He has starred in feature films including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), Persuasion (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Road to Perdition (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Munich (2005), Amazing Grace (2007), There Will Be Blood (2007), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Silence (2016), First Man (2018) and Belfast (2021), the last of which earned him Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

His television roles include Julius Caesar in the series Rome, DCI James Langton in Above Suspicion, Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones, and Captain Sir John Franklin in The Terror.

[5][6][7] Raised as a Catholic[8] in north Belfast, he was one of five children and the only son of his doctor father, Gerry, and schoolteacher and amateur actress mother, Moya.

He appeared in the title role of the RSC's production of Richard III in 1993, directed by Sam Mendes, who turned to Hinds as a last minute replacement for an injured Simon Russell Beale.

Hinds gained his most popular recognition as a stage actor for his performance as Larry in the London and Broadway productions of Patrick Marber's Tony Award-nominated play Closer.

In February 2009 he took the leading role of General Sergei Kotov in Burnt by the Sun by Peter Flannery at London's National Theatre.

[17] Hinds returned to the stage later in 2009 with a role in Conor McPherson's play The Birds, which opened at Dublin's Gate Theatre in September 2009.

He played Captain Frederick Wentworth in Jane Austen's Persuasion in 1995, Dr Jonathan Reiss in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and John Traynor in Veronica Guerin, both in 2003, and Firmin in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera in 2004.

[18] In the 2006 film Amazing Grace, Hinds portrayed Sir Banastre Tarleton, one of the chief opponents of abolition of the slave trade in Parliament.

He starred in Margot at the Wedding, alongside Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh, in a comedy-drama about family secrets and relationships.

Additional television performances include Edward Parker-Jones in the crime drama series Prime Suspect 3 (1993), Abel Mason in Dame Catherine Cookson's The Man Who Cried (1993), Jim Browner in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes episode "The Cardboard Box" (1994), Fyodor Glazunov in the science fiction miniseries Cold Lazarus (1996), Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1997), the Knight Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1997) and a portrayal of the French existentialist Albert Camus in Broken Morning (2003).

Hinds starred opposite Kelly Reilly in Above Suspicion, a TV adaptation of Lynda La Plante's detective story, which was broadcast in the United Kingdom in January 2009; he returned for the sequels The Red Dahlia (2010), Deadly Intent (2011) and Silent Scream (2012).

[20][non-primary source needed] On Broadway at The Richard Rodgers Theater in New York, he was Big Daddy to Scarlett Johansson in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which began previews on 18 December 2012 and opened on 17 January 2013.

[21][22][23] In the summer of 2013, he performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London in the premiere production of The Night Alive, a play by Conor McPherson, which transferred in November 2013, with Hinds in the lead role, to the Atlantic Theater Company in New York.

He appeared the following year as Deputy Governor Danforth in the Broadway production of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible alongside Saoirse Ronan and Ben Whishaw.