# What is the best Kenneth Branagh acting performance?

> Shakespeare's champion, a beloved Harry Potter villain, and Agatha Christie's most famous detective — Branagh has played them all with theatrical bravura and magnetic craft. Which performance is his masterpiece?

*By YPB Team · Published April 11, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-kenneth-branagh-acting-performance*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Henry V (Henry V)**
   The young warrior king inspiring his men before the Battle of Agincourt in Branagh's stunning directorial debut Henry V (1989).
2. **Hamlet (Hamlet)**
   The tormented Danish prince in Branagh's acclaimed full-text four-hour Hamlet (1996).
3. **Iago (Othello)**
   The scheming, malevolent villain manipulating Othello's downfall in Oliver Parker's Othello (1995).
4. **Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing)**
   The witty, love-resistant soldier sparring with Beatrice in Branagh's sunny Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
5. **Victor Frankenstein (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein)**
   The obsessed scientist who creates and rejects his monstrous creation in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994).
6. **Gilderoy Lockhart (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)**
   The vain, incompetent celebrity wizard and Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).
7. **Hercule Poirot (Murder on the Orient Express)**
   The meticulous Belgian detective solving a murder aboard a snowbound train in Murder on the Orient Express (2017).
8. **Commander Bolton (Dunkirk)**
   The stoic Royal Navy commander overseeing the desperate Dunkirk evacuation in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017).
9. **Laurence Olivier (My Week with Marilyn)**
   The legendary British actor struggling to direct and tolerate Marilyn Monroe on set in My Week with Marilyn (2011).
10. **Viktor Cherevin (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit)**
   A coldly menacing Russian intelligence agent plotting a financial attack on the U.S. in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014).
11. **Roman Strauss / Mike Church (Dead Again)**
   A dual role as both a 1940s composer and a modern amnesiac connected by a mysterious past in Dead Again (1991).
12. **Kurt Wallander (Wallander)**
   The brooding, morally exhausted Swedish detective in the acclaimed BBC crime series Wallander (2008–2016).
13. **Reinhard Heydrich (Conspiracy)**
   The chilling Nazi architect chairing the Wannsee Conference in the HBO/BBC film Conspiracy (2001).

Tags: movies, actors, classics, performances, british, kenneth branagh