Film · Animation & documentary
born 1958 · British
Aardman Animations; British stop-motion
Nick Park is the Preston-born animator who created Wallace and Gromit while a student and has won four Academy Awards for stop-motion made in Bristol at Aardman Animations. His work is built on plasticine models with visible thumbprints, a Lancashire inventor obsessed with cheese, a silent dog who conveys everything with his brow, and jokes buried in the background of the set. He is the most Oscar-decorated British animator in history.
Real interviews with people in Bristol about their housing put into the mouths of zoo animals, including a Brazilian jaguar complaining about the lack of space (1989)
Creature Comforts — won his first Academy Award, and became a series of electricity adverts.
An inventor and his dog build a rocket and fly to the moon for cheese, where a coin-operated stove wants to go skiing (1989)
A Grand Day Out — begun as his National Film and Television School graduation film and six years in the making.
A sinister lodging penguin disguises himself as a chicken and uses robotic legs to steal a diamond, ending in a model railway chase (1993)
The Wrong Trousers — won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short; the villain is Feathers McGraw.
A window-cleaning round, a wool shop, a love affair with the owner, and a sheep-rustling dog in a bowler hat (1995)
A Close Shave — a third Oscar, and the debut of Shaun the Sheep.
Hens in a Yorkshire chicken farm drill for an escape as their owner buys a pie-making machine, and a cockerel from Rhode Island claims he can fly (2000)
Chicken Run — co-directed with Peter Lord; the highest-grossing stop-motion film ever made.
A humane pest-control business, a giant vegetable competition, and a huge lop-eared beast that devours the marrows by moonlight (2005)
Curse of the Were-Rabbit — won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
A tribe of Stone Age people must beat a Bronze Age city at football to win back their valley (2018)
Early Man — his first solo feature since 2005.
A 'smart gnome' invention turns against its inventor when an old penguin adversary, in prison since a diamond theft, hacks it (2024)
Vengeance Most Fowl — co-directed with Merlin Crossingham; Oscar-nominated for Best Animated Feature.