--- name: "Joe Cornish" canonical: "https://film.one/person/joe-cornish" fi1m_id: "joe-cornish" imdb_id: "nm0180428" tmdb_id: 155531 wikidata_id: "Q2070525" roles: ["Writer","Director"] born: "20 December 1968" reviewed_on_fi1m: 5 average_fi1m_score: 72 average_as: "writer" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-10-01T21:40:06.726583+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." --- # Joe Cornish ## Identity Joe Cornish - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/joe-cornish - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** joe-cornish - **IMDb ID:** nm0180428 - **TMDB ID:** 155531 - **Wikidata ID:** Q2070525 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Cornish, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2070525, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0180428/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/155531 Writer and director. Born 20 December 1968 in London, England. ## Details - **Work:** Writer, Director - **Born:** 20 December 1968, London, England - **Active:** 2007–2015 - **Also known as:** Joseph Murray Cornish, Joseph Cornish, Adam and Joe - **Titles on Fi1m:** 5: 1 acting, 1 directing, 2 writing, 1 other - **Frequently works with:** [Edgar Wright](https://film.one/person/edgar-wright.md), [Nick Frost](https://film.one/person/nick-frost.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as writer, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 84 (2), 2010s 76 (3) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Cornish, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2070525, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0180428/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/155531 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Attack the Block*](https://film.one/film/attack-the-block.md) (84) - **Peacock:** [*The Adventures of Tintin*](https://film.one/film/the-adventures-of-tintin.md) (77) - **Disney+:** [*Ant-Man*](https://film.one/film/ant-man.md) (67) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Joe Cornish > Joe Cornish drops large genre ideas onto small British streets and lets the kids talk first. When the film is wholly his, as *Attack the Block* was, it works; when the script passes through other hands, the idea survives and the wit does not always. The boys in *Attack the Block* (2011) begin as muggers, and Joe Cornish does not ask us to forgive them for it. He lets them talk, in the quick, competitive way of friends who have known one another for years, and by the time the first creature lands on the estate we have stopped counting their faults. That is the Cornish method at its best: a large genre idea dropped onto a small, specific British street, and a script that trusts the people on that street to be interesting before anything arrives from the sky. He has said of the film that "It all started with a mugging", and it shows. He came from television comedy, as half of Adam and Joe with Adam Buxton on *The Adam and Joe Show* from 1996 to 2001, and moved into screenwriting in the 2000s alongside Edgar Wright. Together, with Steven Moffat, they wrote Steven Spielberg's *The Adventures of Tintin* (2011), and they wrote an early version of *Ant-Man*. *Attack the Block*, produced by Nira Park, was his first film as director. Eight years passed before the second, *The Kid Who Would Be King* (2019), an Arthurian fantasy for children, and four more before he created and directed the supernatural series *Lockwood & Co.* (2023). In the debut everything pulls one way. Jonathan Amos cuts the chases so we always know where the boys are, Steven Price's score drives without doing all the work, and John Boyega gives the gang a leader with weight. At 88 minutes it has almost no fat. The fault is one that recurs: having earned our sympathy, Cornish explains it, and the social lesson arrives underlined when the actors had already made the point. We cared about these boys more than we expected to, and the feeling came from listening to them, not from anything the script later said on their behalf. *Ant-Man* (2015), for which Cornish and Wright wrote the story and share screenplay credit with Paul Rudd and Adam McKay, shows what happens when the idea survives and the hand does not. Wright left before shooting. Peyton Reed's film is small on purpose, likeable and funny in patches, and it explains itself more often than it needs to, a habit we suspect is partly Cornish's own. Most reviews mourned the film that might have been; the one that exists is pleasant and gone by morning. The consensus on *The Kid Who Would Be King*, which we have not reviewed, is that it is more conventional than the debut. Cornish draws on the Spielberg films of the 1980s, children meeting the impossible on their own doorstep, and marries that to British realism; he pitched *Attack the Block* as *Aliens* crossed with *La Haine*. The mixture has produced one film we recommend without much hesitation and a good deal of waiting, since the gaps are long and some projects have not been made. A sequel to *Attack the Block* has been in development. If it arrives, we hope he lets the boys talk and leaves the moral in the cutting room. ## Biography Joe Cornish is an English comedian, screenwriter and director. With Adam Buxton he formed the comedy duo Adam and Joe, known for their Channel 4 series The Adam and Joe Show in the late 1990s. Cornish made his feature directorial debut with *Attack the Block* (2011), which he also wrote. The film, set on a south London housing estate, starred John Boyega and was executive produced by Edgar Wright. He later directed and wrote *The Kid Who Would Be King* (2019) and created, wrote and directed episodes of the Netflix series *Lockwood & Co.* (2023). He co-wrote the screenplays for *The Adventures of Tintin* (2011) with Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright, and *Ant-Man* (2015) with Wright, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd. Cornish trained at Bournemouth Film School after attending Westminster School in London. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, bbc.com.* ## On Fi1m (5) ### Performed in (1) - *Hot Fuzz* (2007), Fi1m 84, as Bob — [page](https://film.one/film/hot-fuzz.md) ### Directed (1) - *Attack the Block* (2011), Fi1m 84, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/attack-the-block.md) ### Wrote (2) — the average rests on these - *Ant-Man* (2015), Fi1m 67, Story, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/ant-man.md) - *The Adventures of Tintin* (2011), Fi1m 77, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/the-adventures-of-tintin.md) ### Also credited (1) — thanks, archive footage, uncredited - *Shaun of the Dead* (2004), Fi1m 85, as Zombie Shot by Soldiers (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/shaun-of-the-dead.md) ## Complete filmography (20) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Lockwood & Co.* (2023), series, Writer, Director, Executive Producer, Creator - *The Kid Who Would Be King* (2019), Director, Writer - *Star Wars: The Last Jedi* (2017), as Resistance Trooper (uncredited) — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/star-wars-the-last-jedi.md) - *Baby Driver* (2017), Thanks — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/baby-driver.md) - *Ant-Man* (2015), Screenplay, Story — Fi1m 67, [page](https://film.one/film/ant-man.md) - *The Adventures of Tintin* (2011), Screenplay — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/the-adventures-of-tintin.md) - *Attack the Block* (2011), Director, Writer — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/attack-the-block.md) - *The Fuzzball Rally* (2007), Director - *Hot Fuzz* (2007), as Bob — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/film/hot-fuzz.md) - *HeadJam* (2004), series, Actor - *Shaun of the Dead* (2004), as Zombie Shot by Soldiers (uncredited) — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/shaun-of-the-dead.md) - *Adam and Joe Go Tokyo* (2003), series, Actor - *The Low Down* (2001), as Joe - *Adam and Joe's World of Animation* (2000), Actor - *The Adam and Joe Show* (1996), series, Actor - *Blue Juice* (1995), Production Assistant - *Section 6*, Director - *Attack the Block 2*, Producer, Director, Writer - *Untitled Joe Cornish LEGO Film*, Director, Writer - *Dark Park*, Director ## Gallery - ![Joe Cornish](https://film.one/media/person/120009/gallery-abb5a5a0b1d3.jpg) Joe Cornish — Raffi Asdourian from New York, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Joe_Cornish_at_Comic_Con.jpg/1280px-Joe_Cornish_at_Comic_Con.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Joe Cornish](https://film.one/media/person/120009/gallery-1d8447830147.jpg) Joe Cornish — 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/joe-cornish