Film

In the Name of the Father

Jim Sheridan's dramatization of the Guildford Four case is built around Daniel Day-Lewis's ferocious performance as Gerry Conlon and Pete Postlethwaite's quiet devastation as his father, imprisoned alongside him. It's a furious, tearful courtroom-and-prison drama about state violence dressed up as justice — blunt rather than subtle, but earned. For anyone who wants a true story told with real anger and a father-son bond that will wreck them.

TMDb rating7.9

If you liked this

The Hurricane1999

Denzel Washington gives one of his most towering performances as another man swallowed whole by a justice system that decided his guilt before his trial even began.

But The film smooths some real history for maximum uplift, and its courtroom triumphs feel a touch tidier than reality allowed.

The Hurricane poster

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown1989

Day-Lewis and Sheridan's first collaboration, and the one that won him his first Oscar — a ferociously physical performance as a man written off by everyone around him.

But It's a biopic of disability and art rather than injustice or imprisonment, so the fury of Father is replaced by something gentler.

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown poster

The Boxer1997no page yet

Day-Lewis and Sheridan reunite for another Troubles-set story, this time about a man trying to build a life after prison as a boxer navigating loyalty and ceasefire politics.

But It trades legal outrage for a slower, more romantic drama, and the boxing scenes take up more room than some will want.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Attorney2013no page yet

Both are true-story dramas about a state extracting a false confession to close a case quickly, and about an ordinary advocate turned reluctant crusader.

A tax lawyer in 1980s South Korea takes on the case of a student tortured into a false confession under a military dictatorship — the same machinery of manufactured guilt, on the other side of the world.

But It's subtitled, the political context is unfamiliar, and it leans harder into feel-good courtroom triumph than Father's grimmer aftermath.

More like this (8)

Hunger2008

Steve McQueen's brutal, near-wordless debut follows the 1981 IRA hunger strike with unflinching physical detail — a companion piece in mood, about bodies used as political weapons.

But It's formally daring and almost silent for long stretches; anyone wanting a conventional narrative will find it punishing and oblique.

Hunger poster

Bloody Sunday2002

Greengrass's handheld, documentary-style reconstruction of the 1972 Derry massacre carries the same rage at British justice failing Irish citizens, shot with jittery, unbearable immediacy.

But There's no single hero to root for and almost no emotional release — it's designed to leave you angry, not comforted.

Bloody Sunday poster

'712014

A young British soldier stranded in hostile Belfast turns the Troubles into a lean, terrifying thriller — less courtroom, more streets, but the same sense of a system nobody can trust.

But It's a genre thriller first and a political statement second, so if you wanted more legal and moral argument, this won't give it.

'71 poster

Conviction2010no page yet

A true story of a sister who put herself through law school for eighteen years to free her wrongly convicted brother — the same slow-burn fury against a system that won't admit its mistake.

But It's a much more conventional, TV-movie-ish telling of similar material, without the visual or emotional intensity Sheridan brings.

The Shawshank Redemption1994

Not a true story, but it shares the DNA completely — an innocent man, a corrupt system, a friendship that survives what should be unsurvivable, told with total conviction.

But Its warmth and hope are almost the opposite of Father's anger; if you want righteous fury, this offers patience and grace instead.

The Shawshank Redemption poster

Michael Collins1996no page yet

Neil Jordan's sweeping account of the IRA's founding figure gives the politics that produced men like Gerry Conlon a much longer historical runway, with Liam Neeson commanding the screen.

But It's a much bigger, more mythic history lesson than a personal story, and takes real dramatic liberties with events.

The Central Park Five2012

Same engine as Father — police under pressure to solve a headline crime manufacture confessions from vulnerable young men — delivered as document rather than drama.

A documentary told largely by the men themselves — teenagers coerced into false confessions for a crime they didn't commit, years before they were exonerated — the real voices behind a story like Father's.

But No actors, no score doing the emotional work — just testimony, archival footage and a slow, cold-blooded case laid out in full.

The Central Park Five poster

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang1932

The direct ancestor of the wrongful-conviction-as-indictment-of-the-state film — same fury, same refusal of a clean happy ending, told first.

A 1932 Warner Bros social-issue drama, decades ahead of its time, about a decent man crushed by an American penal system that had already decided his guilt — this is where the genre started.

But It's ninety-year-old black-and-white filmmaking with the stiffer performance style of the era; allergic-to-old-Hollywood viewers will find it creaky going in.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by