Best Irish Movies Of All Time
by niallmacdonal | created - 20 Feb 2012 | updated - 20 Feb 2012 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1.
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
2. 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: 79,763 | Gross: $14.74M
3. 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: 33,745 | Gross: $11.09M
4. 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: 16,589 | Gross: $0.90M
5. The Guard (2011)
R | 96 min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller
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: 95,598 | Gross: $5.36M
6. 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: 4,853 | Gross: $0.62M
7. 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
8. Adam & Paul (2004)
83 min | Comedy, Drama
2 heroin addicts negotiate their way through Dublin's city centre, encountering friends and family as they search for their next fix.
Director: Lenny Abrahamson | Stars: Tom Murphy, Mark O'Halloran, Gavin Dowdall, Luke Keeler
Votes: 3,301
9. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
Not Rated | 127 min | Drama, War
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: 54,600 | Gross: $1.83M
10. 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
11. The Butcher Boy (1997)
R | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
The antisocial son of an alcoholic father and a bipolar mother grows up in 1960s Ireland.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Eamonn Owens, Alan Boyle
Votes: 11,465 | Gross: $1.82M
12. 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
13. 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: 187,060 | Gross: $25.01M
14. 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: 22,305 | Gross: $5.80M
15. In Bruges (2008)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
After a job gone wrong, hitman Ray and his partner await orders from their ruthless boss in Bruges, Belgium, the last place in the world Ray wants to be.
Director: Martin McDonagh | Stars: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ciarán Hinds, Elizabeth Berrington
Votes: 461,396 | Gross: $7.76M
16. Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)
R | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
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: 11,608
17. 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: 38,776 | Gross: $14.92M
18. 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: 28,459 | Gross: $4.89M
19. 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: 21,889 | Gross: $1.57M
20. 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
21. 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: 23,247 | Gross: $13.04M
22. Dead Bodies (2003)
Not Rated | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Horror
The return of a vengeful ex-girlfriend sets into motion a series of gruesome events for a hapless Irish bachelor in director Robert Quinn's grim black comedy.
Director: Robert Quinn | Stars: Andrew Scott, Katy Davis, Eamonn Owens, Darren Healy
Votes: 1,085
23. 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
24. Widows' Peak (1994)
PG | 101 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
In 1934, an English widow moves to Widows' Peak, Ireland. She befriends other widows and the son of one. Hostility escalates between her and an Irish spinster.
Director: John Irvin | Stars: Joan Plowright, Mia Farrow, Natasha Richardson, Adrian Dunbar
Votes: 1,879 | Gross: $6.24M
25. Garage (2007)
85 min | Drama
A tragicomedy set in the world of gas stations in rural Ireland, where over-diligent employee of the garage searches for intimacy during the course of a life-changing summer.
Director: Lenny Abrahamson | Stars: Pat Shortt, John Keogh, George Costigan, Anne-Marie Duff
Votes: 3,144
26. Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
R | 128 min | Comedy, Drama
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: 24,520 | Gross: $0.83M
27. 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: 60,049 | Gross: $62.55M
28. Ondine (2009)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
An Irish fisherman discovers a woman in his fishing net whom his precocious daughter believes to be a selkie.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda, Dervla Kirwan, Alison Barry
Votes: 22,636 | Gross: $0.55M
29. Five Minutes of Heaven (2009)
R | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
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: 13,252 | Gross: $0.01M
30. 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: 42,389 | Gross: $10.55M
31. 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: 10,680 | Gross: $30.85M
32. 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
33. I Went Down (1997)
R | 107 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
Irish action comedy. An ex-con is forced into taking on a new task by a ruthless crime-boss, but finds he is hindered by the partner he has been teamed up with. However, he soon realizes they must work together if they are to survive.
Director: Paddy Breathnach | Stars: Brendan Gleeson, Peter McDonald, Antoine Byrne, David Wilmot
Votes: 2,277 | Gross: $0.41M
34. 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: 25,753 | Gross: $0.77M
35. Rory O'Shea Was Here (2004)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
When the kinetic Rory moves into his room in the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, his effect on the home is immediate. Most telling is his friendship with Michael, a young man with cerebral palsy and nearly unintelligible speech. Somehow, Rory understands Michael, and encourages him to experience life outside the confines of home.
Director: Damien O'Donnell | Stars: James McAvoy, Steven Robertson, Romola Garai, Alan King
Votes: 16,024 | Gross: $0.02M
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