--- name: "Andrew Grieve" canonical: "https://film.one/person/andrew-grieve" fi1m_id: "andrew-grieve" imdb_id: "nm0341021" tmdb_id: 1211848 wikidata_id: "Q2846618" roles: ["Second unit director","Director"] born: "28 November 1939" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-07T11:25:39.042256+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." --- # Andrew Grieve ## Identity Andrew Grieve - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/andrew-grieve - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** andrew-grieve - **IMDb ID:** nm0341021 - **TMDB ID:** 1211848 - **Wikidata ID:** Q2846618 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grieve, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2846618, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341021/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1211848 Second unit director and director. Born 28 November 1939 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. ## Details - **Work:** Second unit director, Director - **Born:** 28 November 1939, Cardiff, Wales, UK - **Active:** 1985–1989 - **Also known as:** 앤드류 그리브 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 crew - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grieve, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2846618, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341021/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1211848 ## Streaming the US now - **BritBox:** [*Agatha Christie's Poirot*](https://film.one/tv/agatha-christies-poirot.md) (83) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Andrew Grieve > A television director of the old apprenticeship, Andrew Grieve puts period on a budget and makes it stand up: nine Poirots, eight Hornblowers and one Welsh hill. Dependable rather than distinctive, and there are worse things to be. A wooden deck, a young officer trying not to look as frightened as he is, and a broadside that has to be made for television money and look as if it cost more. That is the Andrew Grieve shot, and he made it eight times across the *Hornblower* films (1998–2003), with Ioan Gruffudd in all of them. Grieve is not a director you notice. He is the one who gets the ships out and back without anyone drowning, which is a harder job than it sounds. He came up the slow way, as an assistant director on features from the late 1960s, among them *Poor Cow* (1967) for Ken Loach and work for Tony Richardson, and then as second unit director on *Young Sherlock Holmes* (1985). He did not direct a feature until he was nearly fifty. *On the Black Hill* (1988), which he also wrote from Bruce Chatwin's novel, follows rural life on the Welsh border across decades and was shot where it is set. We have not reviewed it, and its reputation is mixed: the landscape is admired, the structure is episodic, and it is not always clear what a scene is for. Grieve has said what he wanted from it, "Personal films about real people, that's what I'm interested in." The career that followed was mostly other people's people. That career was television, and the best of it was period. Between 1990 and 2000 he directed nine episodes of *Agatha Christie's Poirot*, the series we scored 83 and still recommend. Our review credits David Suchet with holding the whole thing up and does not single out any director, which is about right for a show whose directors were asked to serve the format rather than bend it. What Grieve was asked for, and gave, was a 1930s that looks right and a plot with a dozen moving parts kept legible. Then came Hornblower, then *Wire in the Blood* (2002–2005), *Kingdom* (2008) and the drama-documentary *Heroes and Villains: Cortés* (2008). Hornblower is where he is both at his best and most exposed. The ship-to-ship action is staged on a television scale, and some of it is plainly staged, with cuts covering what the money could not. We admired it anyway. Watching the first film, *The Even Chance* (1998), we felt the deck tilt in a way we had not expected from a Sunday evening drama, and it was the smoke and Gruffudd's face in it that did it, not the cannon. *The Duchess and the Devil* (1999) is one of the more coherent entries. The complaint that some of the fighting looks awkward is fair, and we would not argue with it. So: a craftsman, Cardiff-born, who learned the job from the bottom and never pretended to be more than good at it. Start with the Poirots if you want to see what he does; start with *Hornblower* if you want to see him trying something harder. The one film that is wholly his own is the one he made first. ## Biography Andrew Grieve (born 28 November 1939) is a British television and film director from Cardiff, Wales. He directed nine episodes of *Agatha Christie's Poirot* (1989) between 1990 and 2000. Grieve also directed multiple entries in the *Hornblower* series, including *Hornblower: The Even Chance* (1998), *Hornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters* (1999), *Hornblower: Mutiny* (2001) and *Hornblower: Retribution* (2001). His work on the series earned the Silver FIPA award in 1999. Grieve wrote and directed the feature *On the Black Hill* (1988), which won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Other credits include episodes of *Wire in the Blood*, *Lorna Doone* (1990) and the BBC drama-documentary *Heroes and Villains* episode on Hernán Cortés (2008). Earlier in his career he worked as second unit director on *Young Sherlock Holmes* (1985) and as assistant director on *Poor Cow* (1967). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) - *Agatha Christie's Poirot* (1989), Fi1m 83, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/agatha-christies-poirot.md) ### Crew (1) — the average rests on these - *Young Sherlock Holmes* (1985), Fi1m 68, Second Unit Director — [page](https://film.one/film/young-sherlock-holmes.md) ## Complete filmography (33) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Heroes and Villains* (2007), series, Director - *Kingdom* (2007), series, Director - *Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire* (2006), series, Writer, Director - *Hornblower: Duty* (2003), Director - *Hornblower: Loyalty* (2003), Director - *Rose and Maloney* (2002), series, Director - *Hornblower: Retribution* (2001), Director - *Hornblower: Mutiny* (2001), Director - *Hornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters* (1999), Director - *Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil* (1999), Director - *Hornblower: The Examination for Lieutenant* (1998), Director - *Hornblower: The Even Chance* (1998), Director - *Hornblower* (1998), series, Director - *Original Sin* (1997), series, Director - *Letters from the East* (1996), Director - *Bugs* (1995), series, Director, Writer - *Kavanagh Q.C.* (1995), series, Director - *Moving Story* (1994), series, Director - *All or Nothing at All* (1993), series, Director - *The Big Battalions* (1992), series, Series Director - *Lorna Doone* (1990), Director - *Agatha Christie's Poirot* (1989), series, Director — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/agatha-christies-poirot.md) - *On the Black Hill* (1988), Writer, Director - *Suspicion* (1987), Director - *Young Sherlock Holmes* (1985), Second Unit Director — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/young-sherlock-holmes.md) - *American Playhouse* (1982), series, Director - *Storybook International* (1981), series, Director - *Joseph Andrews* (1977), First Assistant Director - *Mahogany* (1975), First Assistant Director - *Warship* (1973), series, Director - *The Birthday Party* (1968), Assistant Director - *The Great Pony Raid* (1968), Assistant Director - *Poor Cow* (1967), Assistant Director ## Gallery - ![Andrew Grieve](https://film.one/media/person/5547051/gallery-6aef22366148.jpg) Andrew Grieve — Image via TMDB - ![Andrew Grieve](https://film.one/media/person/5547051/gallery-63b697dbcc35.jpg) Andrew Grieve — Image via TMDB --- © 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/andrew-grieve