Kenneth Branagh
243 connections found
Filmography
Dead Again 1991 
Much Ado About Nothing 1993 
Hamlet 1996 
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit 2014 
Thor 2011 
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 1994 
Belfast 2021 
Murder on the Orient Express 2017 
Death on the Nile 2022 
Sleuth 2007 
Cinderella 2015 
Artemis Fowl 2020 
Henry V 1989 
Love's Labour's Lost 2000 
As You Like It 2006 
All Is True 2018 
A Haunting in Venice 2023 
In the Bleak Midwinter 1995 View:
Connections, in both directions
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
influenced Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022)
Plot
Agatha Christie’s durable mystery novel MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS has been adapted as a feature film in 1974, a telefilm in 2001, an episode of the series AGATHA CHRISTIE’S POIROT, and more.
Having seen Albert Finney's rendition of Agatha Christie's famous detective in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express, it is one of the few times I was thankful for my shocking memory - I couldn't remember "whodunnit".
I wasn’t the biggest fan of our last mystery with Agatha Christy penned detective Hercule Poirot, Murder on the Orient Express .
More serious is the inclination to underplay the menace of the time in favor of a generalized sense of uplift amid destruction; it doesn’t go as far in that lamentable direction as Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful” did, but doesn’t quite find the sweet spot that John Boorman did in his autobiographical picture “Hope and Glory”—one of Branagh’s obvious inspirations.
You may recall similarly formative moviegoing scenes from John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory” or Terence Davies’ “The Long Day Closes,” with their early glimpses of a future steeped in the pictures.
Almost certainly inspired by John Boorman’s 1987 life-as-a-boy-during-WW2 memoir, Hope and Glory, Branagh seeks to center his story on the impressions of a child.
This is a child’s-eye view of serious adult problems, in the vein of Hope and Glory, John Boorman’s exuberant 1987 film memoir of being a kid in London during the Blitz.
I would guess that Branagh drew inspiration from John Boorman’s masterful 1987 film about his childhood during World War II, Hope and Glory .
For its part, Belfast dips high and low through the semi-autobiographical cinema canon, with perhaps its largest debt owed to John Boorman’s Second World War-era coming-of-age film Hope and Glory.
Back home on telly, High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance echo the morality and violence in the streets, while Star Trek suggests a better future.
“Belfast” is unabashedly sentimental, from the plethora of Van Morrison songs on the soundtrack to the parallels drawn to Westerns such as “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and (particularly) “High Noon.”
Excepts from two other films are shown (but those, matching the films, are in b&w): The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon.
And Buddy, picking up on real-life trauma and archetypal themes from Westerns like “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “High Noon” on the telly, struggles to make childish sense of it all as Van Morrison songs of the day waft out of radios and well up on the soundtrack.
There are several classic movie references and film clips from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are shown.
And Buddy, hooked on movies like “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” sees his father as the hero of the day.
There have been many different versions of Cinderella throughout the ages, but for this take, Weitz has borrowed primarily from Charles Perrault's 1697 written version Cendrillon and Walt Disney's 1950 animated version.
Lily James is Cinderella in Disney's live-action feature inspired by the classic fairy tale, "Cinderella", which brings to life the timeless images in Disney's 1950 animated masterpiece as fully-realized characters in a visually-dazzlling spectacle for a whole new generation.
Based on the classic fairy tale, but borrowing heavily from the 1950 film, “Cinderella” is enchanting, a wonderful and stylish film with a charming lead and emotional narrative.
Even so, as a portrait of one future auteur’s late-1960s childhood, Belfast is vivid and heartfelt: In one scene, the whole family treks out to see the ridiculous 1968 crowd-pleaser Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, falling under the spell of its godawful but indelible theme song.
The magic moment here belongs to the communal experience of seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang together, a vivid splash of colour and levity in a film that is brimming with playful nods to well-worn genres and beloved characters.
There are several classic movie references and film clips from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , High Noon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are shown.
Buddy (Jude Hill) is a young, working-class Belfast boy whose biggest concerns are playing in the streets with a makeshift sword and trashcan-lid shield, Matchbox cars, the girl he has a crush on in his class, Westerns on TV and going to see the movie about the flying car in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
The only two scenes in which “Belfast” uses color (other than a brief intro and exit) involve the film musical “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968), which the family goes to see; and a staged version of “A Christmas Carol,” which Buddy attends with his grandmother.
Family visits to movies like “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968) add wonder and fantasy to Buddy’s life and a clue to his future career.
Heading into this movie, I hadn’t looked up Amleth’s story, only to leave the theater thinking to myself how much the story reminded me of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet .
A brutal, blood-soaked Viking epic based on a Scandinavian legend – the same legend that inspired William Shakespeare’s Hamlet – director Robert Eggers’s third film is probably his most punishing.
The Northman is the legend of Amleth, the story that inspired William Shakespeare’s Hamlet , and with a prayer to Odin the film opens on the North Atlantic in 895 AD as the hero as a young boy (Oscar Novak) anticipates the long-awaited arrival of King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke).
The Northman is loosely based on the Scandinavian legend of Amleth, a figure that also inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet.
If you know the story of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, you know the broad strokes here, as Hamlet was based on Amleth's tale.
Those particular scenes recall the Italian homage to celluloid, Cinema Paradiso (1988).
These scenes are not only catnip for cinephiles who get the references, they show the magic of moviegoing like “Cinema Paradiso” (1988), providing a family-friendly escape from the social and political upheaval around them.
It reminded me a lot of Cinema Paradiso and captures the magic of childhood and how movies often narrate the key moments of our lives.
Like “Cinema Paradiso” or “Fanny & Alexander,” Branagh creates the sensation we are seeing life unfold through the eyes of its young protagonist.
Here, “Belfast” turns on a “Cinema Paradiso” like charm as Buddy delights in watching movies such as “One Million Years B.C.” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Clue (1985)
Directed by Jonathan Lynn
influenced Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022)
Themes Plot
For a moment, the movie seems to be going for a daffy vibe, in the vein of “Clue.”
Heck, the board game “Clue” is essentially this story combined with Christie’s 1939 murderous whodunit And Then There Were None, all of it broken down into intuitive investigative basics fit for the whole family to gleefully enjoy.
I couldn't help but wonder how Tim Curry might have handled this scene as the detective at the end of the comic murder-mystery "Clue."
Sidney Lumet's 1974 Murder on the Orient Express was — like Clue , which in some ways parodied it — both sumptuous and understated, cozy and threatening, equal parts thrilling and dry and absurd.
“Clue,” “Knives Out” and the new Apple TV+ show “The Afterparty” allow for inventive filmmaking that combines humor with danger and true character development that make audiences care about the investigation as much as the resolution.
The best ensemble mysteries, and I’m including the likes of Knives Out (2019), Clue (1985), and Murder on the Orient Express here, thrive on the presence and engagement of their suspects.
After the near death experience of Justice League, it appears the thinking went something like this: the DCEU has to storm back with a movie of such crowd pleasing bravado and scale that the audience, though their brains will naturally resist, will ultimately surrender to its relentless action and a sub-aquatic succession drama modelled on proven templates, sorry hits, like Thor and Black Panther.
Whereas “Justice League” was a feeble attempt to deliver the DC answer to “The Avengers,” Wan’s “Aquaman” imitates Marvel’s “Thor” to an embarrassing degree.
The people who made three “Thor” films never seemed to have this problem.
Very much mirroring Tron (visually, all of Atlantis has some strong hints) and the Bifrost in Thor —the highway beautifully merges classicism with technology—as fish-shaped ships glide through beams of light-like street lanes over a glittering glass road with giant classical statues surrounding them.
Don’t worry that it practically tells the same story as Thor and Black Panther (and has more than a few echoes of Wonder Woman too): Aquaman is too much of a goofy stand-alone to be called a rip-off, and it’s also playing with decades of comic book lore that likely predate its more recent cinematic predecessors.
It has echoes of an underwater Thor, which is probably where its tone should have sat, but it wanders off into Tomb Raider territory, and even has some horror elements.
The camera loves Gadot, too, in the same way it loves other pretty god-like superheroes, like Chris Hemsworth’s “Thor.”
The movie is a derivative hash of comic book picture plot points and origin story touchstones — half “Captain America: The First Avenger,” half “Thor.”
And it does so by looking to the past, taking inspiration from the likes of Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger .
There’s a shot early in the movie that reads as a deliberate homage to The Little Mermaid — if you were a kid in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, you’ll know it when you see it — and that, along with Marvel’s first Thor film, is perhaps the most direct comparison one can make to what Heinberg and company have created.
There are echoes of what the Marvel operation managed in the similar beats of the original “Captain America” and “Thor.”
Jenkins’ film owes much in concept and style to the likes of Marvel’s first Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.
You may recall similarly formative moviegoing scenes from John Boorman’s “Hope and Glory” or Terence Davies’ “The Long Day Closes,” with their early glimpses of a future steeped in the pictures.
It may seem like having a child protagonist might restrict the themes and subject matter that you would explore, but just take a quick look through an array of films of this kind to see the depth that’s possible: Louis Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants (a favorite of Branagh’s) handles the shame and complicity of bystanders during the Holocaust, Spike Lee’s Crooklyn celebrates a Brooklyn childhood without once losing perspective of race and class, Terrence Davies’ The Long Day Closes is a blossoming poem to the childhood memories that we carry with us for life, Abbas Kiarostami’s Where is the Friends House?
Thematically, it also has much in common with Terence Davies’ 1992 classic The Long Day Closes, which considers the influence of movies, family, and home on a young boy’s life.
This technique, used to perfection by Terence Davies in The Long Day Closes, also risks the ridiculous in what turns out to be the emotional highlight of the film: a reenactment of a moment from High Noon, replete with Tex Ritter’s famous “Do Not Forsake Me” ballad coming over the soundtrack.
Belfast doesn’t come close to relaying personal experiences in the way that enhanced Terence Davies’s The Long Day Closes , John Boorman’s Hope and Glory , and Jim Sheridan’s In America , just to name three Irish-ethnic movies where the directors’ own lives prompted deep responses universally.
Antoine Fuqua can be accused of derivative filmmaking with his adventure tome that gives more than a passing nod to such films a Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart” and Kenneth Branagh’s “Henry V.” The blue-stained skin of the Woad warriors and Arthur’s St. Crispin’s Day-style speech are lifted from those previous epic stories, although, historically, Fuqua and company may be more accurate in their depictions of the time.
JILL: It's the Henry V speech.
Frankenstein (2025)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
Visuals Plot
Of course, Kenneth Branagh’s insane 1994 adaptation, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, probably hewed closest to the novel, and that movie and this one share a similarly frantic, gothic-romantic expressionism.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1 ¾ stars, 1994, directed by Kenneth Branagh)…
After so many versions of this story that dwell on the monstrous aspects, including Hammer’s The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and other offerings, or even those that attempt to give the Creature dimension, such as Branagh’s zippy Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), most feel surface-level at best.
…the film retains a lumbering Classics Illustrated quality, compounded by the running time of two-and-a-half hours, even longer than Kenneth Branagh’s disastrous 1994 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein…
He is not the egotistical showman of Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
It has been 31 years since the last major Hollywood adaptation of Shelley’s acclaimed work, Kenneth Branagh’s poorly-reviewed Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein…
Hamnet (2025)
Directed by Chloé Zhao
influenced by Hamlet (1996), All Is True (2018)
Themes Dialogue Plot
His eventual turn to Hamlet as a vessel for mourning is rendered not as triumph but as an act of survival.
…while others have tried to be a little more down-to-Earth, like "All is True," which centers on the last few years of his life with a combination of fact & fiction.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet reminds us, “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
…the devastating inspiration behind Hamlet…
Zhao doesn't lean too heavily on the author's various Shakespearean references outside of the oft speculated idea that the bard's most famous play, 'Hamlet,' was inspired by the death of his son, the names Hamlet and Hamnet being interchangeable in the late 16th century.
…the writing and preforming of “Hamlet” is an epiphany for both William and Agnes, in that it meets mortality head-on, from the mourning of a loved one, to the effects of loss on those left behind and the fear of, “what dreams may come” in “that undiscovered country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns.”
At a quick glance, there’s temptation to compare the film to Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma; after all, the superficial similarities are patent: both are black-and-white paeans to their director’s hometowns, both dip into nostalgia tempered by unrest and violence, both pay tribute to the rapturous discovery of cinema, and both are set about a year apart, around 1969/1970 respectively.
Cup your hands around your ears, and you’ll hear the faint sound of comparisons to Roma being whispered in the wind, partially because Belfast ‘s particular mix of the past’s lighter and darker shades are reminiscent of Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 masterpiece, and partially because Branagh’s film is also largely shot in black-and-white.
Kenneth Branagh's sweet but slight "Belfast" has been understandably, yet reductively, compared to Alfonso Cuaron's 2018 Oscar-winning "Roma," where the filmmaker crafted a memory piece about his childhood in Mexico City.
But, à la Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma , the rest of the film is in atmospheric black-and-white.
His choice to shoot in black and white with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos brings to mind other recent personal projects like Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War,” both recreations of the past based on the experiences of loved ones.
In many of its stylistic details, Belfast resembles another film that takes place in its writer-director’s fondly remembered if less than idyllic childhood: Alfonso Cuarón’s Mexico City–set Roma , also shot in black and white with long, intricately choreographed tracking shots.
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Directed by Guy Hamilton
influenced Death on the Nile (2022), Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Themes
Brannagh obviously had great fun here and (spoilers, if you want them) it’s highly likely that his Poirot will be featuring in another whole run of glossy Christie filmings, with new, again-all-star casts perhaps signing on right now for fresh versions of Death On The Nile, Evil Under The Sun and so forth.
But the Christie adaptations that followed — “Death on the Nile” (1978), “The Mirror Crack’d” (1980), “Evil Under the Sun” (1982) — were half-baked suspense films that felt, collectively, like the fading embers of a genre.
Many folks enjoy a good mystery, so maybe Branagh should shoot for “Evil Under the Sun” in 2024?
He’s occasionally led astray by his troublemaking cousin (Lara McDonnell) for delinquent scenes that recall Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” (1959), but he is a sweet boy with a good heart.
He appears on-screen, often alone and silent, for nearly every minute of the movie, and his watchful, expressive face recalls the juvenile protagonists of Truffaut films like The 400 Blows or Small Change .
Sometimes, they can emerge with all-time masterpieces that use memory as a springboard for art that both celebrates and interrogates the past, like Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma or François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.
François Truffaut may have started off with “The 400 Blows,” but typically films like Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord,” Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” and Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn” arrive a little later in the careers, after they're lauded enough to start feeling reflective.
Death on the Nile (1978)
Directed by John Guillermin
influenced Death on the Nile (2022), Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
In spite of the script’s heavy reliance on exposition, the ending cleverly nods to another Christie novel and film, “Death on the Nile.”
For more of Agatha Christie’s twists and turns, see “Death On The Nile” (1978) with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot and a cast including Bette Davis, David Niven, Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith and Jack Warden.
Movies always get Poirot wrong by casting swaggering British actors in the role: Albert Finney in the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express, Peter Ustinov in 1978’s Death on the Nile and subsequent films.
If you like this try: the original version with Albert Finney and other movies based on Agatha Christie stories like “Death on the Nile”…
Casting another actor in the Poirot (this time Ustinov), Death on the Nile was a slightly lesser affair than Orient Express .
He's legitimately entertaining in this (the "French" accent occasionally slipping into "Inigo Montoya" notwithstanding, and with the ending of MotOE directly leading into Death on the Nile, Branagh could easily spend the latter years of his career playing Poirot in more movies — not much chance of that in the Jack Ryan universe, alas (RIP Viktor Cherevin) — and that’d be swell.
MCU movies often have a distinct style: Iron Man has the swaggering combo of Downey Jr and Favreau; Thor unravels with the Shakespearean penchant of Branagh; Thor: Ragnarok is built on the brazen peculiarity of Waititi.
Yet something is wanting… by the time the end credits rolled, I just didn’t feel emotionally-connected to her the way I did with say, Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, or even other characters in MCU… Captain America, Black Panther, Tony Stark, Black Widow, even Thor who’s also an alien being.
In the pantheon of Marvel films , “Captain Marvel” lands somewhere below “Iron Man” but far above “Doctor Strange,” the uninteresting “Ant-Man” and the cheesy yet self-important original “Thor.”
The spiritually inclined had already had their outing with Dr. Strange , the same way dadless Dudebros had theirs with Guardians of the Galaxy , or idealistic patriots had theirs with Captain America , or unsure young’uns had theirs with Spider-Man , or Chris Hemsworth fans had theirs with Thor , etc. Maybe Captain Marvel was for women — in particular, women who had been told all their lives that being a woman meant they weren’t good enough, weren’t strong enough, weren’t fast enough, etc. — and so its journey of self-discovery through self-recovery was not designed, executed, and polished to a high sheen for my particular benefit.
As the dark truth about the Strauss' marriage emerges, and as it begins to parallel the romance and foreboding between Mike and Grace, there are echoes of Hitchcock at his most cornball-Freudian (the plot incorporates elements from Spellbound and Rebecca), and Branagh makes devious use of the sort of vintage-thriller motifs (a telltale anklet!