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