11 Best Movies From Ireland On Netflix

After 2019's The Souvenir—a drama about a toxic, suffocating relationship—director Joanna Hogg brings back her protagonist (played by a superb Honor Swinton Byrne) and sees her attempting to communicate the experience of this failed romance through her thesis film. Anybody with an interest in the production process of cinema should glean a ton of useful advice from The Souvenir Part II's mundane on-set interactions and difficult conversations about the line between compromise and practicality. And through increasingly surreal images of stages within stages and reflections within reflections, Hogg paints a complex, intelligent portrait of cinema as a place of ultimate self-examination.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alice McMillan, Amber Anderson, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Anna Calvi, Ariane Labed, Ben Hecking, Byron Broadbent, Charlie Heaton, Chris Dickens, Crispin Buxton, Davide Albonetti, Erik Wilson, Frankie Wilson, Gala Botero, Harris Dickinson, Honor Swinton Byrne, Inès Rau, Jack McMullen, James Fox, Jaygann Ayeh, Joe Alwyn, Lydia Fox, Richard Ayoade, Tilda Swinton, Tom Burke, Tosin Cole, Yasmin Paige

Director: Joanna Hogg

The Young Offenders is a comedy about two Irish teenagers who go on a 160km bicycle trip to salvage 7 million euros worth of lost cocaine. As they sit on a hill overlooking their city, they imagine what they would do with that money. The answer is building a house that has lava lamps, “big gold walls”, Spanish girls, and an English butler to wake them up every morning with the phrase “what’s happenin’?”. You get the vibe. It’s is a silly movie, although the premise is actually based on a real-life event where cocaine from a capsized smuggling boat washed up on the Irish coast. The Young Offenders wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s a sweet funny movie, half slapstick and half plot, which sports an infinity of highly quotable one-liners.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Alex Murphy, Chris Walley, Ciaran Bermingham, Dominic MacHale, Emma Willis, Hilary Rose, Judy Donovan, Michael Sands, P.J. Gallagher, Pascal Scott, Peter Foott, Shane Casey

Director: Peter Foott

Rating: N/A

The Siege of Jadotville is a different kind of war movie. It doesn’t recount famous battles or portray renowned heroes - instead, it’s about heroes and events that went completely unnoticed. Namely, the Irish 35 Battalion ‘A’ Company - a group of youngsters who are sent out on a U.N mission to the Congo. What was supposed to be a simple positioning quickly becomes one of the most sought-after locations and the battalion of 150 ‘war-virgins” find themselves up against 3000 mercenaries led by experienced French commandants. And what a tribute this film is: it’s well-paced, powerfully shot, and the acting, led by Jamie Dornan on one side and Guillaume Canet on the other, is absolutely perfect.

Genre: Drama, Thriller, War

Actor: Ashish Gangapersad, Charlie Kelly, Conor MacNeill, Conor Quinlan, Danny Sapani, Emmanuelle Seigner, Fiona Glascott, Fionn O'Shea, Fionn O'Shea, Gérard Rudolf, Guillaume Canet, Jamie Dornan, Jason O'Mara, Jason O'Mara, Jordan Mifsud, Luc Van Gunderbeeck, Mark Strong, Michael McElhatton, Mikael Helmuth, Mikael Persbrandt, Mike Noble, Richard Lukunku, Ronan Raftery, Sam Keeley

Director: Richie Smyth

Rating: Not Rated, TV-MA

I can’t get a song out of my head from this movie: the 1985 UK hit Desire As from Prefab Sprout.

It plays when the two main characters, a sensitive kid who’s bullied by his school for not liking rugby, and the school’s rugby star; talk over the “Berlin Wall” that separates their dorm room.

The song echoes “It's perfect as it stands, so why then crush it in your perfect hands?”. These two seemingly incompatible personalities form a friendship that comes under threat from their school’s traditional authority, especially as one of them is revealed to be gay. 

It might seem like a tough premise, but Handsome Devil is actually a comedy. It’s a sweet and easy coming-of-age comedy.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Amy Huberman, Andrew Scott, Ardal O'Hanlon, Ardal O'Hanlon, Fionn O'Shea, Fionn O'Shea, Hugh O'Conor, Jamie Hallahan, Jay Duffy, John Butler, Lauterio Zamparelli, Mark Doherty, Mark Lavery, Michael McElhatton, Moe Dunford, Nicholas Galitzine, Norma Sheahan, Patrick McDonnell, Ruairí OConnor, Ruairi O'Connor, Stephen Hogan

Director: John Butler

Rating: N/A

This animated movie is absolutely wonderful. It’s an Irish production, and the drawings/graphics are so beautiful and different from what you usually see in this genre. This alone, along with the music, would be good reasons to watch this.

But what really makes this worth your time is the story – it’s about a boy dealing with the loss of his mother. He embarks on an adventure into a parallel world of feelings to save his sister.

I found it to be refreshingly original, sometimes quite intense (I cried, but I easily cry), and heartwarming. The details are great. And I love the way the story was interwoven with Irish mythology, making it magical.

Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy

Actor: Brendan Gleeson, Colm ÓSnodaigh, Colm O'Snodaigh, David Rawle, Fionnula Flanagan, Jon Kenny, Kevin Swierszcz, Liam Hourican, Lisa Hannigan, Lucy O'Connell, Pat Shortt, Paul Young, Tomm Moore, Will Collins

Director: Tomm Moore

Rating: PG

This is a really weird movie starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. They play a wholesome and well-off couple where Farrell is a heart surgeon. The movie starts with him taking care of a teenager called Martin, who's not related to him or seems to have any real connection with him. It later turns out that Martin shares a special bond with the surgeon, a bond that will threaten his family in unexpected ways. The camera work and direction by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) offset the weirdness to offer an intriguing experience.

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Alicia Silverstone, Anita Farmer Bergman, Barry G. Bernson, Barry Keoghan, Beverly Kristy, Bill Camp, Bryant Bentley, Carly Tamborski, Charles Poole, Colin Farrell, David Pittinger, Denise Dal Vera, Drew Logan, Dylan Keith Adams, Herb Caillouet, Jerry Pope, Joanne Popolin, John Newsom, John W. Harden, Lea Hutton Beasmore, Megan Chelf Fisher, Michelle Dobrozsi, Ming Wang, Nicole Kidman, Raffey Cassidy, Robert Gerding, Steven Schraub, Sunny Suljic, William C. Ingram

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Rating: R

Freediving is a particularly cinematic sport because it taps into something beyond what the human body is capable of. Skilled divers hold their breath for long enough to reach more than 100 meters deep, and watching footage of that incredible feat is exhilarating, to say the least. The Deepest Breath capitalizes on that very spectacle—being exposed to death and conquering it—and banks on using archival footage of world records and training. It's a smart move, as it keeps the spectator on edge, but it can also be a cruel way to put thrills over ethics. The editing is kept suggestive, but sometimes, shamefully, at the cost of misrepresenting Alessia Zecchini and toying with the viewer's expectations to the point of callousness.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Alessia Zecchini, David Attenborough, Natalya Molchanova, Stephen Keenan

Director: Laura McGann

Rating: PG

Classroom chatter and inside jokes; the rhythmic routine of class, band practice, and communal mealtime; colorful paints and a keen Shakespeare play; paperback books, pages bookmarked with dogears. These are the precious, ordinary wonders of Headfort, a preparatory boarding school in Ireland. 

School Life observes Amanda and John Leyden, who have each taught at Headfort for over four decades. As they both near retirement, so too looms the promise of a tranquil retreat into the countryside—and questions of what they leave behind in their school, their classrooms, and their students. Idyllic and gentle, this documentary offers a brief but meaningful look into the school lives of bright children indelibly influenced by their earliest mentors.

Genre: Documentary

Director: David Rane, Neasa Ní Chianáin

Rating: PG-13