Daniel Kaluuya

Hobie Brown’s outline never quite holds still. In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Kaluuya voices a punk Spider-Man whose London looks pieced together from a torn fanzine. We enjoyed Hobie’s restlessness because it offered relief from the film’s lengthy explanations of its rules. The animation deserves credit for that pleasure: he moves to a different rhythm from the people around him. We would not attribute every effect to the voice, but the part is a welcome change from the tightly contained performances for which Kaluuya is known.

Skins (2007) gave him room for comedy as Posh Kenneth, and he also wrote for the programme. We like its abrasive humour and its sympathy for teenagers, even when the plotting becomes predictable. Those pleasures are collective achievements; Kaluuya’s writing credit is worth remembering, but it does not make every good line his. In Sicario (2015), he plays Reggie Wayne in Denis Villeneuve’s unnerving thriller. It is Emily Blunt’s film, but Kaluuya’s supporting role marks a step towards the Hollywood leads that followed.

Get Out (2017) was the breakthrough, with his Chris Washington giving the tension someone to whom we could attach our concern. Small physical reactions and a watchful gaze are his strongest tools, and they are enough to make a leading performance absorbing. His forceful delivery as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) is a useful warning against calling him simply a quiet actor. Jordan Peele’s Nope (2022) also shows the drawback: as OJ Haywood, he can be so withdrawn that we struggle to get close. We need some sense of what he is holding back.

With The Kitchen (2023), he moved into co-writing and co-directing, the latter alongside Kibwe Tavares. Its visual strengths are more secure than its storytelling, so directing remains a less convincing reason to seek him out. Start with Get Out for the acting, then leave room for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as a reminder that the man can be funny.