Niall Johnson has been writing and directing movies for over 30 years.

He came to Hollywood’s notice in 2003 with his spec supernatural script WHITE NOISE, starring Michael Keaton, which opened in January 2005 at #1 in the UK and #2 in the US, where it broke the box-office record at the time for the biggest January opening for a non-sequel.

In that same year, 2005, Niall wrote and directed the black comedy classic KEEPING MUM, starring Rowan Atkinson, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas (winning the London Film Critics 2006 Best Actress Award award), and Patrick Swayze. Niall adapted the script from an original by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo (Nobody’s Fool, Empire Falls)—winning them the 2006 HBO Comedy Festival Best Screenplay Award.

Niall’s other credits include: wife-swapping comedy-drama THE BIG SWAP (1996); traditional haunted house TV-Movie THE GHOST OF GREVILLE LODGE (1999), starring Prunella Scales and George Cole; MUM’S LIST (2016) the critically-acclaimed true story weepie romance based on St John Greene’s best-selling memoir, starring Rafe Spall and Emilia Fox; and the Western-styled adventure story THE STOLEN (2017) set in New Zealand’s 1860s Gold Rush, starring Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Graham McTavish and Richard O’Brien.

Niall was a writer on the visually-striking animated drama-documentary feature ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE, based on the memoir by Ryszard Kapuscinski about the Angolan civil war of the mid-1970s. It received its World Premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was voted Best Animated Film at the European Film Awards.

His most recent work is the Family Fantasy Adventure movie LEGEND HAS IT, starring Rupert Everett, Tamsin Grieg and Emilia Fox and an array of up-and-coming British acting talent. Niall has also been lead director on the new comfy-crime British-Greek TV show THE SUNSHINE MURDERS for Paramount+, debuting on the UK’s Channel 5 in Summer 2025.

Born and raised in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, Niall’s passion for movies is a result of a childhood spent producing epic remakes of the likes of PLANET OF THE APES, STAR TREK, DOCTOR WHO and BATMAN with his brother and a silent Kodak 8mm film camera—the most notable recurring feature of these being his mother’s laundry hanging on the washing line in the back-yard!

Niall has been a Rocaberti mentor since 2019.