Short answers, pulled from the story.
Branagh has received eight Academy Award nominations across seven different categories, making him the first person in Oscar history to achieve that breadth. His nominations span Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Live Action Short Film. He won Best Original Screenplay for Belfast in 2022.
Branagh was born on the 10th of December 1960 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in the Tiger's Bay area. In early 1970, at the age of nine, his family moved to Reading in Berkshire, England, to escape the Troubles.
Branagh has directed and starred in multiple film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006). His 1996 Hamlet ran four hours and was shot entirely in 70mm film. He co-founded the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 specifically to produce Shakespeare and other stage work.
Branagh is best known on television for playing Inspector Kurt Wallander in the BBC One series Wallander, which ran across four series from 2008 to 2016. He also won a Primetime Emmy Award for his portrayal of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the HBO film Conspiracy (2001), a dramatisation of the Wannsee Conference.
Branagh received the accolade of Knight Bachelor at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of November 2012. The honour was listed in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama and to the community in Northern Ireland.
Belfast (2021) is a semi-autobiographical film Branagh directed about his childhood in Northern Ireland during a period of religious and political conflict. Shot in black-and-white with occasional colour sequences, it earned seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. Branagh won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.