Director: Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh arrived as the actor-director who was going to make Shakespeare commercial again, and Henry V in 1989 did exactly that, earning him Oscar nominations for both acting and directing at twenty-nine. He followed it with Much Ado About Nothing and a full-text four-hour Hamlet, which remains the only uncut version filmed.

The subsequent career is deliberately unpredictable. He directed Thor for Marvel, two Poirot adaptations in which he also stars, a live-action Cinderella, and Belfast, an autobiographical black-and-white film about his childhood that won him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

As an actor he works constantly for other directors, including Dunkirk and Oppenheimer for Nolan. The criticism that follows him is that the theatrical training shows, that his performances declaim where film wants stillness. The counterargument is Belfast, which is quiet throughout.