Paddington

Paul King's Paddington opened in 2014 and was nominated for the BAFTA for Best British Film. The film became one of the most internationally consequential British family-film productions of its decade (over $282 million worldwide gross) and consolidated King, after his earlier Bunny and the Bull and substantial television work on The Mighty Boosh, as one of the most distinctive contemporary British directors of his generation. Adapted from Michael Bond's beloved Paddington Bear children's book series.

A young bear from Darkest Peru arrives at a London train station with a battered suitcase, a sou'wester hat, and a label note from his Aunt Lucy asking someone to take care of him. The Brown family (Henry (Hugh Bonneville), Mary (Sally Hawkins), and their two children) adopt him on the platform and take him home to their townhouse in the Notting Hill area. The film follows Paddington's gradual integration into the Brown household and the broader London environment, while Nicole Kidman's villainous taxidermist Millicent Clyde develops a substantial professional interest in him.

Ben Whishaw provides Paddington's voice (soft-spoken, mild, gently inquisitive) in a register that has become permanently associated with the character. The film's structural commitment to Paddington's particular polite-and-well-meaning sensibility produced a register that few subsequent family-film franchises have managed. King's continuing engagement with the character would extend through Paddington 2 (2017) and the broader brand-licensing presence that has continued to expand internationally.