List of films featuring the Irish Republican Army
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This is a list of films in which the Irish Republican Army, a faction thereof or a break away organisation (whether real or fictional) is portrayed either through its plot or by a main character.
| Title | Director | Notable cast | Summary | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Informer | John Ford | 1935 | |||
| Beloved Enemy | H.C. Potter | 1936 | |||
| I See a Dark Stranger | Frank Launder | A young Irish woman becomes a Nazi spy. | 1946 | ||
| Odd Man Out | Carol Reed | [James Mason][Robert Newton] | A wounded Irish nationalist leader in Belfast attempts to evade police following a failed robbery. | 1947 | |
| The Quiet Man | John Ford | John Wayne | 1952 | ||
| The Gentle Gunman | Basil Dearden | John Mills, Dirk Bogarde | IRA Volunteer Terry Sullivan (Mills) become disillusioned with a bombing campaign of London during the Second World War. | 1952 | |
| Shake Hands with the Devil | Michael Anderson | 1959 | |||
| A Terrible Beauty | Tay Garnett | Robert Mitchum | 1960 | ||
| Ryan's Daughter | David Lean | Sarah Miles, Robert Mitchum, Sir John Mills, Leo McKern, Trevor Howard, | IRA men transporting a wagon load of rifles are forced to dump the rifles, along with the body of a policeman they shot on being recognised by him, into a well. Subsequently, they arrive in the village in which the main characters live to prepare to receive a delivery of German rifles from a ship offshore. Although the villagers help them to heroically recover the weapons during a storm, they are captured by the local British Army detachment on leaving the beach. | 1970 | |
| Duck, You Sucker! | Sergio Leone | James Coburn, Rod Steiger | An Irish explosives expert on the run and a Mexican bandit unintentionally get involved in the Mexican Revolution. | 1971 | |
| Hennessy | Don Sharp | 1975 | |||
| The Eagle Has Landed | John Sturges | Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland | A former IRA man sheltering in Nazi Germany, where he works as a lecturer, is parachuted into England to make preparations for a Luftwaffe parachute unit, disguised as Polish soldiers, tasked with capturing or killing Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. | 1976 | |
| The Outsider | Tony Luraschi | 1980 | |||
| The Long Good Friday | John Mackenzie | Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren | A London crime boss is beset by problems which prove to be caused by the IRA, targeting his organisation as a result of the misdealings of one of his lackeys with them. | 1980 | |
| Guests of the Nation | John J. Desmond | 1981 | Television film | ||
| Harry's Game | Lawrence Gordon Clark | Ray Lonnen, Derek Thompson | An IRA rifleman who assassinated a British minister in front of his family in London is tracked down by an undercover British Army officer. | 1982 | Television serial |
| Giro City | Karl Francis | 1982 | |||
| Cal | Pat O'Connor | 1984 | |||
| The Glory Boys | Michael Ferguson | Anthony Perkins | The IRA assigns one of its members to aid a Palestinian assassin in his attempt to kill an Israeli scientist in London, while British Intelligence officers attempt to prevent and capture them | 1984 | Television serial |
| In This Corner | Atom Egoyan | 1985 | Television film | ||
| Contact | Alan Clarke | Sean Chapman | Film based on A.F.N. Clarke's experiences as a Parachute Regiment officer in 1970s Northern Ireland | 1984 | Television film |
| A Prayer for the Dying | Mike Hodges | 1987 | |||
| Act of Betrayal | Lawrence Gordon Clark | Elliott Gould, Patrick Bergin | An IRA informer and his family are given new identities and new lives in Australia but the IRA are still determined to track them down. | 1988 | TV Movie |
| The Dawning | Robert Knights | 1988 | |||
| A Casualty of War | Tom Clegg | 1989 | Television film | ||
| Elephant | Alan Clarke | 1989 | Television film | ||
| Behind the Mask | Frank Martin | 1991 | Documentary film | ||
| The Treaty | Jonathan Lewis | 1991 | Television film | ||
| Force of Duty | Pat O'Connor | 1992 | Television film | ||
| Patriot Games | Phillip Noyce | Harrison Ford | 1992 | ||
| The Crying Game | Neil Jordan | 1992 | |||
| Circles of Deceit | Geoffrey Sax | 1993 | Television film | ||
| In the Name of the Father | Jim Sheridan | Daniel Day Lewis Pete Postlethwaite | Based on the real life Guildford Four, father and son are falsely imprisoned as IRA members accused of committing the Guildford pub bombing. | 1993 | |
| Blown Away | Stephen Hopkins | Jeff Bridges Lloyd Bridges | 1994 | ||
| Patriots | Frank Kerr | 1994 | |||
| More Than a Sacrifice | Tom Collins | 1995 | Documentary film | ||
| The Boys of Barr na Sráide | Conor O'Carroll | 1996 | Short film | ||
| Michael Collins | Neil Jordan | Liam Neeson | 1996 | ||
| Some Mother's Son | Terry George | Helen Mirren | 1996 | ||
| The Eliminator | Enda Hughes | 1996 | |||
| The Devil's Own | Alan J. Pakula | Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford | 1997 | ||
| Midnight Man | Lawrence Gordon Clark | 1995 | Television film | ||
| A Further Gesture | Robert Dornhelm | 1997 | |||
| The Informant | Jim McBride | 1997 | |||
| The Jackal | Michael Caton-Jones | An ex-IRA gunman is recruited to assist the CIA in tracking down a suspected presidential assassin. | 1997 | ||
| The Boxer | Jim Sheridan | Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson | 1997 | ||
| The General | John Boorman | Brendan Gleeson | Details the life of Dublin underworld figure Martin Cahill. | 1998 | |
| Titanic Town | Roger Michell | 1998 | |||
| Divorcing Jack | David Caffrey | 1998 | |||
| Ronin | John Frankenheimer | Robert De Niro | 1998 | ||
| The Craic | Ted Emery | 1999 | |||
| Exiled | Bill Muir | 1999 | |||
| Brits | 2000 | Documentary television series | |||
| Borstal Boy | Peter Sheridan | 2000 | |||
| An Everlasting Piece | Barry Levinson | 2000 | |||
| The Bombmaker | Graham Theakston | 2001 | Television film | ||
| Shamrock and Swastika | Brendan Culleton Irina Maldea |
Examination of the Irish Republican Army's collaboration with the Abwehr during World War II. | 2001 | Television documentary | |
| H3 | Les Blair | Depiction of the 1981 Irish hunger strike. | 2001 | ||
| Bloody Sunday | Paul Greengrass | James Nesbit | Depiction of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre. | 2002 | Television film |
| Sunday | Charles McDougall | Ciarán McMenamin, Christopher Eccleston | Depiction of the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre. | 2002 | Television film |
| The Rising of the Moon | Deborah Baxtrom | 2002 | Short film | ||
| The Maze | 2002 | Television documentary | |||
| Omagh | Pete Travis | 2004 | Television film | ||
| Breakfast on Pluto | Neil Jordan | 2005 | |||
| The Year London Blew Up | Edmund Coulthard | Dramadoc about the 1974-75 Provisional IRA campaign in London, which culminated in the Balcombe Street siege. | 2005 | Television film | |
| Johnny Was | Mark Hammond | 2006 | |||
| The Wind That Shakes the Barley | Ken Loach | Cillian Murphy | 2006 | ||
| I.R.A. King of Nothing | Damian Chapa | 2006 | |||
| Fifty Dead Men Walking | Kari Skogland | Ben Kingsley Rose McGowan Jim Sturgess |
A loose adaptation of Martin McGartland's 1997 autobiography of the same name. | 2008 | |
| Hunger | Steve McQueen | Depiction of the Bobby Sands during the 1981 Irish hunger strike. | 2008 | ||
| Sons of Anarchy | 2008 | TV Series | |||
| Five Minutes of Heaven | Oliver Hirschbiegel | Liam Neeson | A reconciliation is attempted after 33 years | 2009 | |
| Shadow Dancer | James Marsh | An IRA member is turned into an informer for the British, to protect her son | 2012 | ||
| Peaky Blinders | 2013 | TV Series | |||
| '71 | Yann Demange |
Jack O'Connell |
A young British soldier is accidentally abandoned, following a riot in Belfast, in 1971. | 2014 |
