Alex Garland

Novels

Garland's first novel, The Beach, was published in 1996. Based on his travels across Europe and Thailand, it tells the story of a young English backpacker who discovers an unspoiled seashore occupied by a community of like-minded backpackers. The novel is noted for its references to drug culture, sequences of hallucinations, and unique depictions of excess and utopia. The Beach was initially met with positive reviews, and with a spreading word of mouth response, the novel grew in popularity; it led some critics to regard Garland a key voice of Generation X.^[7] He would later speak of his discomfort with the fame The Beach brought him.^[5] The Beach has been translated into 25 different languages^[8] and sold close to 700,000 copies by the start of 1999.^[9] It was developed into 2000 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2003, the novel was Ranked 103 in BBC's The Big Read poll.^[10]

Garland's The Tesseract (1998) is a non-linear narrative with several interwoven characters, set in Manila, Philippines. The novel is characterized by a post-modernist narrative style and structure. It explores several themes such as love and violence through each character's circumstance and context of surroundings as well as seemingly inconsequential actions and the repercussions of those actions on other characters. The Tesseract was not a critical or commercial success, but it too was adapted into a film. Throughout his work, Garland has expressed his love of travel (particularly backpacking) and his love of Manila, much of which influenced his work.^[8]

Film

In 2002, Garland wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy.^[11] He has said that the script was influenced by 1970s zombie films and English science fiction such as The Day of the Triffids.^[12] The Resident Evil video game series also influenced 28 Days Later, with Garland crediting the first game for revitalising the zombie genre.^[13] Inspiration for the "Rage" virus came from real-world infections such as Ebola and filoviruses.^[12] He won a Best Screenplay honor at the 2004 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for his script of the film.

In 2005, Garland wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of Halo.^[14] D. B. Weiss and Josh Olson rewrote this during 2006 for a 2008 release,^[15][16] although the film was later canceled.^[16] In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine, which was his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and to star Cillian Murphy. Garland served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel of 28 Days Later. He wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film Never Let Me Go, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. He also wrote the script for Dredd, an adaptation of the Judge Dredd comic book series from 2000 AD. In 2018, Karl Urban, who played the eponymous role in the film, stated that it was Garland who deserved credit for also directing Dredd.^[17]

Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac. The film won a Jury Prize at the 2015 Gerardmer Film Festival, and earned Garland a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Garland's second film, Annihilation (2018), was based on the 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer. Garland described it as "an adaptation [that] was a memory of the book", rather than book-referenced screenwriting, to capture the "dream like nature" and tone of his reading experience.^[18][19][20] Production began in 2016,^[21] and the film was released in February 2018.^[22]

In January 2021, Garland was hired to direct his third film, Men, starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear.^[23] The film follows a young woman who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband.^[24] Released in May 2022, it received generally positive reviews, though its narrative approach received some criticism. Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum placed Men on his Best Films of 2022 list.^[25]

In April 2022, it was announced that Garland would once again work with A24 for his fourth feature, Civil War, an action epic starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and previous collaborators Stephen McKinley Henderson and Cailee Spaeny.^[26] The film was released on 12 April 2024. Garland reunited with Boyle to write 28 Years Later, the long-gestating sequel to 28 Days Later, which was the first of an ongoing trilogy of zombie films. The film was released by Sony^[27] on 20 June 2025. Its sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which Garland returned to write, was released on 13 January 2026, and was directed by Nia DaCosta. Garland is slated to write the yet unnamed third film in the 28 Years Later trilogy, which will again be directed by Boyle and serve as the fifth overall instalment in the 28 Days Later film series.^[28][29]

In February 2024, it was revealed that Charles Melton was in talks to star in Garland's upcoming untitled war film with A24. This project marks the second collaboration between Garland and Ray Mendoza, who served as the military supervisor for Civil War. The pair wrote and co-directed the film.^[30] The following month, Joseph Quinn, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Kit Connor, Cosmo Jarvis, Will Poulter and Finn Bennett joined the ensemble cast, and the film was revealed to be titled Warfare.^[31] The same month, Garland stated that he would not direct any films in the "foreseeable future" after the release of Civil War and that his co-directorial work on Warfare was "more of a supporting character" to Mendoza's.^[32] However, in May 2025, it was announced that Garland's next project would be a film adaptation of the 2022 video game Elden Ring.^[33]

Television

Garland wrote, served as executive producer, and directed the eight-episode miniseries Devs about the "mysterious ongoings at a tech company", for FX. The series was greenlit in August 2018, and premiered 5 March 2020 on FX on Hulu.^[34] It stars Ex Machina and Annihilation actress Sonoya Mizuno, alongside Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, and Alison Pill.^[34] Spaeny, who did not audition for the role as Garland had wanted her specifically for it said that Devs was short for Development, and the series would explore the idea of the multiverse.^[35]

In May 2022, a television series based on Never Let Me Go was optioned at FX, to be executive produced by Garland, who previously wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film adaptation.^[36][37] It would have premiered on Hulu in the United States, Star in other territories and Star+ in Latin America with Viola Prettejohn, Tracey Ullman and Kelly Macdonald starring.^[36] In February 2023, it was announced that FX had cancelled the series before production began.^[38]

Video games

Garland and Tameem Antoniades co-wrote the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. They won a 2011 award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain. Garland also served as a story supervisor on the game DmC: Devil May Cry in 2013.

Film

Television

Video games

• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (2010), co-writer
• DmC: Devil May Cry (2013), story supervisor

Other credits

• The Beach (2000), cartographer, based on his 1996 novel^[44]
• The Tesseract (2003), based on his 1998 novel^[45]
• Big Game (2014), executive producer