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).
1962 • TV
2014 • TV
2015 • TV
2003 • TV
2002 • Movie
2023 • Movie
as Gilderoy Lockhart
as Hercule Poirot
as Other Man on T.V.
as Henning von Tresckow
as Prince Hamlet
as Miguel (voice)
as Viktor Cherevin
as Dr. Arliss Loveless
as Henry V
as Lee Simon
as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
as Victor Frankenstein
as Oswald Alving
as Dormandy
as Cambridge Student at Society Day (uncredited)
as Benedick
as Sir Laurence Olivier
as Mark Snow
as Reinhard Heydrich
as Rick
Director
Director
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Producer
Director
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Director
Director
Director
Producer
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
6 episodes
as Self - Guest
1 episodes
as Self - Guest
1 episodes
as Self
2 episodes
as Narrator (voice)
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self - Nominee
2 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
3 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Self
1 episodes
as Abijah Fowler (voice)
8 episodes
Executive Producer
