Sam Mendes: Who is Sam Mendes? James Bond director WINS at Golden Globes

Skyfall was a huge success, and starred Javier Bardem as the shocking villain to Daniel Craig’s Bond, and Judi Dench as M.

After this success, Mendes directed the 24th Bond film, Spectre, which was less of a success but also received some good reviews from critics, before his latest film, 1917, is a return to the war genre and is based partly on an account of the war told by his grandfather, Alfred Mendes.

Outside the film world, while at the height of his career, Mendes has continued to direct stage work, often collaborating with Simon Russell Beale.

In 2013, before he started work on Spectre, Mendes directed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which received Olivier nominations, before he directed Simon Russell Beale in King Lear in 2014, Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman in 2017, and The Lehman Trilogy in 2018, again with Simon Russell Beale.