Talk about prolific. In the past two years alone, Stephen Graham has lit up our TVs in so many high-quality dramas that when you see his name in a title sequence, you know you are in for a treat. With his soulful eyes, complete sincerity and unshowy commitment, the man from Merseyside brings rare depth to each role he tackles.
He isn’t just one of our best and most versatile actors, though. From the much-loved gangster series Peaky Blinders to the Emmy-winning care home drama Help, Graham also has near-impeccable taste in projects. His selection process is guided by his wife (and frequent co-star), Hannah Walters, who helps Graham, who has dyslexia, sift through scripts. Sure, he has a thriving film career – from Snatch to Scorsese via the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise – but it’s on the small screen that Graham shines brightest.
His latest is the new Netflix crime thriller Bodies, which follows four detectives investigating the same murder across four time periods. This high-concept head-scratcher promises to be one of autumn’s most talked-about shows. To mark its release – and celebrate Graham’s 50th birthday – we have ranked his 20 biggest TV roles from worst to best. Although, let’s face it, even his worst is still pretty darn good.
20. DCI Thomas ‘Taff’ Jones – White House Farm (2020)
Graham has nailed an array of accents across his career, but attracted rare criticism for his wandering Welsh tones in this retelling of Jeremy Bamber’s murders. Twitter wags detected tinges of Russian, German and Jamaican, one calling it “the worst screen accent since Dick Van Dyke”.
19. Ch Insp Heat – The Secret Agent (2016)
The critic Roger Ebert called Joseph Conrad’s murky espionage thriller “his least filmable novel”. Small wonder this adaptation made little impression. Graham was solid as an 1880s London detective, but is mainly memorable for his bowler hat and luxuriant sideburns.
18. Hayden Stagg – Peaky Blinders (2022)
“I hear there’s some men here from Birmingham looking for me.” As is often the case, Graham made a big impact in a small role. The Liverpool dockyard union convener Hayden Stagg appeared in only two episodes of the swaggering gangster saga’s final series, but fans went wild as he fearlessly faced down the enforcer Arthur Shelby, then kingpin Tommy himself.
17. DI Roy Carver – Code 404 (2020-22)
A rare foray into comedy found Graham as the longsuffering sidekick to Daniel Mays’ Met officer, who was shot dead on duty – only to be brought back from the grave by AI-meets-RoboCop tech. Knockabout fun that has been axed because its stars are too busy.
16. Elias Mannix – Bodies (2023)
In the Netflix whodunnit based on Si Spencer’s brain-bending graphic novel, Graham adds gravitas as the enigmatic political leader Elias Mannix, AKA Julian Harker. No spoilers, but the show’s writer, Paul Tomalin, describes him as the “beating heart” of the series.
15. Sgt Myron ‘Mike’ Ranney – Band of Brothers (2001)
Baby-faced Graham popped up in Steven Spielberg’s war epic as a plucky NCO who led the doomed Easy Company mutiny in support of Damian Lewis’s Lieutenant Winter and later won a medal for valour in the D-day landings. A role also notable for Graham befriending his castmate Philip Barantini, who went on to direct him in Boiling Point.
14. Captain Brownlee – The North Water (2021)
Graham was fur-clad and pipe-puffing as the corrupt skipper of an 1850s whaling ship on its doomed expedition to the Arctic Circle. In this brooding, blood-drenched thriller, Captain Brownlee was caught in the crossfire as the disgraced ship’s surgeon, Jack O’Connell, and harpooner, Colin Farrell, played a deadly game of cat-and-mouse on the ice floes. Brrr.
13. Matthew Collins – The Walk-In (2022)
Like Combo from This Is England (see below) in a parallel universe. This timely true-crime drama saw Graham convincingly portray the impassioned activist Matthew Collins, a reformed neo-Nazi working for the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate. With the aid of an inside man (played by fellow TIE alumnus Andrew Ellis), he helped foil a far-right terrorist plot to kill the Labour MP Rosie Cooper.
12. Vincent Macmaster – Parade’s End (2012)
The underrated Ford Madox Ford adaptation was headlined by Benedict Cumberbatch’s toff, but Graham shone as his working-class pal from Cambridge – a civil servant and budding writer who threw himself into London’s literary scene (and an affair with Anne-Marie Duff).
11. Atticus – Taboo (2017)
The chameleonic Graham was barely recognisable in this moody period melodrama. The eccentric former sailor Atticus was bald, bearded and covered in tattoos, notably a large compass design on the top of his skull. He was the leader of a dockyard gang, the underworld informant to Tom Hardy’s vengeful adventurer and a scene-stealer.
10. DS John Corbett – Line of Duty (2019)
Balaclava man was unmasked. The fifth series of Jed Mercurio’s bent-copper saga guest-starred Graham as its primary antagonist. Corbett was sent undercover to infiltrate the organised crime group. Had he gone too deep and defected to the other side? Cue shady motives, shock twists and electrifying showdowns with AC-12’s DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston). Graham skilfully kept us guessing.
9. Tony – Accused (2012)
He graced only one episode of Jimmy McGovern’s anthology drama, but it earned Graham his first Bafta nod. In Tracie’s Story, he played a closeted married man whose affair with a transvestite (Sean Bean) has tragic consequences. Graham and Bean would later recreate their crackling chemistry in McGovern’s Time.
8. Andy Jones – Boiling Point (2019-23)
Graham first played the frazzled chef in a 2019 short film, directed by his friend Philip Barantini. Two years later, they expanded it into an audacious one-shot feature, with Andy struggling to keep control of his chaotic restaurant kitchen and eventually collapsing. When we returned this month for the sequel, a BBC series, the sous chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) was in charge, while Andy was recovering at home and plotting his comeback. Nerves jangled? Yes, chef.
7. Al Capone – Boardwalk Empire (2010-14)
Having impressed Martin Scorsese in Gangs of New York, Graham was cast as the youthful Alphonse Capone in HBO’s prohibition-era crime epic. His portrayal of the combustible Chicago mobster had satisfying depth, notably in Capone’s poignant relationship with his deaf son.
6. Fabio ‘Melon’ Melonzola – Save Me (2018-20)
Graham’s old Snatch mucker Lennie James wrote and starred in this Sky gem. A womanising south-east London barfly, Nelly, vowed to track down his missing daughter by any means necessary. Graham led a superlative supporting cast as Nelly’s best mate Melon, a convicted sex offender who initially falls under suspicion, before using his dark web expertise to trace traffickers. An empathic portrayal of a flawed man trying to move on from his chequered past.
5. Tony – Help (2021)
Jack Thorne channelled his righteous rage at the government’s treatment of care homes during the Covid pandemic into this devastating one-off drama. Graham was gut-wrenching as a patient with early-onset Alzheimer’s, lovingly looked after by a healthcare assistant, Sarah (played by Jodie Comer, who credits Graham for helping kickstart her career). The night shift from hell, shot in a single 26-minute take, was its raw but superbly rendered centrepiece.
4. Det Supt Dave Kelly – Little Boy Blue (2017)
Set in Graham’s home city, Liverpool, this well-judged miniseries tackled a tough subject: the 2007 murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, who was shot dead on his way home from football practice. Graham was sensitive yet authoritative as the detective who tracked down the teenage perpetrator and his accomplices. Many of the most powerful scenes came when he dealt with Rhys’s grief-stricken parents (Brían F O’Byrne and Sinéad Keenan).
3. Eric McNally – Time (2021)
Graham and Sean Bean were Bafta-nominated for their heavyweight turns in Jimmy McGovern’s hard-hitting prison drama – about to return for a second series, this time set in a women’s facility. Graham played an overworked, underpaid but dedicated prison officer, coerced into corruption to protect his recently incarcerated son. As a principled man forced into an impossible choice, he was astonishing.
2. Andrew ‘Combo’ Gascoigne – This Is England (2006-15)
Graham has admitted that playing the racist skinhead Combo in Shane Meadows’s film drove him to the brink. He “lost himself” in the violent character, turned to alcohol and almost quit acting. Yet he returned to his breakout role for the TV sequel trilogy, which followed Combo’s imprisonment, redemption and ultimate demise. It was a nuanced performance, by turns terrifying and tender, that earned him his second Bafta nomination.
1. Joseph – The Virtues (2019)
Shane Meadows chose his muse, Graham, as his alter ego in this semi-autobiographical four-parter. Graham quietly simmered as the recovering alcoholic Joseph, who travels to his native Ireland to track down his estranged sister and confront his painful past. The pub meltdown sequence was viscerally self-destructive. He remained hypnotic and heartbreakingly human all the way to the story’s cathartic conclusion. The virtuoso, semi-improvised performance was a career peak – and his most emotionally potent.
Bodies is on Netflix. Boiling Point’s finale airs on BBC One on 22 October at 9pm and is available now on BBC iPlayer
