---
name: "Tim Mielants"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/tim-mielants"
fi1m_id: "tim-mielants"
imdb_id: "nm2139803"
tmdb_id: 1461490
wikidata_id: "Q111343078"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "11 December 1979"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 78
average_as: "director"
average_over: 6
updated: "2026-10-03T04:03:42.623013+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."
---

# Tim Mielants

## Identity

Tim Mielants

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/tim-mielants
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** tim-mielants
- **IMDb ID:** nm2139803
- **TMDB ID:** 1461490
- **Wikidata ID:** Q111343078
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Mielants, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111343078, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2139803/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1461490

Director. Born 11 December 1979 in Mortsel, Belgium.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 11 December 1979, Mortsel, Belgium
- **Active:** 2013–present
- **Frequently works with:** [Cillian Murphy](https://film.one/person/cillian-murphy.md), [Alan Moloney](https://film.one/person/alan-moloney.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 78, as director, over 6 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 79 (3), 2020s 77 (3)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 78 to 80 across 6 titles
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 6, Crime 2, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2, Action & Adventure 1, Mystery 1
- **Screen time:** 3 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $13m across 1 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Mielants, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q111343078, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2139803/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1461490

## Streaming the US now

- **Netflix:** [*Peaky Blinders*](https://film.one/tv/peaky-blinders.md) (77), [*Steve*](https://film.one/film/steve.md) (68)
- **Apple TV:** [*The Responder*](https://film.one/tv/the-responder.md) (84)
- **AMC+:** [*The Terror*](https://film.one/tv/the-terror.md) (82)
- **Hulu:** [*Small Things Like These*](https://film.one/film/small-things-like-these.md) (79)
- **Disney+:** [*Legion*](https://film.one/tv/legion.md) (77)

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

## Fi1m on Tim Mielants

> A Belgian television director turned specialist in quiet men who cannot say what is wrong with them. *Small Things Like These* is where to start; its quietness is what we admire and what will send some viewers to bed early.

Bill Furlong comes in from the coal round and scrubs the black out of his hands while his wife and daughters get on with the evening around him. Nobody remarks on it. That is the Tim Mielants scene in *Small Things Like These* (2024), and on the evidence so far it is the Mielants scene generally: a man doing something ordinary with his hands because he has no words for what is in his head. Cillian Murphy barely speaks in the film and does not need to. Mielants trusts a face and a task to carry a scene, and most of the time they do.

He came up through Flemish television, *Super 8* (2009), *Code 37* (2011–2012) and *Cordon* (2014), then *The Tunnel* and all six episodes of the third series of *Peaky Blinders* (2016). That is roughly where, in our view, Steven Knight's saga began to grow grander and slower and fall in love with its own walk; how much of that is Mielants and how much Knight we would not claim to know from six episodes. American series followed, *Legion* and *The Terror*, then a feature debut, *Patrick* (2019), which he also wrote: an absurdist comedy set in a naturist camp, about as far from a coal lorry as a film can get. Since then he has led *The Responder* (2022), with Martin Freeman, made *Wil* (2023), a wartime drama about complicity, and followed *Small Things Like These* with *Steve* (2025).

*Small Things Like These* is the film to judge him by, and it is a good one. Enda Walsh's script keeps Claire Keegan's novella at its own scale, and Mielants keeps his camera outside the convent, at the gate and in the yard, so the film is about a town that knows and does not look rather than about the nuns. Peter Mullan's *The Magdalene Sisters* (2002) went inside and was furious; Mielants stays out and is quiet, and for this story that is right. We were moved more than we expected by how little he lets happen in that yard: a man, a lorry, a gate, and a decision he can feel coming and keeps not making. The camera, in the documentary manner he favours, is kept still and unemphatic, and the cold is deliberate.

The habit that lets him down is explaining. The film tells us about Bill's past more often than Keegan did and more often than we needed, and it is an odd fault in a director whose whole method is leaving things out; it suggests a nerve that fails at the last moment. He has said of the film that "When you're silent, you're complicit." His best scenes let us reach that ourselves. His weaker ones put it on a plate.

He keeps his collaborators close, Murphy three times now and the cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert as often, and the Murphy partnership is worth keeping, since he is the rare actor who can hold a long silence without asking for credit. Start with *Small Things Like These*, on a quiet evening, and do not expect it to raise its voice.

## Biography

Tim Mielants is a Belgian film and television director. He was born on 11 December 1979 in Mortsel, Belgium, and studied at Campus Sint-Lukas in Brussels. He began his career directing Flemish television series including *Code 37* (2011–2012), *Cordon* (2014) and *Professor T.* (2015).

Mielants has directed episodes of international series such as *Peaky Blinders* (2016, all six episodes of series 3), *Legion* (2017–2018), *The Terror* (2018) and *Tales from the Loop* (2020). He served as lead director on the BBC series *The Responder* (2022), for which he received BAFTA and Emmy nominations. His feature films include *Patrick* (2019), for which he won the Best Director prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, *Wil* (2023) and *Small Things Like These* (2024), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. He is also credited as director on the forthcoming *Steve* (2025).

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, nl.wikipedia.org, web.archive.org.*

## On Fi1m (6)

- *Steve* (2025), Fi1m 68, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/steve.md)
- *Small Things Like These* (2024), Fi1m 79, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/small-things-like-these.md)
- *The Responder* (2022), Fi1m 84, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-responder.md)
- *The Terror* (2018), Fi1m 82, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-terror.md)
- *Legion* (2017), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/legion.md)
- *Peaky Blinders* (2013), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/peaky-blinders.md)

## Complete filmography (15)

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

- *Steve* (2025), Director — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/steve.md)
- *Small Things Like These* (2024), Director — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/small-things-like-these.md)
- *WILL* (2023), Director
- *Hazard* (2022), as Traffic Controller
- *Nobody Has to Know* (2022), Co-Director
- *The Responder* (2022), series, Director — Fi1m 84, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-responder.md)
- *Tales from the Loop* (2020), series, Director
- *Patrick* (2019), Director, Writer
- *The Terror* (2018), series, Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-terror.md)
- *Legion* (2017), series, Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/legion.md)
- *Cordon* (2014), series, Director
- *Peaky Blinders* (2013), series, Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/tv/peaky-blinders.md)
- *Code 37* (2009), series, Director
- *Desert Ski* (2007), Director, Writer
- *The Sunflyers* (2005), Director, Writer

## Gallery

- ![FilmCrew: Drew Vinton, Matt Damon, Enda Walsh, Cillian Murphy, Zara Devlin, Tim Mielants, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson, Catherine Magee and Alan Moloney of Small  (2024)](https://film.one/media/person/10638/gallery-fc95955d3420.jpg) FilmCrew: Drew Vinton, Matt Damon, Enda Walsh, Cillian Murphy, Zara Devlin, Tim Mielants, Eileen Walsh, Emily Watson, Catherine Magee and Alan Moloney of Small  (2024) — Elena Ternovaja, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Film_Crew_of_Small_Things_Like_These.jpg/1280px-Film_Crew_of_Small_Things_Like_These.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Tim Melants at Berlinale 2024](https://film.one/media/person/10638/gallery-7e879040152f.jpg) Tim Melants at Berlinale 2024 — Elena Ternovaja, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Tim_Melants_at_Berlinale_2024.jpg/1280px-Tim_Melants_at_Berlinale_2024.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Tim Mielants](https://film.one/media/person/10638/gallery-d3fd89a012fa.png) Tim Mielants — Joost Pauwels, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Tim_Mielants_%282024%29.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Tim Mielants bij de voorstelling van 'Small Things Like These',Film Fest Gent 2024](https://film.one/media/person/10638/gallery-563394216da3.png) Tim Mielants bij de voorstelling van 'Small Things Like These',Film Fest Gent 2024 — Joost Pauwels, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Tim_Mielants_%282024%29_B.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Tim Mielants à l'avant-première de "Tu ne mentiras point" à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, le 28 avril 2025.](https://film.one/media/person/10638/gallery-709105e0b467.jpg) Tim Mielants à l'avant-première de "Tu ne mentiras point" à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, le 28 avril 2025. — ManoSolo13241324, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Tim_Mielants_2025.jpg/1280px-Tim_Mielants_2025.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

---
© 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/tim-mielants