Brendan Foley is an award-winning Northern Irish Writer-Creator and Exec Producer, with international experience in 77 countries in TV drama, feature films, bestselling books and journalism. He specialises in international TV drama series co-productions.
His most recent series as writer-creator-EP include 2025 breakout hit series Sherlock & Daughter, starring David Thewlis, Dougray Scott and Blu Hunt. It became number one drama series on The CW, reaching top five of all shows on HBO Max US, and performing well on SBS Australia, across Scandinavia and worldwide.
Other recent work includes two full seasons of hit drama series The Man Who Died described as “a Finnish Fargo” for Nordic streamer Elisa – their most popular show of the year, also screened by AMC/Acorn USA and SBS Australia.
Recent development on two new series has been for Channel Five and Britbox
Before that Brendan wrote female-led Nordic Noir series Cold Courage for AMC, Lionsgate and Viaplay. Previous development work for Sony, BBC, ZDFS and CBC. In 2023, Brendan’s eco thriller series in development Tipping Point, was chosen as the Berlin CoPro Series showcase pitch of the year as the winner of the Series Mania Award in competition. Variety reported: “Always a frontrunner at Co-Pro Series, the Berlinale Series Market’s annual event, Tipping Point walked off with the Series Mania Award. It is written by Northern Ireland’s Brendan Foley, behind Elisa-Viaplay smash hit “The Man Who Died” and “Cold Courage”, for Lionsgate, Viaplay, Britbox and AMC+”
Brendan’s previous indie feature films as writer, producer and director for Sony, Nordisk and Lionsgate include multi-festival winner action-drama Johnny Was with Vinnie Jones, and supernatural drama The Riddle with Derek Jacobi and Vanessa Redgrave (2.7m copies).
His books include Amazon UK Top Ten bestseller All Books, Under the Wire for Random House, about Bill Ash, one of the greatest POW escapees of WWII. Other books include The Ghost Walk and Archerfield, which covers stories from 20,000 years in one square mile of Scotland
Brendan was formerly a freelance international business features journalist, covering commerce, conflict and the environment on five continents, winning awards from the UK Press Gazette and PR Week for stories ranging from bomb disposal in Angola to oil spills in Alaska.
He is a longstanding juror for the International Emmy Awards in Europe and Asia, and guest speaker at UCLA, MIPTV, EFM Berlin, Content London, Series Mania, Monte Carlo TV Fest, The Owl (Athens), MIPCOM and Cannes Series, discussing writing, co-production and marketing for TV and Film in an ever-changing international market. He lives and works between London, LA, Ireland and beyond.
