The best of Irish

by deckyno9 | created - 06 Jun 2011 | updated - 15 Feb 2012 | Public

A collection of Irish films that I have picked as 'must see'. The list is made up of films based in and/or made in Ireland.

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1. Hunger (2008)

Not Rated | 96 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

82 Metascore

Irish republican Bobby Sands leads the inmates of a Northern Irish prison in a hunger strike.

Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, Laine Megaw

Votes: 73,519 | Gross: $0.15M

2. The Van (1996)

R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama

Set in the fictional Dublin suburb of Barrytown, Bimbo is a baker who loses his job after being made redundant. Bimbo then acquires the help of his best friend, Larry, to set up a successful burger van.

Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Colm Meaney, Donal O'Kelly, Ger Ryan, Caroline Rothwell

Votes: 4,844 | Gross: $0.62M

3. In the Name of the Father (1993)

R | 133 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

84 Metascore

An Irish man's coerced confession to an I.R.A. bombing he did not commit results in the imprisonment of his father as well. Meanwhile, a British lawyer fights to clear their names and free them.

Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite, Alison Crosbie, Philip King

Votes: 186,940 | Gross: $25.01M

4. Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)

R | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

57 Metascore

Martin McGartland joins the I.R.A. and feeds information to Britain's Special Branch Agent Fergus.

Director: Kari Skogland | Stars: Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Zegers, Natalie Press

Votes: 11,606

5. Michael Collins (1996)

R | 133 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller

59 Metascore

Neil Jordan's historical biopic of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, the man who led a guerrilla war against the UK, helped negotiate the creation of the Irish Free State, and led the National Army during the Irish Civil War.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn, Julia Roberts, Ian Hart

Votes: 33,731 | Gross: $11.09M

6. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)

Not Rated | 127 min | Drama, War

82 Metascore

Against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, two brothers fight a guerrilla war against British forces.

Director: Ken Loach | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Orla Fitzgerald

Votes: 54,554 | Gross: $1.83M

7. Screen Two (1985–1998)
Episode: The Snapper (1993)

R | 91 min | Drama

83 Metascore

20 year old Irish girl Sharon Curly lives at home with her large family. But notoriety in her neighbourhood suddenly arrives when, after a night out on the town, she becomes pregnant and refuses to divulge the identity of the baby's father.

Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Colm Meaney, Tina Kellegher, Ruth McCabe, Eanna MacLiam

Votes: 6,125 | Gross: $3.32M

8. The Commitments (1991)

R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Music

73 Metascore

Jimmy Rabbitte, an unemployed Dublin boy, decides to put together a soul band made up entirely of the Irish working class.

Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy

Votes: 38,736 | Gross: $14.92M

9. Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)

R | 89 min | Drama, Thriller

62 Metascore

The story of former UVF member Alistair Little. Twenty-five years after Little killed Joe Griffen's brother, the media arrange an auspicious meeting between the two.

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Liam Neeson, James Nesbitt, Anamaria Marinca, Mark Ryder

Votes: 13,249 | Gross: $0.01M

10. Intermission (2003)

R | 105 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

64 Metascore

A variety of losers in Dublin have harrowingly farcical intersecting stories of love, greed and violence.

Director: John Crowley | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald, Colin Farrell, Shirley Henderson

Votes: 16,580 | Gross: $0.90M

11. Bloody Sunday (2002)

R | 111 min | Drama, History, War

90 Metascore

A dramatization of the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.

Director: Paul Greengrass | Stars: James Nesbitt, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Allan Gildea

Votes: 25,737 | Gross: $0.77M

12. Man About Dog (2004)

85 min | Comedy

Three losers leave town owing $50k to a bookie. They go on a journey involving drinking, gambling on greyhounds, and hiring prostitutes, leading them into further debt and misadventures.

Director: Paddy Breathnach | Stars: Allen Leech, Tom Murphy, Ciaran Nolan, Sean McGinley

Votes: 1,094

13. Waking Ned Devine (1998)

PG | 91 min | Comedy

71 Metascore

When a lottery winner dies of shock, his fellow townsfolk attempt to claim the money.

Director: Kirk Jones | Stars: Ian Bannen, David Kelly, Fionnula Flanagan, Susan Lynch

Votes: 28,025 | Gross: $24.79M

14. My Left Foot (1989)

R | 103 min | Biography, Drama

97 Metascore

Christy Brown, born with cerebral palsy, learns to paint and write with his only controllable limb - his left foot.

Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Alison Whelan, Kirsten Sheridan

Votes: 79,705 | Gross: $14.74M

15. The Field (1990)

PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Thriller

When a field (which has been farmed by the McCabe family for generations) goes up for auction, the patriarch of the McCabe family will stop at nothing to prevent a rich American from buying it.

Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Frances Tomelty

Votes: 6,761 | Gross: $1.41M

16. An Everlasting Piece (2000)

R | 103 min | Comedy

56 Metascore

Colm is a Catholic, and George is a poetry-loving Protestant. In Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1980s, they could have been enemies, but instead, they became business partners. After ... See full summary »

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Barry McEvoy, Brían F. O'Byrne, Anna Friel, Pauline McLynn

Votes: 1,742 | Gross: $0.08M

17. The Boxer (1997)

R | 113 min | Drama, Romance, Sport

75 Metascore

Young Danny Flynn is released from prison 14 years after "taking the rap" for the IRA and tries to rebuild his life in his old Belfast neighborhood.

Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Daragh Donnelly, Frank Coughlan

Votes: 22,291 | Gross: $5.80M

18. Omagh (2004 TV Movie)

PG-13 | 106 min | Drama

An examination of the aftermath of the 1998 Real IRA bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh, Northern Ireland.

Director: Pete Travis | Stars: Gerard McSorley, Michèle Forbes, Brenda Fricker, Stuart Graham

Votes: 1,716

19. Some Mother's Son (1996)

R | 112 min | Drama, History

The 1981 hunger strike in an Irish prison, in which I.R.A. prisoner Bobby Sands led a protest against their treatment as criminals rather than as prisoners of war. It focuses on the mothers of two of the strikers, and their struggle.

Director: Terry George | Stars: Helen Mirren, Fionnula Flanagan, Aidan Gillen, David O'Hara

Votes: 2,990 | Gross: $0.61M

20. Veronica Guerin (2003)

R | 98 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

55 Metascore

An Irish journalist writes a series of stories about drug dealers.

Director: Joel Schumacher | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Brenda Fricker, Ciarán Hinds

Votes: 21,877 | Gross: $1.57M

21. Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

R | 128 min | Comedy, Drama

59 Metascore

In the 1970s, a young trans woman, Patrick "Kitten" Braden, comes of age by leaving her Irish town for London, in part to look for her mother and in part because her gender identity is beyond the town's understanding.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Cillian Murphy, Morgan Jones, Eva Birthistle, Liam Neeson

Votes: 24,505 | Gross: $0.83M

22. The Guard (2011)

R | 96 min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller

78 Metascore

An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is partnered with an uptight F.B.I. agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.

Director: John Michael McDonagh | Stars: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Ronan Collins

Votes: 95,549 | Gross: $5.36M

23. Titanic Town (1998)

100 min | Drama

73 Metascore

A Belfast, Northern Ireland housewife takes up the peace cause, which causes her family trouble with I.R.A. sympathizers.

Director: Roger Michell | Stars: Julie Walters, Ciarán Hinds, Nuala O'Neill, James Loughran

Votes: 459 | Gross: $0.06M



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