
2011
Prodigal
as Mark Snow
2011
With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story
as Self
2010
A Night at the Movies: The Gigantic World of Epics
as Self
2009
A Night at the Movies: The Suspenseful World of Thrillers
as Self
2009
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
as Narrator (voice)
2009
The Boat That Rocked
as Dormandy
2009
Valkyrie
as Henning von Tresckow
2008
Wallander
as Kurt Wallander
2008
10 Days to War
as Colonel Tim Collins
2008
Alien Love Triangle
as Steven Chesterman
2008
Sleuth
as Other Man on T.V.
2007
Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out
as Self
2007
James Ellis: An Actor's Life
as Himself
2007
The Graham Norton Show
as Self
2007
The Graham Norton Show
as Self - Guest
2007
El hormiguero
as Self
2006
As You Like It
as Self (voice)
2006
Walking with Monsters
as Narrator (voice)
2005
Walking with Monsters
as Narrator (voice)
2005
Warm Springs
as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2005
The Goebbels Experiment
as Narrator (voice)
2005
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
as Self
2005
Five Children and It
as Uncle Albert
2004
The Magic Touch of Harry Potter
as Self
2004
Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic
as Narrator (voice)
2004
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
as Self
2003
World War 1 in Colour
as Narrator
2003
Real Time with Bill Maher
as Self
2003
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
as Gilderoy Lockhart
2002
How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
as Peter McGowan
2002
The Tramp and the Dictator
as Narrator (voice)
2002
Rabbit-Proof Fence
as A. O. Neville
2002
Shackleton
as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
2002
The Beasts Within
as Narrator (voice)
2001
Triumph of the Beasts
as Narrator (voice)
2001
Walking with Beasts
as Narrator
2001
Conspiracy
as Reinhard Heydrich
2001
Big Al
as Narrator
2000
Lon Chaney: A thousand faces
as Self / Narrator
2000
The Book That Wrote Itself
as Kenneth Branagh
2000
The Road to El Dorado
as Miguel (voice)
2000
Love's Labour's Lost
as Berowne
2000
Altman on His Own Terms
as Self
2000
Wild Wild West: Evil Devices
as Himself
1999
The Periwig-Maker
as Periwig-maker (voice)
1999
IMAX: Galapagos 3D
as Narrator
1999
Walking with Dinosaurs
as Self - Narrator (voice)
1999
Wild Wild West
as Dr. Arliss Loveless
1999
It's a Whole New West: The Making of 'Wild, Wild West'
as Self
1999
The Theory of Flight
as Richard
1999
The Dance of Shiva
as Colonel Evans
1998
Universal Horror
as Narrator
1998
Celebrity
as Lee Simon
1998
Cold War
1998
The Proposition
as Father Michael McKinnon
1998
The Gingerbread Man
as Rick Magruder
1998
Parkinson
as Self
1998
The View
as Self
1997
Leute heute
as Self
1997
Hamlet
as Prince Hamlet
1996
Looking for Richard
as Self - Interviewee
1996
Othello
as Iago
1995
Shadow of a Gunman
as Donal Davoren
1995
Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood
1995
Anne Frank Remembered
as Narration (voice)
1995
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
as Victor Frankenstein
1994
It's Alive: The True Story of Frankenstein
as Self
1994
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
as Self - Guest
1993
Much Ado About Nothing
as Benedick
1993
Swing Kids
as Herr Knopp, Gestapo (uncredited)
1993
Peter's Friends
as Andrew Benson
1992
Symphony for the Spire
1992
Performance
as Donal Davoren
1991
Dead Again
as Roman Strauss / Mike Church
1991
Discovering Hamlet
as Himself / Hamlet
1990
Look Back in Anger
as Jimmy Porter
1989
Henry V
as Henry V
1989
American Experience
as Narrator (voice)
1988
Thames Wallah
as Narrator
1988
Fortunes of War
as Guy Pringle
1987
A Month in the Country
as James Moon
1987
High Season
as Rick
1987
Ghosts
as Oswald Alving
1987
Lorna
as Billy Martin
1987
The Lady's Not For Burning
as Thomas Mendip
1987
Coming Through
as D.H. Lawrence
1985
Theatre Night
as Oswald Alving
1985
A Coming to Terms for Billy
as Billy Martin
1984
The Boy in the Bush
as Jack Grant
1984
A Matter of Choice for Billy
as Billy Martin
1983
To the Lighthouse
as Charles Tansley
1983
Easter 2016
as Student
1982
Wogan
as Self
1982
Too Late to Talk to Billy
as Billy Martin
1982
Chariots of Fire
as Cambridge Student at Society Day (uncredited)
1981
Play for Today
1970
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
as Self
1962
Tony Awards
as Self
1956
The Oscars
as Self
1953
Golden Globe Awards
as Self - Nominee
1944