--- name: "Garth Jennings" canonical: "https://film.one/person/garth-jennings" roles: ["Director"] born: "4 March 1972" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_as: "director" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-21T02:10:39.010869+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." --- # Garth Jennings Director. Born 4 March 1972 in Epping, Essex, England, UK. ## Details - **Work:** Director - **Born:** 4 March 1972, Epping, Essex, England, UK - **Active:** 2009–present - **Also known as:** Hammer & Tongs - **Titles on Fi1m:** 4: 1 acting, 1 directing, 2 other - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 84 (3), 2020s 65 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Jennings, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q598683, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1134029/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/52842 ## Fi1m on Garth Jennings > Garth Jennings makes films about people who decide to do a thing and will not be talked out of it, and he likes them all. The liking is real; the storytelling tends to slacken somewhere past the halfway mark. Two boys making a film of their own in *Son of Rambow* (2007). A world of animals who want to sing in *Sing* (2016). A tall boy in Sheffield who has decided he is going to be a pop star and keeps deciding it through years in which nothing happens, in *Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?* (2026). Garth Jennings has one subject and he has stuck to it: the amateur who will not be told. He is on their side every time, and for the first hour or so we are too. He came up in music videos, one half of Hammer & Tongs with Nick Goldsmith from 1993, and it shows. He is quick, he likes a visual joke, and he does not hang about. *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* (2005) was the first feature, and it looked like the work of a man with more pictures in his head than plot on the page; the reviews at the time said so and we would not argue. *Son of Rambow* followed two years later, his own script, drawn from his own childhood, and it is the film people mean when they say they like him. Then he went to Paris and made *Sing* (2016) and *Sing 2* (2021) for Illumination, which is a long way from Essex in every sense. Of the route from one to the other he has said, "There’s never been a plan." We believe him. The Pulp film brought him back to where he started, since he had made videos for the band before. The half that is a biography is recognisably his: dry, fond of failure, steered by Jarvis Cocker with one eyebrow raised. Much of it is archive from the years before anyone was filming Pulp on purpose, and it moved us more than a film about a pop group has any business doing, because it is footage of people carrying on with something nobody had asked for. Then the film goes to the O2 and the cameras stand too far back, and what should have been the payoff never quite arrives. We gave it 65, and it is a good evening for anyone who owned the records. That is the pattern, and it goes back further than Pulp. The first act is where Jennings is happiest: the plan hatched, the kit assembled, the friends recruited. The reviews of *Son of Rambow* worried about a second act that wandered, and *Hitchhiker's* ran out of story before it ran out of ideas. He has spent twenty years making films about people who refuse to give up on their own story halfway through. The films themselves could use a little of that stubbornness. ## Biography Garth Jennings is an English film director, screenwriter and actor. He co-founded the production company Hammer & Tongs with Nick Goldsmith in 1993, initially known for music videos. Jennings directed *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* (2005), *Son of Rambow* (2007), *Sing* (2016) and *Sing 2* (2021). He also directed the documentary and concert film *Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?* (2026). Born on 4 March 1972 in Epping, Essex, he has lived in Paris for some years. *Sources: hollywoodreporter.com, en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) ### Performed in (1) - *Fantastic Mr. Fox* (2009), Fi1m 84, as Bean's Son (voice) — [page](https://film.one/film/fantastic-mr-fox.md) ### Directed (1) — the average rests on these - *Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?* (2026), Fi1m 65, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/pulp-what-do-you-do-for-an-encore.md) ### Also credited (2) — thanks, archive footage, uncredited - *Hot Fuzz* (2007), Fi1m 84, as Crack Addict (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/hot-fuzz.md) - *Shaun of the Dead* (2004), Fi1m 85, as Fun Dead Zombie (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/shaun-of-the-dead.md) ## Complete filmography (28) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?* (2026), Director — Fi1m 65, [page](https://film.one/film/pulp-what-do-you-do-for-an-encore.md) - *Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl* (2024), as Zookeeper (voice) (uncredited) - *Sing: Thriller* (2024), as Miss Crawly (voice) · Director, Writer - *Minions & More 2* (2022), as Miss Crawly (voice) - *Minions & More Volume 1* (2022), as Miss Crawly (voice) - *For Gunter’s Eyes Only* (2022), as Miss Crawly (voice) - *Animal Attraction* (2022), as Director (voice) · Writer - *Sing 2* (2021), as Miss Crawly (voice) · Writer, Director - *Come Home* (2021), Director, Writer - *Madame* (2019), Director, Writer, Producer - *The Secret Life of Pets 2* (2019), as Hamster (voice) - *Baby Driver* (2017), Thanks — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/baby-driver.md) - *Love at First Sight* (2017), as Miss Crawly (voice) - *Sing* (2016), as Miss Crawly / Additional Voices (voice) · Director, Writer - *The World's End* (2013), as Blank at The Good Companions (uncredited) - *Fantastic Mr. Fox* (2009), as Bean's Son (voice) — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/fantastic-mr-fox.md) - *MeeBOX* (2008), Producer - *Aron* (2008), as Capt' Warren · Director, Writer - *Scotch Mist: A Film with Radiohead in It* (2007), Director - *Hot Fuzz* (2007), as Crack Addict (uncredited) — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/hot-fuzz.md) - *Son of Rambow* (2007), Director, Screenplay - *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* (2005), Director - *Shaun of the Dead* (2004), as Fun Dead Zombie (uncredited) — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/shaun-of-the-dead.md) - *R.E.M.: In View 1988-2003 (The Best of R.E.M.)* (2003), Director - *blur | The Best Of* (2000), Director - *One Cold Eskimo* (1995), Director - *Sing 3*, Director, Writer - *The Pool Cleaner*, as The Pool Cleaner · Director ## Gallery - ![Garth Jennings](https://film.one/media/person/94862/gallery-942c48b5dbcc.jpg) Garth Jennings — Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/2008-0419-GarthJennings.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Garth Jennings](https://film.one/media/person/94862/gallery-1fd3d58534b8.jpg) Garth Jennings — 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/garth-jennings