Total Film Magazine's 29 Incredible Irish Movies
by frasermummery | created - 29 Mar 2011 | updated - 29 Mar 2011 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Once (I) (2007)
R | 86 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.
Director: John Carney | Stars: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Hugh Walsh, Gerard Hendrick
Votes: 121,252 | Gross: $9.44M
2. The Quiet Man (1952)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A retired American boxer returns to the village of his birth in 1920s Ireland, where he falls for a spirited redhead whose brother is contemptuous of their union.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond
Votes: 42,382 | Gross: $10.55M
3. Kisses (2008)
Not Rated | 72 min | Drama
Two kids, Dylan and Kylie, run away from home at Christmas and spend a night of magic and terror on the streets of inner-city Dublin.
Director: Lance Daly | Stars: Kelly O'Neill, Shane Curry, Paul Roe, Roy Dempsey
Votes: 1,961 | Gross: $0.08M
4. In the Name of the Father (1993)
R | 133 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
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: 187,039 | Gross: $25.01M
5. 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: 6,765 | Gross: $1.41M
6. In America (2002)
PG-13 | 105 min | Drama
A family of Irish immigrants adjust to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.
Director: Jim Sheridan | Stars: Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton, Djimon Hounsou, Sarah Bolger
Votes: 44,272 | Gross: $15.54M
7. The Commitments (1991)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
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: 38,767 | Gross: $14.92M
8. Angela's Ashes (1999)
R | 145 min | Biography, Drama
An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens
Votes: 23,245 | Gross: $13.04M
9. Michael Collins (1996)
R | 133 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
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: 33,741 | Gross: $11.09M
10. The Boxer (1997)
R | 113 min | Drama, Romance, Sport
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: 22,300 | Gross: $5.80M
11. Ryan's Daughter (1970)
R | 200 min | Drama, Romance
Set in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married woman in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Christopher Jones
Votes: 10,681 | Gross: $30.85M
12. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
R | 114 min | Drama
Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.
Director: Peter Mullan | Stars: Eileen Walsh, Dorothy Duffy, Nora-Jane Noone, Anne-Marie Duff
Votes: 28,455 | Gross: $4.89M
13. The MatchMaker (1997)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Romance
Marcy is an assistant to Senator John McGlory, who is having problems with a re-election campaign. Desperate for Irish votes, McGlory's chief of staff Nick sends Marcy to Ireland to trace ... See full summary »
Director: Mark Joffe | Stars: Janeane Garofalo, David O'Hara, Milo O'Shea, Jay O. Sanders
Votes: 5,936 | Gross: $3.38M
14.
Screen Two (1985–1998)
Episode:
The Snapper
(1993)
R | 91 min | Drama
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: 6,126 | Gross: $3.32M
15. Waking Ned Devine (1998)
PG | 91 min | Comedy
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: 28,033 | Gross: $24.79M
16. Veronica Guerin (2003)
R | 98 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
An Irish journalist writes a series of stories about drug dealers.
Director: Joel Schumacher | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell, Brenda Fricker, Ciarán Hinds
Votes: 21,888 | Gross: $1.57M
17. Intermission (2003)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
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: 16,588 | Gross: $0.90M
18. The General (1998)
R | 124 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The real-life story of Dublin folk hero and criminal Martin Cahill, who pulled off two daring robberies in Ireland with his team, but attracted unwanted attention from the police, the I.R.A., the U.V.F., and members of his own team.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley, Maria Doyle Kennedy
Votes: 9,242 | Gross: $1.21M
19. Bloody Sunday (2002)
R | 111 min | Drama, History, War
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: 25,750 | Gross: $0.77M
20. The Crying Game (1992)
R | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A British soldier kidnapped by the IRA soon befriends one of his captors, who then becomes drawn into the soldier's world.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson
Votes: 60,044 | Gross: $62.55M
21. Flight of the Doves (1971)
G | 105 min | Drama, Family
While fleeing across the Irish countryside, two orphans are pursued by their villainous uncle, a master of disguises.
Director: Ralph Nelson | Stars: Ron Moody, Jack Wild, Dorothy McGuire, Stanley Holloway
Votes: 605
22. Into the West (1992)
PG | 97 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Grandpa Ward gives a horse he found to his grandchildren, who keep it in their tower-block flat in Dublin. The horse is stolen from them, and the two young boys set out to find it and flee on it.
Director: Mike Newell | Stars: Gabriel Byrne, Ellen Barkin, Ciarán Fitzgerald, Rúaidhrí Conroy
Votes: 3,182 | Gross: $4.79M
23. The Devil's Own (1997)
R | 111 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A police officer uncovers the real identity of his house-guest, an I.R.A. terrorist in hiding.
Director: Alan J. Pakula | Stars: Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Margaret Colin, Rubén Blades
Votes: 71,619 | Gross: $42.87M
24. 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: 4,852 | Gross: $0.62M
25. My Left Foot (1989)
R | 103 min | Biography, Drama
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: 79,745 | Gross: $14.74M
26. 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: 2,991 | Gross: $0.61M
27. Da (1988)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Fantasy
A New York playwright is summoned to Ireland to bury his father (his "Da"). While at his boyhood home, he encounters his father's spirit and relives memories both pleasant and not.
Director: Matt Clark | Stars: Barnard Hughes, Martin Sheen, William Hickey, Karl Hayden
Votes: 513 | Gross: $0.60M
28. War of the Buttons (1994)
PG | 94 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
The children of Ballydowse and Carrickdowse engage in battles in which they cut off the buttons, shoelaces, and underwear of their captured opponents, in order to get the boys in trouble ... See full summary »
Director: John Roberts | Stars: Gregg Fitzgerald, Gerard Kearney, Darragh Naughton, Brendan McNamara
Votes: 4,593 | Gross: $0.01M
29. Hear My Song (1991)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
The owner of a failing club seeks infamous Irish singer Josef Locke in order to bring business and success to his club.
Director: Peter Chelsom | Stars: Ned Beatty, Adrian Dunbar, Brian Flanagan, Constance Cowley
Votes: 1,929 | Gross: $4.31M
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