People
Riz Ahmed
Acting · follow into films and chains
Biography
Rizwan Ahmed (born 1 December 1982) is a British actor and rapper. He has received several awards, including an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. In 2017, he was named by Time as one of the most influential people in the world. He also created the TV series Englistan in 2018 for the BBC, which was also his writing debut. After studying acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Ahmed began his acting career with independent films such as The Road to Guantanamo (2006), Shifty (2008), Four Lions (2010), Trishna (2011), and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). He had his break-out role in Nightcrawler (2014), which led to roles in the 2016 big-budget films Jason Bourne and Rogue One. For starring as a young man accused of murder in the HBO miniseries The Night Of (2016), Ahmed won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. He received another Emmy nomination in the same year for his guest role in Girls. He went on to play Carlton Drake in the superhero film Venom (2018) and a drummer who loses his hearing in the drama film Sound of Metal (2019). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He produced, co-wrote, and starred in Mogul Mowgli (2020), which earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film. As a rapper, Ahmed is a member of the Swet Shop Boys, and has earned critical acclaim with the hip-hop albums Microscope and Cashmere, and commercial success featuring in the Billboard 200 chart-topping Hamilton Mixtape, with his song "Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)" winning an MTV Video Music Award. His second studio album, The Long Goodbye, was accompanied by a short film of the same name, which won him the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Riz Ahmed, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Notable films
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Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.
Chains
KinoChain journeys
Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.
Open Doors: Cinema That Sees Everyone
From a deaf drummer to a queer romance in space, these eight films expand who gets to be a hero, a lover, a survivor. A journey through inclusive storytelling t...
8 films
Anarchy in the UK
From Ealing's sly subversions to Python's surreal dismantling of authority, a journey through the films that taught Britain to laugh at itself.
7 films
The Camera as Weapon
From Chris Hansen's sting operations to the blood sport of nightly news, this chain traces the moral rot at the heart of spectacle.
8 films
Ghosts in the Machine
From a stuntman's final role to a star's digital encore, these eight films trace cinema's long affair with performing from beyond the grave.
8 films
The Last Picture Shows
In an age of digital gloss, a new generation of filmmakers has returned to celluloid for its warmth, grain, and honesty. This chain follows the medium's resurge...
8 films
The Art of Listening
From the whisper of a surveillance tape to the roar of a wartime beach, these eight films prove that sound is not just heard, it is felt. A chain of masterpiece...
7 films
Topics
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Related people
Collaborators & neighbours
Acted
Digger
2026 · Ganesh
Bait
2026 · Shah Latif
Sound of Metal
2020 · Ruben Stone
The Sisters Brothers
2018 · Hermann Kermit Warm
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2016 · Bodhi Rook
Jason Bourne
2016 · Aaron Kalloor
The Night Of
2016 · Nasir 'Naz' Khan
Nightcrawler
2014 · Rick
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
2013 · Changez
Four Lions
2010 · Omar
Dead Set
2008 · Riq Rahman
Wired
2008 · Manesh Kunzru