Ben Wheatley

Ben Wheatley (birthname: Benjamin Wheatley) is an independent British filmmaker who has created a striking and signature body of films blending horror, crime, contemporary issues, and black, absurdist comedy, many written by or with his screenwriter wife Amy Jump.

After a period of making over 100 short and animated films and internet work, Wheatley made commercials and won a Cannes Lion prize at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, Wheatley created clips and sketches for Channel 4 and the BBC Three.

Wheatley’s debut as a feature film director/writer/editor was the dazzling black crime comedy, Down Terrace (2009), with Robert Hill, Julia Deakin, and Robin Hill, who co-wrote and co-edited the film, which won the British Independent Film Awards’ Raindance Award and the Fantastic Fest’s Next Wave best feature and screenplay awards.

Ben Wheatley more than delivered on the promise of his debut with the chilling Kill List (2011), which he directed, co-wrote with Jump, and co-edited with Jump and Hill, and co-starred Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, and Michael Smiley, and which premiered at the South by Southwest festival. Wheatley’s third film was Sightseers (2012), the strong black comedy/road movie he directed and co-edited (with Jump and Hill), based on the screenplay by co-stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, and premiering at the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors Fortnight.

Maskell, Michael Smiley, and Hill co-starred in short, U for Unearthed, which Wheatley directed and edited as a segment of the comedy-horror anthology feature, The ABCs of Death (2012), produced by Ant Timpson (who wrote the original story premise) and Drafthouse Films’ Tim League, and which premiered at the Toronto film festival before a Magnet Releasing release.

Ben Wheatley returned the next year with the startling black-and-white film set during the English Civil War, A Field in England (2013), which he directed from the screenplay by Amy Jump (written in Early Modern English!), who co-edited with Wheatley; Wheatley’s only period-set film to date co-starred Julian Barratt, Peter Ferdinando, Richard Glover, Ryan Pope, Reece Shearsmith, and Michael Smiley, and after premiering in competition at Karlovy Vary film festival (where it won the special jury prize), the film was the first British film released simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, free TV and video-on-demand.

Wheatley directed and co-edited (with Jump) her screenplay based on the J.G. Ballard novel, High-Rise (2015), starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, and Elisabeth Moss, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, followed by U.S. release by Magnet.

Although Wheatley’s movies had yet to return profits, his movies grew in budget—such as the wild crime comedy, Free Fire (2016), which, as usual, Wheatley directed, co-wrote, and co-edited with Jump, and shot in the U.K., with Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, and Noah Taylor, with A24 releasing after a Toronto film festival premiere.

For the first time with the domestic dark comedy, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018), Wheatley was solo director/writer/editor (freely adapting Shakespeare’s Coriolanus), featuring actors Neil Maskell, Hayley Squires, Riley, and Charles Dance, and which premiered at the London film festival.

Ben Wheatley’s first theatrically-released and streaming movie (via Netflix) was as director of a new version of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic thriller, Rebecca (2020), an uncharacteristic project for him co-starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ann Dowd and Sam Riley.

With the remarkable In the Earth (2021), Wheatley made a far more confident and bold return to form—again as solo director/writer/editor–with the deeply creepy horror film, combining scares, science fiction, and psychological drama, and co-starring Joel Fry, Reece Shearsmith, Hayley Squires, and Ellora Torchia, and released by Neon after a Sundance film festival premiere.

In an unexpected turn, Ben Wheatley took on his first big-budget ($139-million) studio movie as director-only with the Warner Bros. sequel, Meg 2: The Trench (2023), starring Jason Statham, Wu Jing, Shuya Sophia Cai, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, and Cliff Curtis.

Wheatley rejoined with co-writer Amy Jump for a more signature project with the horror movie, Freak Shift (date to be announced), followed by a feature comedy Wheatley directed from Graham Duff’s script based on the U.K. drug-fueled sitcom he created for BBC3, Ideal (2005-2011), starring Johnny Vegas.