Known for Acting
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).
Born
December 10, 1960 (age 65)
Birthplace
Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Filmography
157 films, 47 shows


A Haunting in Venice
2023 · 1h 44m
country: United Kingdom
Celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot, now retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, reluctantly attends a Halloween séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.


Death on the Nile
2022 · 2h 7m
country: United States
Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot's Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple's idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short.


Belfast
2021 · 1h 38m
country: United Kingdom
Buddy is a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.


Artemis Fowl
2020 · 1h 34m
country: United Kingdom
Artemis Fowl is a 12-year-old genius and descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds. He soon finds himself in an epic battle against a race of powerful underground fairies who may be behind his father's disappearance.


All Is True
2018 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
London, June 29th, 1613. The Globe Theater, ran by the famous playwright William Shakespeare, accidentally burns to ashes. Seriously affected, he stops writing and returns to his hometown, where his wife Anne and daughters Judith and Susanna get surprised to hear he intends to stay there definitively, after two decades working in the capital, neglecting his sincere affections for them.


Murder on the Orient Express
2017 · 1h 54m
country: United States
Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.


Branagh Theatre Live: Romeo and Juliet
2016 · 2h 40m
country: United Kingdom
Live theatre presentation of Shakespeare's classic play about two teenagers from warring families whose love affair ends in tragedy.


Branagh Theatre Live: The Winter's Tale
2015 · 3h 30m
country: United Kingdom
A jealous king jeopardizes his family, friendships and succession.


Cinderella
2015 · 1h 45m
country: United Kingdom
When her father unexpectedly passes away, young Ella finds herself at the mercy of her cruel stepmother and her daughters. Never one to give up hope, Ella's fortunes begin to change after meeting a dashing stranger in the woods.


Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
2014 · 1h 45m
country: Russia
Jack Ryan, as a young covert CIA analyst, uncovers a Russian plot to crash the U.S. economy with a terrorist attack.


Thor
2011 · 1h 55m
country: United States
Against his father Odin's will, The Mighty Thor - a powerful but arrogant warrior god - recklessly reignites an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.


Sleuth
2007 · 1h 29m
country: United Kingdom
Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.


The Magic Flute
2006 · 2h 13m
country: United Kingdom
During World War I, in an unnamed country, a soldier named Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the supposedly evil Sarastro. But all is not as it seems.


As You Like It
2006 · 2h 7m
country: United Kingdom
Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando's celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden - set in 19th-century Japan.
Listening
Listening
2003 · 25m
country: United Kingdom
At a spa where talking is forbidden, an emotionally distraught woman finds solace in the company of a kind man and the two of them gradually fall in love.


Love's Labour's Lost
2000 · 1h 33m
country: France
A scholarly king and his three companions swear off the society of women for three years, only to have a diplomatic visit from a French princess and her three ladies-in-waiting thwart their intentions.


Hamlet
1996 · 4h 2m
country: United States
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother now marrying the murderer... his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.


In the Bleak Midwinter
1995 · 1h 39m
country: United Kingdom
Out of work actor Joe volunteers to help try and save his sister's local church for the community by putting on a Christmas production of Hamlet, somewhat against the advice of his agent Margaretta. As the cast he assembles are still available even at Christmas and are prepared to do it on a 'profit sharing' basis (that is, they may not get paid anything) he cannot expect - and does not get - the cream of the cream. But although they all bring their own problems and foibles along, something bigger starts to emerge in the perhaps aptly named village of Hope.


Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
1994 · 2h 3m
country: United States
Victor Frankenstein is a promising young doctor who, devastated by the death of his mother during childbirth, becomes obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. His experiments lead to the creation of a monster, which Frankenstein has put together with the remains of corpses. It's not long before Frankenstein regrets his actions.


Much Ado About Nothing
1993 · 1h 51m
country: United Kingdom
In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.


Peter's Friends
1992 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.
Swan Song
Swan Song
1992 · 23m
country: United Kingdom
An aging actor remembers his past stage triumphs and contemplates a dim future on the stage of an empty theatre. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.


Dead Again
1991 · 1h 47m
country: United States
In 1949, composer Roman Strauss is executed for the murder of his wife. In 1990s Los Angeles, a detective comes across a mute amnesiac woman who is somehow linked to the Strauss murder.


Henry V
1989 · 2h 17m
country: United Kingdom
In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.


Twelfth Night, or What You Will
1988 · 2h 45m
country: United Kingdom
The tale begins when a brother and sister are separated in a shipwreck, but survive to be washed up on the shore of Illyria. The sister, Viola, disguises herself as a man and takes service with Duke Orsino, who has fallen in love with Lady Olivia. Entrusted with pleading on her master's behalf, Viola is utterly disconcerted to find that Olivia has fallen in love with her. Thus begins the confusion of this delightful comedy.