In 2007, Greengrass co-founded Directors UK, a professional organisation of British filmmakers, and was its first president until 2014. He ranked 28 on EW's The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood in 2007.[2] In 2008, The Telegraph named him among the most influential people in British culture.[3] In 2017, Greengrass was honoured with a British Film Institute Fellowship.[4][5]
Early life
Greengrass was born 13 August 1955 in Cheam, Surrey, England.[1] His mother Joyce Greengrass was a teacher and his father Phillip Greengrass a river pilot and merchant seaman.[6][7] His brother Mark Greengrass is an English historian.[citation needed]
Greengrass first worked as a director in the 1980s, for the ITVcurrent affairs programme World in Action. At the same time, he co-authored the infamous book Spycatcher (1987) with Peter Wright, a former assistant director of MI5. It contained enough sensitive information that the British government made an unsuccessful attempt to ban it.[6] In the mid 80s, the book was banned due to revealing insights into how MI5 operated.[citation needed]
Greengrass directed The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (1999), an account of Stephen Lawrence, a Black British youth whose murder was not properly investigated by the Metropolitan Police. His mother's investigations resulted in accusations about institutional racism in the police. His next film, Bloody Sunday (2002), depicted the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre during the Troubles in an almost documentary style; it shared First Prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival with Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Bloody Sunday was inspired by Don Mullan's politically influential book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday (Wolfhound Press, 1997). A schoolboy witness of the events of Bloody Sunday, Mullan was co-producer and appeared as a figure in Bloody Sunday.
In 2004, Greengrass co-wrote the television film Omagh with Guy Hibbert. Based on the bombing of 1998, the film was a critical success, winning British 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 on The Bourne Supremacy. The film was directed by Pete Travis. It was the second film Greengrass had written about terrorism and mass killing in Ireland after Bloody Sunday.
Based on that film, Greengrass was hired to direct 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, a sequel to the 2002 film The Bourne Identity. The first film's director, Doug Liman, had left the project. The film starred Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac who realises he was once a top CIA 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.[citation needed]
In September 2014, it was announced Greengrass would return to direct the fifth Jason Bourne film, Jason Bourne, with Damon starring again.[12] The film was released on 29 July 2016.[13]
In May 2022, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct medieval action film The Hood, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and based on the story of the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381.[17] On September 15, it was announced Greengrass would write and direct an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Fairy Tale after King, a fan of Greengrass's films, sold him the option to adapt the film; Greengrass will also produce alongside Gregory Goodman.[18] In November 2023, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct a film adaptation of the T. J. Newman novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 for Warner Bros. Pictures.[19] In January 2024, it was announced Greengrass would direct the thriller The Lost Bus, written by Brad Ingelsby and based on the 2021 nonfiction book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson, about the 2018 California wildfires, for Apple Studios; Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera will star in the project.[20][21]
Greengrass has said that he does not believe in god but has "great respect for the spiritual way".[23] 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.[24]