Alex Garland

In 1996, Garland's first novel, The Beach was published. Based upon Garland's travels across Europe and Thailand, it tells the story of a young English backpacker who discovers an unspoiled seashore occupied by a community of like-minded backpackers. The novel is noted for its references to drug culture, sequences of hallucinations and unique depictions of excess and utopia. The Beach was initially met with positive reviews, and with a spreading word of mouth response, the novel grew in popularity. Garland would later speak of the overwhelming discomfort with the fame The Beach had allowed him to achieve. "I never felt comfortable with it (the novel)."[6] The Beach has been translated into 25 different languages[8] and sold close to 700,000 copies by the start of 1999.[9] It was developed into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Garland's The Tesseract (1998) is a non-linear narrative with several interwoven characters, set in Manila, Philippines. The novel is characterized by a post-modernist narrative style and structure. It explores several themes such as love and violence through each character's circumstance and context of surroundings as well as seemingly inconsequential actions and the repercussions of those actions on other characters. The Tesseract did not enjoy the critical or commercial success of The Beach, but it too has a film adaptation.

Throughout his career and work, Garland has expressed his love of travel (particularly backpacking) and his love of Manila, Philippines, much of which influenced his work.[8]

In 2002, Garland wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy.[10] He has said that the script was influenced by 1970s zombie films and British science fiction like The Day of the Triffids.[11] Video games such as the Resident Evil series also served as an influence for 28 Days Later, with Garland crediting the first game for revitalizing the zombie genre.[12] Inspiration for the "Rage" virus came from real world infections such as Ebola and filoviruses.[11] He won a Best Screenplay honor at the 2004 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards for his script of the film.

In 2005, Garland wrote a script for a film adaptation of Halo. D. B. Weiss and Josh Olson rewrote this during 2006 for a 2008 release, though the film was later cancelled. In 2007, he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine—his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and to star Cillian Murphy. Garland served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later. He wrote the screenplay for the 2010 film Never Let Me Go, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. He also wrote the script for Dredd, an adaptation of the Judge Dredd comic book series from 2000 AD. In 2018, Karl Urban, who played the eponymous role in the film, stated that it was Garland who deserved credit for also directing Dredd.[13]

Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay. Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac. the film won a Jury Prize at the 2015 Gerardmer Film Festival and earned Garland a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Garland's second film, Annihilation (2018), was based on Jeff VanderMeer's 2014 science fiction novel of the same name. Garland has described it as "an adaptation which was a memory of the book," rather than book-referenced screenwriting, to capture the "dream like nature" and tone of his reading experience.[14][15][16] Production began in 2016,[17] and the film was released in February 2018.[18]

In January 2021, Garland was hired to direct his third film, Men, scheduled to star Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear. The film follows a young woman who goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband.[19]

Garland wrote, executive produced, and directed the eight-episode miniseries Devs, about the "mysterious ongoings at a tech company", for FX; the series was greenlit in August 2018, and premiered 5 March 2020 on FX on Hulu.[20] It stars Ex Machina and Annihilation actress Sonoya Mizuno, alongside Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Zach Grenier, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, and Alison Pill.[20] Spaeny, who did not audition for the role as Garland had wanted her specifically for it, stated that Devs was short for Development, and that the series would explore the idea of the multiverse.[21]

Garland and Tameem Antoniades co-wrote the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. They won a 2011 award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain. Garland also served as a story supervisor on the game DmC: Devil May Cry in 2013.