Paul Greengrass

Director of United 93, Green Zone and the man who took the Bourne franchise to extraordinary heights. Mark Kermode would like it to be known that he spotted Greengrass first, being the "only one critic who got sensibly quoted on the poster" for Greengrass' debut feature Resurrected starring David Thewlis. (Mark added for emphasis, "I just want to be clear about that - Paul Greengrass owes his entire career to me").

When Hardeep Singh Kohli declared that he thought Greengrass was probably the best director working, Mark phoned in from his holiday to say that Kohli was not allowed to have that opinion, because Mark had had it first.

The fourth Bourne film (actually the fifth, but see the Bourne rule) only exists because of Greengrass' declaration on Wittertainment that: "I have a rule in my house that I will make a new Bourne film when Tottenham finish in the top four."