The 45 Best Irish Movies to Make Your St. Patrick's Day Celebration Complete
Spend March 17 watching your favorite Irish actors in these new and classic films.
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When it comes to St. Patrick's Day, sure, you can head to a parade and then celebrate with a pint in the pub. But then what? After you've downed all the St. Patrick's Day foods (including those Irish desserts), what else can you do?
You can always head home and watch a good Irish movie. (Or maybe stay on the couch in the first place? Green beer is overrated.) With such a rich cinematic tradition, film fans are spoiled for choice. If you're having a hard time a narrowing it down, these are the best Irish films to watch on St. Patrick's Day in 2024. Some of them will give a look into Ireland's history, including some of the national heroes. There are comedies, horror films, dramas, great rom-coms, musicals and even the occasional sci-fi flick. Many are award winners, tallying up several Oscar and Golden Globe nominations apiece. Basically, you can find a good, Irish film no matter what you're in the mood for.
Looking for more great ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Check out these Good Housekeeping guides:
The Best Irish Movies & TV Shows on Netflix | The Best Irish Songs | St. Patrick's Day Traditions
Flora and Son (2023)
This film comes from John Carney, an Irish director known for making music-centric films like Sing Street and Once (both also on this list). This one follows a single mother who gets her son a guitar when the police advise her to find him a productive hobby. When she starts to take lessons from a guitar teacher in Los Angeles, they all learn how music can be a way to bond. The film stars Eve Hewson, the daughter of a pretty popular Irish musician: U2's Bono.
Nocebo (2022)
This is one for the horror fans: A fashion designer (Eva Green) falls ill after being bitten by a tick, and doctors are unsure how to help her. When her new nanny offers to use folk healing methods, it seems to do the trick — but is there something else going on?
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
When it came out, this film got eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. It walked away with none of them — fitting, given the themes of the movie — but it did win the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy. It's easy to see how it racked up so many accolades; the film is built around two tour-de-force performances from two incredible actors: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. In it, they play two one-time best friends who have to re-assess their relationship, and their approaches to their lives in general, when one turns a cold shoulder to the other.
Belfast (2021)
Director Kenneth Branagh based this black-and-white movie on his own experiences growing up in Ireland, so it's meaningful that this film earned him the Oscar for Best Director. Belfast takes place against the backdrop of skirmishes between Catholics and Protestants in 1969, when a 9-year-old boy has his eyes opened to the inner lives of his family and neighbors.
Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)
The film is based on the play Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley, writer of Moonstruck and writer/director of Doubt. (Shanley also directed this one.) In it, Jamie Dornan and Emily Blunt star as neighbors and childhood friends. As their parents age, they have to decide what to do with their land, and if they want to honor their at-odds families' intentions and rules for the properties. The decision gets complicated when they factor in their feelings for each other, and the way they view themselves.
Wolfwalkers (2020)
The movie was made by the acclaimed Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, which often interprets Irish folklore in movies like this one, Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells (both also on this lst). In this one, an English hunter and is rebellious daughter, Robyn, are sent to a village in 1650s Ireland. Their mission: To clear out the woods, including a wolf pack that has been terrorizing the locals. Robyn is eager to join on the hunt, until she meets a friend who may or may not belong to the pack, which possibly assumes human form by day and wolf form at night.
Sea Fever (2020)
For science fiction fans, this one has elements of both underwater and outer-space movies. It follows a scientist who embeds herself on a fishing trawler to study marine biology. When the crew starts to get mysteriously ill, she finds evidence they've come in contact with a life form that no one has seen or experienced before.
The Hole in the Ground (2019)
If you can't get to this one in time for St. Patrick's Day, you can always make it your Mother's Day movie: It's about a mom who suspects her son's been replaced with an imposter. (Creepy!) When it opened in 2019, this was the highest-grossing Irish movie.
Ordinary Love (2019)
Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville play a married couple whose relationship is rocked with a diagnosis of breast cancer. What follows is a story of enduring love in the face of adversity.
Black '47 (2018)
This is a dark revenge drama that plays out against the backdrop of the Irish Famine. And, though it takes place in Ireland, many critics say the gritty pulpiness makes it feel more like an American Western.
Bad Day for the Cut (2017)
This is another one for people who like gritty revenge thrillers: It follows a farmer who sets off on a mission to avenge the murder of his elderly mother. But, as we have to wonder with all revenge movies, is all that violence justified?
Cardboard Gangsters (2017)
In this crime-centered underdog story, a group of amateur gangster try to take over their town's drug trade. When it came out, it was a box-office phenomenon in Ireland, making it the highest grossing Irish film of the year.
Sing Street (2016)
Adapted into a Broadway show, this movie is so many crowd-pleasing things at once: It's an underdog story, a coming-of-age-tale and a musical all rolled into one. It takes place in 1980s Ireland, where a young, socially outcast boy decides he wants to start a band to help make friends and — what else? — impress a girl.
A Date for Mad Mary (2016)
Mary is recently released from prison — just in time to be the maid of honor at her best friend's wedding. When the bride says Mary wouldn't be able to find a date in time, Mary takes it as a challenge and starts a hapless search for love. The movie won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Irish Film of 2016.
Brooklyn (2015)
Saoirse Ronan stars as an Irish immigrant in 1950s New York City, and she has to decide between a life in Brooklyn or her old one back home. (Warning to those feeling homesick: It will make you want to call your family.) The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Song of the Sea (2015)
This movie is another entry from the acclaimed Cartoon Saloon, and this one is equally magical. It follows a lighthouse keeper and his two kids who, isolated on the seashore, live a life full of adventures with mystical beings — some working for good, and some for evil.
Philomena (2014)
Based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, this movie tells the story of journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan), who is approached to help a woman, Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), find the son she gave up for adoption in Ireland. In researching the story, Sixsmith uncovers a much larger story about women coerced into giving up their babies. When it came out, it was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress.
Calvary (2014)
In this pitch-dark comedy, an Irish priest played by Brendan Gleeson receives a death threat, and he has a week to figure out if it's for real. He spends the next seven days getting his affairs in order while visiting with parishioners who may be evocative of the seven deadly sins.
The Irish Pub (2013)
If you're a pint-drinker, chances are you've been in one, or a facsimile of one, but what makes the aura and the atmosphere of an Irish pub so special? This documentary sets out to answer that questions by talking to pub owners all over Ireland.
The Guard (2011)
An American FBI agent, played by Don Cheadle, is called into Ireland to help solve a murder and drug case. Getting nowhere with the locals, he has to team up with a brash member of the Garda. Can the two of them overcome their odd-couple mismatch to solve the crime?
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