James Bobin
James Bobin is a director, born 1972.
Before the Muppets, James Bobin's job was building comic monsters. Born in Hampshire in 1972, he wrote and directed on Da Ali G Show and had a hand in creating Ali G, Borat and Bruno, characters engineered to make real people incriminate themselves on camera. With Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement he then co-created Flight of the Conchords in 2007, a series whose entire comic engine is two men being politely ignored by New York.
Both of those are built on deadpan awkwardness held a beat too long, which is a strange apprenticeship for a Disney musical and yet exactly what made The Muppets work in 2011. Bobin let the jokes land quietly, gave the songs room to be songs, and treated the characters as performers with careers rather than as objects of nostalgia. Muppets Most Wanted followed in 2014 with more plot and a good deal less feeling.
Then came the studio assignments, and they sort into a clear order. Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2016 is the most anonymous thing on his record, a sequel with no space in it for his timing. Dora and the Lost City of Gold in 2019 is the genuine surprise: a live-action film grown from a preschool cartoon that works because it takes its own joke seriously and plays its heroine completely straight. He turns up as himself in the documentary Be Natural and in a 2024 making-of about Percy Jackson.
Movies (6)
TV (1)
Where to start with James Bobin
The Muppets first, and not for nostalgia. It is the most complete film he has directed, a story about whether anybody still wants these characters, answered by giving them proper songs and real stakes. Muppets Most Wanted trades that warmth for a heist plot, and it is funnier line by line while being much less moving.
Television is where his voice comes through clearest. Flight of the Conchords is patient, small and better written than either feature, and if you know him only from studio work it reframes everything. Save Dora and the Lost City of Gold for an evening when you expect nothing from it, because it is a genuinely well-made adventure comedy. Alice Through the Looking Glass is the one to skip unless you are completing the set.