When Paul Greengrass took over the Bourne franchise, with Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, he did much more than repeat a well-worked formula. He re-invented the action genre, with the grittier-style popularised through the use of cinéma vérité. "To be perfectly honest, I couldn't afford tripods," he said. The journalist in him (he started as a director for World in Action) repeatedly draws him to political subjects – the Falklands (Resurrected), the Irish civil rights movement (Bloody Sunday), 9/11 (United 93) and now Captain Phillips, a taut thriller based on a Somali pirate attack on a US container ship. He handles these subjects without being sentimental or exploitative, delivering consistently compelling thrillers on difficult subjects. Like Christopher Nolan, another successful British film-maker, Greengrass produces a fast-paced film for a mainstream audience, without compromising the intelligence of the script.

• This article was amended on 11 October 2013. The earlier version referred to "a taught thriller".