Film

The Banshees of Inisherin

On a fictional island off Ireland's coast during the Civil War, one man's sudden decision to end a friendship spirals into inexplicable, escalating cruelty. It's a fable dressed as an odd-couple comedy—gorgeous, funny, and unbearably sad—shot through with Martin McDonagh's gift for making small grudges feel like national tragedy. Farrell and Gleeson are extraordinary. Watch it for the jokes; stay for the ache.

TMDb rating7.5

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In Bruges2008

McDonagh's first great double-act with Farrell and Gleeson, before the island took over — the same rhythm of vicious banter and sudden violence, the same tenderness underneath the profanity. The purest hit of that specific chemistry.

But The humour is blacker and more profane, leaning into crime-thriller mechanics rather than pastoral tragedy.

In Bruges poster

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri2017

Another McDonagh study of grief curdling into stubbornness, where small-town pettiness becomes almost mythic. Frances McDormand is magnificent, and the film shares Banshees' trick of finding tragedy inside comic escalation.

But It's angrier and more American in its violence, with a moral murkiness some viewers found harder to forgive.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri poster

Calvary2014

Gleeson carries an entire Irish parish on his shoulders as a priest given a week to live — funny, furious, and devastating, examining rural Ireland's darkness with real love underneath the fury.

But It's bleaker and more overtly religious, with far less comic relief once the story tightens its grip.

Calvary poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Quiet Man1952

Both use a fantasy-Ireland island as a stage for masculine pride and ritualised violence between neighbours, climaxing in a drawn-out fight played for comedy and pain at once — McDonagh is clearly in dialogue with this film.

John Ford's Technicolor postcard of an Irish village is practically the ancestor Banshees is arguing with — the same fictional-island logic, the same comic brawling neighbours, even a legendary fistfight played almost as long and absurd as the one you just watched.

But It's a sunlit, sentimental romance with dated gender politics that modern viewers often find hard to sit through.

The Quiet Man poster
More like this (7)

The Guard2011

Gleeson again, this time a foul-mouthed rural garda paired with an FBI agent — a crime comedy with the same wicked local humour and affection for Ireland's back roads and odd characters.

But It's a much broader, punchier comedy with none of Banshees' slow ache or moral weight.

The Guard poster

Waking Ned1998

A whole village conspiring around one dead man's lottery ticket — the gentler, warmer cousin of Inisherin's island comedy, with the same nosy neighbours and wind-battered charm, minus the despair.

But It's cosy where Banshees is corrosive; if you wanted the darkness, this will feel like a different film entirely.

Waking Ned poster

The Field1990no page yet

Richard Harris as a farmer whose obsession with a patch of land turns lethal — an older, harder Irish tragedy about pride and property that Banshees clearly has in its bloodline.

But It's a heavier, more melodramatic watch with none of the jokes to cushion the fall.

Sing Street2016

Want the Irish warmth without the dread? This is a joyful, scrappy teen music film with real heart and a soundtrack that sticks with you for weeks after.

But It's essentially a feel-good coming-of-age story, tonally about as far from Banshees as you can get.

Sing Street poster

Brooklyn2015

A quieter, more romantic vision of Irish life and leaving it behind, carried by Saoirse Ronan at her most luminous — proof the country can produce ache without cruelty.

But It's a straight, gentle drama with none of the black comedy or menace you came here for.

Brooklyn poster

The Commitments1991

Loud, funny, foul-mouthed Dubliners forming a soul band — less mythic than Inisherin, but sharing that unmistakable Irish gift for turning failure and squabbling into something joyous.

But It's a much sunnier, more conventional music comedy, with little of Banshees' slow-building dread.

The Commitments poster

Song of the Sea2014

Both draw on the same well of Irish coastal folklore and mournful atmosphere — Banshees literally names its dread after a mythic wailing spirit, and this film puts that same sorrow on screen for a family audience instead of an arthouse one.

An Irish-animated fable about a selkie girl and the folklore haunting a coastal family — gorgeous, melancholic, and steeped in the sense that Ireland's landscape carries old grief just under the surface.

But It's a hand-drawn children's film with none of the profanity or adult despair — a far gentler register.

Song of the Sea poster

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