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Niall's movie career spans 30 years. He came to Hollywood’s notice in 2003 with his spec supernatural script WHITE NOISE, produced by Gold Circle Films and Universal Pictrures, starring Michael Keaton and Debra Kara Unger, and directed by Geoff Sax. It opened in January 2005 at #1 in the UK and #2 in the US, where it broke the record at the time for the biggest January opening for a non-sequel. It reached the $100m mark on worldwide theatrical, and has enjoyed  an equally ripe career on DVD and TV.

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Two years later, in 2005, Niall wrote and directed black comedy KEEPING MUM, starring Rowan Atkinson, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Patrick Swayze, for producers Julia Palau and Summit Entertainment. He adapted the script from an original by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo (Nobody’s Fool, Empire Falls). The film’s 2006 worldwide release was commercially and critically successful: “a sophisticated gem” (Hollywood Reporter), “British comedy at its very best” (Daily Mirror), “exceedingly well-played and neatly crafted” (Variety), “simply delightful” (New York Post), “I adored it” (Rex Reed, New York Observer), “wickedly wonderful entertainment” (The Sun), “one of the best British film comedies in recent years” (The Times, UK).

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In the late 2000s, while developing his own projects, Niall wrote for a range of producers and companies in LA, London and Europe, including Nick Weschler, Hal Lieberman, Mark Johnson, Craig Perry and Sheila Hanahan Taylor, Warren Zide, Xavier Marchand, Robert Jones, Marc Samuelson, Ecosse Films, Material Entertainment, Pathe, Disney, Elstree Studios Films, Industry Entertainment, Universal, Paramount, Gold Circle, De Angelis Group—projects ranging from a new adaptation of TREASURE ISLAND…haunted dollhouse supernatural thriller THE DOLLHOUSE MURDERS…true story CHINA BLACK CHAMBER, about an American code breaker in China in WW2…THE STAND-IN, a psychological thriller based on the novel by best-selling author Deborah Moggach…and CALLAS, a biopic of Maria Callas…among many others.

 

November 2016 saw the release of MUM’S LIST, a true story weepie romance based on St John Greene’s best-selling memoir, starring Rafe Spall and Emilia Fox, Elaine Cassidy and Sophie Simnett. After a theatrical run in the UK its release on DVD/VOD in March 2017 saw it reach #1 on the Amazon DVD/Blu-Ray bestsellers chart within a single day. “Heartfelt and utterly committed performances” (The Guardian), “Powerful and beautifully acted” (Mail on Sunday) “A huge emotional rollercoaster, carefully and painstakingly handled” (Vue Magazine), “A triumph” (HeyUGuys), “Heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting”(Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5), “A wonderful film” (TalkSport Radio) “Probably the most touching thing I have seen in a while” (BBC Radio 3), “Beautifully well-crafted, staggeringly moving, a truly great thing.” (Flickreel) “Deeply moving  and altogether outstanding. One of the most memorable of 2016.”  (The Hollywood News). It has screened as Official Selection at the Dinard Festival of British Film, at Shanghai, at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis, USA (where it won the Audience Award), and at the Festival of British Film at D’Ajaccio in Corsica, (where it  won the main festival prize, the Prize Coup de Couer: the ‘Love At First Sight’ prize.  In the UK it has found its TV home with the BBC. In the US, it released in April 2019, re-titled as ACRES & ACRES.

    

A year later, November 2017, marked the UK release of Niall’s Western-styled adventure story THE STOLEN aka THE LADY GUNFIGHTER: set in New Zealand’s 1860s Gold Rush. Co-written by Niall with its producer Emily Corcoran, it starred Alice Eve, Jack Davenport, Graham McTavish and Richard O’Brien. It was released in the US by Universal, and has just finished a successful 16-week theatrical run in New Zealand. “A heart-wrenching and thrilling adventure. Johnson has brought the characters to the screen with style” (Blazing Minds), “A hard-hitting frontier Western, engaging and refreshing (Time Out London), “A visual and audial treat” (The Upcoming), “Johnson  has a strong grasp on the visuals and the characters” (Vulture Hound), “Thrilling adventure, utterly heart-rending. Pick of the week” (Hello Magazine). 

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A year after that, 2018, saw the release of a movie Niall had been writing, on-and-off, for the five years prior: the award-winning, innovative, visually-striking and critically-hailed animated drama-documentary hybrid ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE, produced by Kanaki Films (Spain) and Platige Films (Poland). Based on the memoir by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, about his time covering the Angolan civil war of the mid-1970s. Winner of the Best Animated Film at both the 2018 European Film Awards and the 2019 Goya Awards, it received its World Premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival as Official Selection Out of Competition, and won Audience Award at a wide range of festivals including San Sebastian. “A visually striking piece of rare immediacy and power…fast-moving and urgent…visually spectacular” (Hollywood Reporter).   “One of Europe’s most awaited animation films” (Variety). “Exhilarating…breath-taking” (Cineuropa). “You will not be the same person after watching this film” (Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Film Festival director). “Matches documentary authenticity with dramatic intensity…commands your attention” (Screen Daily). 

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in 2023, Niall co-wrote the hit horror thriller DARKGAME (starring Ed Westwick, produced by Tom George, and directed by Howard J Ford) which reached #2 in the Netflix UK charts on its release in December 2024, and remained in the top 10 for a month. 

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At the end of 2024, Niall completed a stint as lead director (six out of ten episodes) on a new Paramount+ “cozy crime” TV show THE SUNSHINE MURDERS, written and produced by Emily Corcoran. It airs in the US on UPTV in July 2025, in the UK on Channel Five in September 2025 (before moving to Paramount+UK), and the rest of world shortly after. 

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His latest movie as director is family fantasy adventure LEGEND HAS IT, featuring British stalwarts Rupert Everett, Tamsin Greig and Emilia Fox among a cast of emerging new talent, including Harry Gilby, Robyn Cara, Georgina Sadler, Imani Yahshua and Huw Novelli. It premiered at the 25th Beverly Hills Film Festival, where it won the Best Producer Award—followed swiftly by Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film at the London Independent Film Festival and a Remi Award for Best Action Adventure at the WorldFest Houston. Other festivals have included the London Screenings and the San Antonio Film Festival in Texas.  “Wake up and face the fantastic in Niall Johnson’s fabulous, epic, old-school escapist romp.” (whatmovie.co.uk)

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Niall began writing and directing movies in the UK at the end of the 1980s, after graduating with First Degree Honours in Drama from Bristol University. He started with a run of low budget features, including vampire romance DAWN (1991), and wife-swapping comedy drama THE BIG SWAP (theatrically released in Europe, 1998). Telling the tale of five couples who partner-swap and then pay the price, THE BIG SWAP won the Gold Award at the 1998 Flagstaff Film Festival in Arizona, and was selected as Critic’s Choice at the 1999 Rotterdam Film Festival. It was called “unmissable” (Daily Star), “one of the year’s gems” (Cosmopolitan), and “a tour de force” (Seattle Weekly). In the UK, 1999 it secured a place in the year’s top 30 Video Rental releases. Niall followed that with traditional haunted house tale THE GHOST OF GREVILLE LODGE (1999, starring Prunella Scales and George Cole), which has become a Halloween/Christmas season favorite on TV channels around the world, and was called “a real golden film in an era that has lost its shine” (IMDB).

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Born and raised in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, England, 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 older brother, a friend, 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! 

 

 

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