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The Best Movies Set in Ireland

The Best Movies Set in Ireland

With verdant hills, wind-swept cliffs, intriguing folklore, and a not-too-distant history of tragic famine and war, the country of Ireland makes for a fertile cinematic backdrop. From comedies, dramas, and romance to action, adventure, and fantasy, dozens of award-winning and critically acclaimed films have been set on the Emerald Isle. (Can you solve these real “Jeopardy!” clues about Irish culture?

To determine the best films set in Ireland, 24/7 Tempo developed an index using average ratings on IMDb, an online movie database owned by Amazon, and a combination of audience scores and Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes, an online movie and TV review aggregator, as of August 2022, weighting all ratings equally. Only movies set fully or partially in Ireland or Northern Ireland were considered. (Though Northern Ireland is a separate country, and part of the United Kingdom, the term “Ireland” refers to the entire island.)

The Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) set the stage for many of the films, with various factions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) playing central roles. “The Troubles,” a 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland that occurred from the late ‘60s to the late ‘90s is also a common thematic element.

A few films, including “Angela’s Ashes,” are based on autobiographies or memoirs. Three films were directed by the Irish playwright and Academy Award-nominated director Jim Sheridan, while three others were directed by award-winning Irish writer and director Neil Jordan. Many star famous Irish actors including Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy, and Gabriel Byrne. (Have some Irish heritage? Check out the 35 most Irish cities in America.)

Source: Courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

28. Ryan’s Daughter (1970)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (9,900 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 73% (2,500 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 50% (18 reviews)
> Directed by: David Lean

An epic romance set during the tumultuous period before the Irish War of Independence, “Ryan’s Daughter” follows a young married Irish woman who is bored with life in her small nationalist village and starts an affair with a British officer, despite the political environment that surrounds her.

Source: Lisa Moran Parker / Wikimedia Commons

27. Angela’s Ashes (1999)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (21,347 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 81% (22,699 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 51% (86 reviews)
> Directed by: Alan Parker

Based on the best-selling memoir of the same name by Frank McCourt, this biographical drama follows a Brooklyn family of Irish immigrants who return to Ireland during the Great Depression, only to be met with more squalor, as the children begin to die and their dejected father spends his only earnings on alcohol.

Source: Courtesy of The Samuel Goldwyn Company

26. The Playboys (1992)
> IMDb user rating: 6.3/10 (1,206 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 54% (1,021 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 92% (24 reviews)
> Directed by: Gillies MacKinnon

Set in 1950s Ireland, “The Playboys” is about a beautiful and strong-willed young woman in a quaint Irish village who has a child out of wedlock, refuses to marry any of her suitors, and falls in love with a performer whose traveling dramatic troupe stirs up the town.

Source: Courtesy of STX Entertainment

25. The Foreigner (2017)
> IMDb user rating: 7.0/10 (108,142 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 72% (16,373 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 66% (126 reviews)
> Directed by: Martin Campbell

An action thriller starring Jackie Chan, “The Foreigner” follows a London-based Chinese restaurant owner and former soldier who takes the law into his own hands, traveling to Northern Ireland, when his teenage daughter is killed in a terrorist bombing claimed by an Irish republican organization.

Source: Courtesy of Savoy Pictures

24. Circle of Friends (1995)
> IMDb user rating: 6.6/10 (8,377 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 73% (16,827 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 78% (36 reviews)
> Directed by: Pat O’Connor

Set in Dublin in the 1950s, “Circle of Friends” follows two young women from a small town in Ireland who are starting their first year at university. Love, mistakes, and heartache ensue as they reconnect with their beautiful childhood friend, Nan, and meet a handsome med student.

Source: Courtesy of MCA/Universal Pictures

23. The Boxer (1997)
> IMDb user rating: 7.0/10 (20,080 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 74% (8,323 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 80% (70 reviews)
> Directed by: Jim Sheridan

After 14 years in prison for IRA involvement, a young man tries to rebuild his life in Belfast, starting a nonsectarian boxing club that is open to both Catholics and Protestants. IRA operatives abound, however, and soon he finds himself the target of violence while also becoming entangled with his old flame, who is now married to an incarcerated man.

Source: Courtesy of Miramax

22. Into the West (1992)
> IMDb user rating: 7.0/10 (2,966 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 79% (2,500 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (13 reviews)
> Directed by: Mike Newell

This fantastical film follows two young Irish Traveller brothers growing up in public housing on the outskirts of Dublin, as their grandfather regales them with magical folk tales, and they set out on their own mystical quest to find a stolen horse.

Source: Francois G. Durand / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

21. Some Mother’s Son (1996)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (2,744 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 87% (1,800 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 69% (16 reviews)
> Directed by: Terry George

Based on the infamous 1981 hunger strike at Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, this historical drama recounts the prisoners’ demands for better treatment, and the choices their mothers had to make between following their sons’ wishes or having them force-fed to save their lives.

Source: Courtesy of Geffen Pictures

20. The Butcher Boy (1997)
> IMDb user rating: 7.1/10 (10,775 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 82% (6,107 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (61 reviews)
> Directed by: Neil Jordan

With an alcoholic father and a bipolar mother, young Francie Brady deals with his home life by retreating into the violent world of his own imagination, but when bad comes to worse, he eventually acts out his brutal fantasies.

Source: Courtesy of Geffen Pictures

19. Michael Collins (1996)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (30,654 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 84% (21,333 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 77% (48 reviews)
> Directed by: Neil Jordan

This biographical drama details the work of Michael Collins, an Irish revolutionary and politician who served as the director of intelligence for the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and then commander-in-chief of the National Army during the Irish Civil War.

Source: Courtesy of Artisan Entertainment

18. I Went Down (1997)
> IMDb user rating: 6.9/10 (2,094 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 86% (755 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 84% (19 reviews)
> Directed by: Paddy Breathnach

This action comedy concerns an unlucky ex-con who tries to do the right thing, only to end up deeper and deeper in a twisted mob scheme with a brutal partner and an incessantly talkative hostage.

Source: Courtesy of Vestron Pictures

17. The Dead (1987)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (8,153 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 77% (2,500 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 93% (29 reviews)
> Directed by: John Huston

An adaptation of a lengthy James Joyce short story, “The Dead” takes place in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century and focuses on a married couple as they attend a Christmas party and learn a thing or two about themselves and each other.

Source: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

16. Calvary (2014)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (59,423 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 80% (10,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 89% (173 reviews)
> Directed by: John Michael McDonagh

Father James is the head of a small parish, and a pious man who aims to serve his community. His life, however, begins to unravel when a man who was abused by a priest as a child threatens to kill him.

Source: Courtesy of Miramax

15. The Crying Game (1992)
> IMDb user rating: 7.3/10 (53,518 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 78% (31,869 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (66 reviews)
> Directed by: Neil Jordan

In an exploration of race, gender, and patriotism, “The Crying Game” follows a rogue IRA operative whose life veers wildly off track when he befriends a captive British soldier and promises to take care of the soldier’s girlfriend in London.

Source: Courtesy of RKO Radio Pictures

14. The Informer (1935)
> IMDb user rating: 7.4/10 (6,183 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 77% (1,085 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (16 reviews)
> Directed by: John Ford

Set in Dublin just after the Irish War of Independence, “The Informer” tells the story of a destitute and disgraced Irish Republican who informs on his former comrade for a small reward in hopes of escaping to America with his girlfriend.

Source: Courtesy of Films We Like

13. Good Vibrations (2013)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (5,198 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 82% (500 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (36 reviews)
> Directed by: Lisa Barros D’Sa & Glenn Leyburn

Amidst the social and political turmoil of 1970s Belfast, an idealistic music-lover opens a record store to bring Reggae and harmony to a bombed-out neighborhood, and ends up starting a punk rock revolution.

Source: Courtesy of IFC Films

12. Hunger (2008)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (70,340 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 83% (50,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 90% (133 reviews)
> Directed by: Steve McQueen

Like “Some Mother’s Son” (No. 22), this film, based on the 1981 hunger strike at Maze Prison, is about Bobby Sands, an incarcerated IRA member and the ringleader of the strike that aimed to help Republican inmates regain their status as political prisoners rather than criminals.

Source: Courtesy of Buena Vista Film Distribution Company

11. Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (7,713 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 77% (9,527 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 100% (15 reviews)
> Directed by: Robert Stevenson

This fantasy adventure film features a wily troupe of leprechauns and their king, as well as an estate caretaker who is constantly trying to capture the Little People, his beautiful daughter, and a greedy townsman who attempts to take the caretaker job for himself and the daughter as his wife.

Source: Victor Boyko / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

10. ’71 (2014)
> IMDb user rating: 7.2/10 (56,286 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 81% (10,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 96% (140 reviews)
> Directed by: Yann Demange

During the Troubles, a young British Army recruit is accidentally abandoned by his unit after a riot in Belfast, forcing him to hide out and make his way through hostile territory, unsure of the intentions of the people he encounters.

Source: Courtesy of Pathé International

9. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (50,362 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 87% (25,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 90% (117 reviews)
> Directed by: Ken Loach

During the Irish War of Independence, two brothers who fight together for freedom from British rule end up in different factions, as one supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty and one demands nothing less than a free republic.

Source: Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

8. The Commitments (1991)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (34,153 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 90% (28,407 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 89% (45 reviews)
> Directed by: Alan Parker

Based on a novel by Roddy Doyle, “The Commitments” is a musical comedy about an unemployed Dublin youth who idolizes 1960s soul musicians and sets out to create a soul band of his own, made up of his working-class friends.

Source: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company

7. Philomena (2013)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (97,066 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 89% (52,457 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 91% (200 reviews)
> Directed by: Stephen Frears

Based on a heartrending true story, “Philomena” follows an out-of-work journalist who agrees to take on a story about an aging woman’s search for her son, whom she was forced to give up at an Irish convent nearly 50 years earlier.

Source: Courtesy of The Samuel Goldwyn Company

6. The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
> IMDb user rating: 7.5/10 (8,888 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 87% (7,336 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 96% (45 reviews)
> Directed by: John Sayles

This fantasy adventure film draws upon the folklore of the selkies, seals that can shed their skin and become human. It follows a young girl whose baby brother washed out to sea years earlier and is rumored to be living with the selkies.

Source: Courtesy of Paramount Classics

5. Bloody Sunday (2002)
> IMDb user rating: 7.6/10 (24,834 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 91% (5,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 92% (106 reviews)
> Directed by: Paul Greengrass

“Bloody Sunday” is a dramatization of the Bloody Sunday massacre that took place in Derry, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 30, 1972, when British troops fired on unarmed civil rights protestors, killing 13 immediately and wounding another 15.

Source: Courtesy of Republic Pictures

4. The Quiet Man (1952)
> IMDb user rating: 7.8/10 (36,647 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 91% (30,453 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 91% (45 reviews)
> Directed by: John Ford

A romantic comedy-drama starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, “The Quiet Man” follows a retired American boxer who returns to his birthplace in Ireland to buy his old family cottage and homestead, and ends up falling for the younger sister of the man who wants the land for himself.

Source: Courtesy of Warner Bros.

3. Barry Lyndon (1975)
> IMDb user rating: 8.1/10 (158,341 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 92% (45,166 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 91% (74 reviews)
> Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

A work of pioneering cinematography, “Barry Lyndon” follows the exploits and downfall of an Irish rogue and former soldier who marries a wealthy widow in an attempt to secure a comfortable position for himself.

Source: Courtesy of Miramax

2. My Left Foot (1989)
> IMDb user rating: 7.9/10 (74,218 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 92% (25,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 98% (42 reviews)
> Directed by: Jim Sheridan

This biographical comedy-drama is based on the autobiography of Christy Brown, an Irish writer and artist who was born with cerebral palsy, into a large working class family, and taught himself to write and paint using the only part of his body he had complete control over: his left foot.

Source: Courtesy of Universal Pictures

1. In the Name of the Father (1993)
> IMDb user rating: 8.1/10 (173,940 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 95% (25,000 votes)
> Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score: 94% (50 reviews)
> Directed by: Jim Sheridan

Based on the autobiography of Gerry Conlon, a man whose troubles begin when he is mistaken for an IRA assassin, this biographical drama recounts the trials of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven – innocent Irish civilians who were wrongfully convicted of involvement in the Guildford Pub bombings in England, some after false confessions given during torture by the police.

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