Paul Greengrass | |
|---|---|
 Greengrass at the 2025Toronto International Film Festival | |
| Born | (1955-08-13)13 August 1955 (age 70) |
| Alma mater | Queens' College, Cambridge |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Board member of | Directors UK (president) |
Paul GreengrassCBE (born 13 August 1955)[1] is an Englishfilm director, film producer,screenwriter and formerjournalist.
One of his early films,Bloody Sunday (2002), won theGolden Bear at52nd Berlin International Film Festival. Other films Greengrass has directed include three entries of theBourne action-thriller film series:The Bourne Supremacy (2004),The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) andJason Bourne (2016). He also directedUnited 93 (2006), for which Greengrass won theBAFTA Award for Best Director and received anAcademy Award for Best Director nomination; as well asGreen Zone (2010) andCaptain Phillips (2013). In 2004, he co-wrote and produced the filmOmagh, which won the Single Drama award from theBritish Academy Television Awards.[2]
In 2007, Greengrass co-foundedDirectors UK, a professional organisation of British filmmakers, and was its first president until 2014. He ranked 28 onEW's The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood in 2007.[3] In 2008,The Telegraph named him among the most influential people inBritish culture.[4] In 2017, Greengrass was honoured with aBritish Film Institute Fellowship.[5][6]
Greengrass was born 13 August 1955 inCheam,Surrey, England.[1] His mother Joyce Greengrass was a teacher and his father Phillip Greengrass ariver pilot and merchant seaman.[7][8] His brother Mark Greengrass is an English historian.[citation needed]
Greengrass was educated at Westcourt Primary School,Gravesend Grammar School andSevenoaks School; he attendedQueens' College, Cambridge. He studied English literature at the same time asRoger Michell.[9]
Greengrass first worked as a director in the 1980s, for theITVcurrent affairs programmeWorld in Action. At the same time, he co-authored the infamous bookSpycatcher (1987) withPeter Wright, a former assistant director ofMI5. It contained enough sensitive information that theBritish government made an unsuccessful attempt to ban it.[7] In the mid 80s, the book was banned due to revealing insights into how MI5 operated.[citation needed]
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Greengrass moved into drama, directing non-fiction, made-for-television films such asThe One That Got Away, based onChris Ryan's book about the experiences of theBritish Army'sSpecial Air Service during theGulf War andThe Fix, based on the1964 British betting scandal. His 1998 filmThe Theory of Flight starredKenneth Branagh andHelena Bonham Carter, who played a woman withmotor neurone disease. The film dealt with the difficult issue of the sexuality of people with disabilities.[citation needed]
Greengrass directedThe Murder of Stephen Lawrence (1999), an account ofStephen Lawrence, a Black British youth whose murder was not properly investigated by theMetropolitan Police. His mother's investigations resulted in accusations aboutinstitutional racism in the police. His next film,Bloody Sunday (2002), depicted the 1972Bloody Sunday massacre duringthe Troubles in an almost documentary style; it shared First Prize at the 2002Berlin Film Festival withHayao Miyazaki'sSpirited Away.Bloody Sunday was inspired by Don Mullan's politically influential bookEyewitness Bloody Sunday (Wolfhound Press, 1997). A schoolboy witness of the events of Bloody Sunday, Mullan was co-producer and appeared as a figure inBloody Sunday.
In 2004, Greengrass co-wrote the television filmOmagh with Guy Hibbert. Based on theOmagh bombing of 1998, the film was a critical success, winningBritish Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama. This was the first professional film that Greengrass had not directed; he was credited as a writer and producer. He had been working onThe Bourne Supremacy. The film was directed byPete Travis. It was the second film Greengrass had written about terrorism and mass killing in Ireland afterBloody Sunday.
Based on that film, Greengrass was hired to direct 2004'sThe Bourne Supremacy, a sequel to the 2002 filmThe Bourne Identity. The first film's director,Doug Liman, had left the project. The film starredMatt Damon asJason Bourne, an amnesiac who realises he was once a topCIA assassin and is being pursued by his former employers. An unexpectedly major financial and critical success, it secured Greengrass's reputation and ability to get his smaller, more personal films made.
In 2006, Greengrass directedUnited 93, a film based on the11 September 2001 hijacking ofUnited Airlines Flight 93. The film received critical acclaim, particularly for Greengrass's quasi-documentary-style. After receiving many Best Director awards and nominations from critics' circles (including theBroadcast Film Critics Association), Greengrass won theBAFTA award forBest Director at the60th British Academy Film Awards and received anOscar nomination forAchievement in Directing at the79th Academy Awards. For his role in writing the film, he earned theWriters Guild of America Award and a BAFTA nominations for Best Original Screenplay.
Greengrass then returned to theBourne franchise withThe Bourne Ultimatum. Released in 2007,Ultimatum was an even bigger success than the previous two films. Greengrass was nominated forBAFTA Best Director at the61st British Academy Film Awards.
In 2007, he co-foundedDirectors UK, a professional association for British directors. He served as founding president until July 2014.[10][11]
Greengrass'sGreen Zone starsMatt Damon as the head of a U.S. military team on an unsuccessful hunt forweapons of mass destruction inpost-war Iraq. It was filmed inSpain andMorocco and released in 2010.[12] The film was first announced as based on the bestselling, award-winning, non-fiction bookImperial Life in the Emerald City, byRajiv Chandrasekaran, theWashington Post's Baghdad bureau chief. But the final film is a largely fictionalised action thriller only loosely inspired by events in the book.
Captain Phillips, Greengrass's film about theMaersk Alabama hijacking in 2009, was based on the bookA Captain's Duty. It starredTom Hanks,Barkhad Abdi andFaysal Ahmed. It was shot in 2012 inMassachusetts andVirginia in the United States, as well asMalta. It was released in 2013.
In September 2014, it was announced Greengrass would return to direct the fifth Jason Bourne film,Jason Bourne, with Damon starring again.[13] The film was released on 29 July 2016.[14]
In 2017, Greengrass began filming22 July, a docudrama film following the2011 Norway attacks perpetrated byAnders Behring Breivik and their aftermath, on location inNorway. The film was released onNetflix and in select theaters on 10 October 2018.[15]
In February 2019, Greengrass signed on to direct thefilm adaptation of thePaulette Jiles novelNews of the World forFox 2000 Pictures, reuniting him with actorTom Hanks.[16] The film was eventually released in the United States byUniversal Pictures on 25 December 2020 and released internationally byNetflix in 2021.[17]
In May 2022, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct medieval action filmThe Hood, starringBenedict Cumberbatch and based on the story of the EnglishPeasants' Revolt in 1381.[18] On September 15, it was announced Greengrass would write and direct an adaptation of theStephen King novelFairy Tale after King, a fan of Greengrass's films, sold him the option to adapt the film; Greengrass will also produce alongsideGregory Goodman.[19] In November 2023, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct a film adaptation of theT. J. Newman novelDrowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 forWarner Bros. Pictures.[20] In January 2024, it was announced Greengrass would direct the thrillerThe Lost Bus, written byBrad Ingelsby and based on the 2021 nonfiction bookParadise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson, about the2018 California wildfires, forApple Studios;Matthew McConaughey andAmerica Ferrera will star in the project.[21][22]
He was appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2022 New Year Honours for services to the arts.[23]
A number of Greengrass films have faced criticism for the overuse of theshaky camera technique.The Bourne Supremacy andThe Bourne Ultimatum were described by film criticRoger Ebert as using both shaky cam andfast editing techniques.[24] Ebert was not bothered by it yet many of his readers complained, with one calling it "Queasicam."[24]
Film professorsKristin Thompson andDavid Bordwell described the technique's development over 80 years of cinema and noted that Greengrass used more than the usual shaky camera motion to make it intentionally jerky and bouncy, coupled with a very shortaverage shot length and a decision to incompletelyframe the action.[25]
Vox wrote, "On first encounter, it looks and feels chaotic, haphazard, random. The secret — and the reason it succeeds — is that it’s not random in the slightest."[26]
Screen Rant was more critical of the style, saying, "The prevalence of the shaky cam style in Hollywood after the Jason Bourne movies has diminished its impact, making it quite tiresome and redundant.[27]
Greengrass has said that he does not believe in God but has "great respect for the spiritual way".[28] Greengrass is married to talent agent Joanna Kaye, with whom he has three children, and is the father of two more children from an earlier marriage.[29]
He is a supporter ofCrystal Palace Football Club.[30]
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Resurrected | Yes | No | No |
| 1998 | The Theory of Flight | Yes | No | No |
| 2002 | Bloody Sunday | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2004 | The Bourne Supremacy | Yes | No | No |
| 2006 | United 93 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2007 | The Bourne Ultimatum | Yes | No | No |
| 2010 | Green Zone | Yes | No | Yes |
| 2013 | Captain Phillips | Yes | No | No |
| 2016 | Jason Bourne | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2018 | 22 July | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2020 | News of the World | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2025 | The Lost Bus | Yes | Yes | No |
| TBA | The Uprising | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Crime Story | Yes | Yes | Episode "When the Lies Run Out: The Ian Spiro Story" |
| 1995 | Kavanagh QC | Yes | No | Episode "The Sweetest Thing" |
Television films
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Open Fire | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1996 | The One That Got Away | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1997 | The Fix | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1999 | The Murder of Stephen Lawrence | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2004 | Omagh | No | Yes | Yes |
Documentary series
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984-1987 | World in Action | Yes | No | Yes | Director of 2 episodes / Producer of 10 episodes |
| 1992 | Cutting Edge | Yes | No | Yes | Episode "Coppers" |
| 1995 | The Late Show | Yes | Yes | No | Episode "Sophie's World" |
| 2017 | Five Came Back | No | No | No | Starring role as himself |
| Year | Title | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 2002 | Bloody Sunday | 5 | 1 | ||||
| 2006 | United 93 | 2 | 6 | 2 | |||
| 2007 | The Bourne Ultimatum | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | ||
| 2013 | Captain Phillips | 6 | 9 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 2020 | News of the World | 4 | 4 | 2 | |||
| Total | 15 | 3 | 30 | 7 | 6 | 0 | |
| Year | Title | Awards and nominations |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Omagh | British Academy Television Award Best Single Drama |
| 2006 | United 93 | BAFTA Award for Best Direction Nominated —Academy Award for Best Director Nominated —BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film Nominated —Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Director |
| 2007 | The Bourne Ultimatum | Nominated —BAFTA Award for Best Direction Nominated —BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film |
| 2013 | Captain Phillips | Empire Inspiration Award Nominated —BAFTA Award for Best Direction Nominated —Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film Nominated —AACTA International Award for Best Direction Nominated —Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Nominated —Golden Globe Award for Best Director |
