---
name: "Alex Garland"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/alex-garland"
fi1m_id: "alex-garland"
imdb_id: "nm0307497"
tmdb_id: 2036
wikidata_id: "Q542634"
roles: ["Writer","Director","Producer"]
born: "26 May 1970"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 12
average_fi1m_score: 72
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 6
updated: "2026-09-21T03:20:21.671447+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alex Garland

## Identity

Alex Garland

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/alex-garland
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** alex-garland
- **IMDb ID:** nm0307497
- **TMDB ID:** 2036
- **Wikidata ID:** Q542634
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Garland, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q542634, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0307497/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2036

Writer and director. Born 26 May 1970 in London, England, UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Director, Producer
- **Born:** 26 May 1970, London, England, UK
- **Active:** 2000–present
- **Also known as:** Alexander Medawar Garland, Alexander Garland
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 12: 5 directing, 6 writing, 1 producing
- **Frequently works with:** [Andrew Macdonald](https://film.one/person/andrew-macdonald.md), [Allon Reich](https://film.one/person/allon-reich.md), [Danny Boyle](https://film.one/person/danny-boyle.md), [Alfie Williams](https://film.one/person/alfie-williams.md), [Cailee Spaeny](https://film.one/person/cailee-spaeny.md), [Cillian Murphy](https://film.one/person/cillian-murphy.md), [Jack O'Connell](https://film.one/person/jack-oconnell.md), [Peter Rice](https://film.one/person/peter-rice.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as writer, over 6 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 70 (4), 2010s 79 (3), 2020s 73 (5)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 72 to 66 across 6 titles
- **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 5 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Genres:** Science Fiction 5, Thriller 5, Horror 3, Drama 2, Romance 2, Adventure 1
- **Screen time:** 11 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $481m across 6 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Garland, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q542634, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0307497/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2036

## Coming up

- *Elden Ring* (2028-03-03), Director

## Streaming the US now

- **Disney+:** [*Ex Machina*](https://film.one/film/ex-machina.md) (82), [*Devs*](https://film.one/tv/devs.md) (68)
- **Netflix:** [*28 Years Later*](https://film.one/film/28-years-later.md) (76), [*28 Years Later: The Bone Temple*](https://film.one/film/28-years-later-the-bone-temple.md) (74)
- **Apple TV:** [*Annihilation*](https://film.one/film/annihilation.md) (82)
- **HBO Max:** [*Warfare*](https://film.one/film/warfare.md) (76)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Alex Garland

> Alex Garland writes people in sealed places asking what they are, and films them beautifully. His best work, *Ex Machina* and *Annihilation*, trusts the pictures to carry the idea; the rest keeps stopping to explain it, or lately refuses to explain anything at all.

Somewhere in every Alex Garland script, a character sits down and explains the idea. In *28 Days Later* (2002) the survivors debate how much decency survives fear, after the deserted streets have already told us. In *Ex Machina* (2014) another account of consciousness arrives just as Alicia Vikander has made the question dangerous without a speech. In *Devs* (2020) somebody explains determinism roughly once an hour, usually in the same words. He is a writer who has ideas, which is rarer than it should be, and a writer who does not quite trust us to have caught them.

He started as a novelist. *The Beach* (1996) became a Danny Boyle film in 2000, scripted by John Hodge, and Garland then wrote for Boyle himself on *28 Days Later* and *Sunshine* (2007), before adapting *Never Let Me Go* (2010) and writing *Dredd* (2012). *Ex Machina* was his first film as director, and it and *Annihilation* (2018) remain his best: small casts, a glass room or a mutating forest, and a question about how much of a person can change before she stops being herself. *Men* (2022) followed, then *Civil War* (2024) and *Warfare* (2025), co-written and co-directed with Ray Mendoza. Since then he has gone back to Boyle, writing *28 Years Later* (2025) and *28 Years Later: The Bone Temple* (2026).

The later films turn the habit inside out. *Civil War* declines to say what its war is about; *Warfare* declines to say why anyone was in the house. Both are loud, tense and superbly staged, and both left us in the car park knowing exactly how the day had felt and nothing about what it was for. Most critics have called that discipline. We think it is the same writer, having noticed he explained too much, deciding to explain nothing, and finding that silence is not the same as an idea. Kirsten Dunst gives *Civil War* its centre; the film around her has taken the causes out so that nobody can accuse it of a side.

When he shows rather than says, he is as good as anyone working in the genre. In the first episode of *Devs*, Zach Grenier’s Kenton does something on a dark path through the redwoods, filmed from a distance without music, then shown again through a security camera. We were horrified, and what horrified us was the calm: a terrible thing presented as footage, as something that was always going to happen. That is the whole series in five minutes, and it then spends eight hours saying it. Vikander’s Ava works the same way. We felt protective of her, then uncomfortable about how quickly we had taken her side, and Garland gives that mistake room to become ours without announcing it.

He is better with collaborators. Boyle keeps him brisk; Mendoza kept him quiet. Left alone he tends to the gold room and the lecture. Start with *Ex Machina*, then *Annihilation*, and go into the later films knowing that the question you most want answered is the one he has decided not to take.

## Biography

Alex Garland is an English author, screenwriter and film director. Born Alexander Medawar Garland in London on 26 May 1970, he was educated at University College School and graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in art history.

Garland rose to prominence with his 1996 novel *The Beach*. He wrote the screenplays for the Danny Boyle films *28 Days Later* (2002) and *Sunshine* (2007), as well as *Never Let Me Go* (2010) and *Dredd* (2012). He made his directorial debut with *Ex Machina* (2015), which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

His later directorial work includes *Annihilation* (2018), *Men* (2022) and *Civil War* (2024). He co-directed *Warfare* (2025) and wrote and produced *28 Years Later* (2025) and *28 Years Later: The Bone Temple* (2026).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (12)

### Directed (5)

- *Warfare* (2025), Fi1m 76, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/warfare.md)
- *Civil War* (2024), Fi1m 70, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/civil-war.md)
- *Devs* (2020), Fi1m 68, Director, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator — [page](https://film.one/tv/devs.md)
- *Annihilation* (2018), Fi1m 82, Director, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/annihilation.md)
- *Ex Machina* (2015), Fi1m 82, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ex-machina.md)

### Wrote (6) — the average rests on these

- *28 Years Later: The Bone Temple* (2026), Fi1m 74, Producer, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/28-years-later-the-bone-temple.md)
- *28 Years Later* (2025), Fi1m 76, Writer, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/28-years-later.md)
- *Never Let Me Go* (2010), Fi1m 73, Screenplay, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/never-let-me-go.md)
- *Sunshine* (2007), Fi1m 74, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/sunshine-2007.md)
- *28 Days Later* (2002), Fi1m 77, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/28-days-later.md)
- *The Beach* (2000), Fi1m 55, Novel — [page](https://film.one/film/the-beach.md)

### Produced (1)

- *28 Weeks Later* (2007), Fi1m 72, Executive Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/28-weeks-later.md)

## Complete filmography (21)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Elden Ring* (2028), Director, Screenplay
- *28 Years Later: The Bone Temple* (2026), Writer, Producer — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/28-years-later-the-bone-temple.md)
- *28 Years Later* (2025), Producer, Writer — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/28-years-later.md)
- *Warfare* (2025), Writer, Director — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/warfare.md)
- *Civil War* (2024), Writer, Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/civil-war.md)
- *Men* (2022), Director, Writer
- *Devs* (2020), series, Executive Producer, Director, Writer, Creator — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/tv/devs.md)
- *Annihilation* (2018), Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/annihilation.md)
- *Ex Machina* (2015), Director, Writer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/ex-machina.md)
- *Big Game* (2014), Executive Producer
- *Dredd* (2012), Screenplay, Producer
- *Never Let Me Go* (2010), Screenplay, Executive Producer — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/film/never-let-me-go.md)
- *Batman: Black and White Motion Comics* (2008), series, Writer
- *28 Weeks Later* (2007), Executive Producer — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/28-weeks-later.md)
- *Sunshine* (2007), Writer — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/sunshine-2007.md)
- *The Tesseract* (2004), Novel
- *28 Days Later* (2002), Writer — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/28-days-later.md)
- *The Beach* (2000), Novel — Fi1m 55, [page](https://film.one/film/the-beach.md)
- *The Toymaker's Secret*, Producer, Writer
- *28 Years Later: Part III*, Producer, Writer
- *Stages*, Producer

## Gallery

- ![Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-524902310445.jpg) Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024 — Jay Dixit, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_14.jpg/1280px-2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_14.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-04ffc2872f04.jpg) Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024 — Jay Dixit, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_3_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-b7b4323f62fa.jpg) Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024 — Jay Dixit, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_3.jpg/1280px-2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-2510889c8d37.jpg) Alex Garland at the world premiere of Civil War at South by Southwest 2024 — Jay Dixit, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_09389_15.jpg/1280px-2024-03-14_Alex_Garland_SXSW_Civil-War_09389_15.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alex Garland](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-3ca082b78e74.jpg) Alex Garland — Image via TMDB
- ![Alex Garland](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-5b34bb7457f3.jpg) Alex Garland — Image via TMDB
- ![Alex Garland](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-691e5f402973.jpg) Alex Garland — Image via TMDB
- ![Alex Garland - Warfare Q&A - Picturehouse Central - Thursday 17th April 2025](https://film.one/media/person/695/gallery-06a01f171231.jpg) Alex Garland - Warfare Q&A - Picturehouse Central - Thursday 17th April 2025 — Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Alex_Garland_-_Warfare_Q%26A_-_Picturehouse_Central_-_01.jpg/1280px-Alex_Garland_-_Warfare_Q%26A_-_Picturehouse_Central_-_01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 2016: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Ex Machina*

### Other awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- European Film Award for Best Screenwriter 2015: European Film Award for Best Screenwriter (nominated), for *Ex Machina*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alex-garland