Film

The Molly Maguires

Name: The Molly Maguires
Genre: Drama, History, Thriller
Released: 1970
Cast: Sean Connery, Richard Harris, Samantha Eggar, Frank Finlay, Anthony Zerbe

A 1970 period thriller set in 1876 Pennsylvania coal country, where Sean Connery and Richard Harris navigate opposing sides of a brutal labor conflict. The Molly Maguires dramatizes a real secret society of Irish miners fighting exploitation through sabotage and intimidation. It's a tense, morally complicated film about desperation, loyalty, and the cost of resistance—grittier than most prestige dramas of its era.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow-burning labor drama where the moral weight builds through hard work, bleak mining towns and a conflict between two men who respect each other, closer in spirit to Serpico than to a rousing union picture.

Skip it if you need quick cuts and constant momentum, since much of the film moves through meetings, whispered plans and the grinding routine of the pits rather than action.

What it asks of you: It runs about two hours and rewards patience, with a grim, unhurried mood that stays heavy from start to finish and wants your full attention to follow its loyalties.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Matewan1987

John Sayles' masterpiece about West Virginia miners organizing against impossible odds. Like The Molly Maguires, it finds humanity and complexity in working-class struggle, but with deeper historical texture and no easy villains.

But Sayles' deliberate pacing asks patience. Some find it slow; others find it essential. The political message doesn't hide.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos constructs a slow-burn thriller about violence, obligation, and moral debt that spirals inward with the same inexorable logic as the Molly Maguires' campaign. Hypnotic and deeply unsettling.

But Its formality and the deliberate unnaturalness of the dialogue may feel cold rather than gripping. It's not conventionally dramatic.

There Will Be Blood2007

Paul Thomas Anderson's epic about ruthless capitalism and the men it corrupts. Like The Molly Maguires, it's interested in how systems of power create violence—but from the opposite perspective, with Daniel Plainview as the force of extraction.

But Three and a half hours. Anderson's measured style won't appeal if you want plot momentum over psychological immersion.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Molly Maguires

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Informer1935

Both explore Irish resistance and the moral cost of the informer—the man who turns on his own. Ford's film taught everyone who came after how to shoot this story.

John Ford's expressionist masterpiece about an Irish revolutionary betraying a comrade to the British. It's The Molly Maguires' spiritual ancestor: the same setting, the same themes of loyalty and betrayal, but in another register entirely—operatic, dreamlike, shot through with Fordian melancholy.

But 1935 film language is dense and theatrical. The pacing is slow by any standard. Black-and-white and a thick accent can create distance.

Norma Rae1979

Sally Field's Oscar-winning turn in a film about labor organizing in a textile mill. More hopeful and populist than The Molly Maguires, but with the same conviction about ordinary people's capacity for resistance.

But Feels more like 1970s television than cinema in places. The uplift might come across as sentimental if you prefer moral ambiguity.

The Battle of Algiers1966

A documentary-style thriller about a colonial insurgency fighting occupation. It shares The Molly Maguires' interest in how asymmetrical conflict corrodes both sides, told with almost clinical intensity.

But The politics are unambiguous, which some find didactic. Black-and-white cinematography and the dated film stock may feel distant rather than immersive.

The Godfather Part II1974

Coppola intercuts two stories of power consolidation: young Vito building his empire, and Michael destroying his. Like The Molly Maguires, it explores how loyalty and violence become indistinguishable in closed systems.

But Nearly four hours. The Corleone saga is so canonized that watching it feels like an obligation rather than a discovery.

In the Name of the Father1993

Daniel Day-Lewis and Pete Postlethwaite anchor this film about Irish IRA members wrongly convicted of a bombing. It has The Molly Maguires' rage about Irish workers and the establishment, but focuses on injustice rather than rebellion.

But Becomes a conventional legal drama in the second half. The certainty of innocence removes some moral complexity.

Newsies1992

A musical about newspaper boys organizing a strike in 1899 New York. Yes, it's got dancing. Yes, it works. The same energy of working-class uprising, but joyful and communal rather than shadowed.

But It's a musical. If that sentence made you flinch, this isn't for you. The Disney sheen can feel at odds with serious labor history.

The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal1979

A television drama about the 1911 garment factory disaster that killed 146 workers. Like The Molly Maguires, it's about ordinary people crushed by industrial capitalism, though this one documents actual tragedy rather than resistance.

But Made for television, it shows—the production values are modest. Some of the acting feels broad. It's more important historically than emotionally gripping.

The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal poster

Rogue Male1976

Both are thrillers about men in closed, dangerous worlds where informers and loyalty determine survival. The moral stakes are reversed, but the psychological pressure is identical.

Peter O'Toole in a two-part BBC thriller about a man hunted across continents for an assassination attempt. It has The Molly Maguires' paranoia and focus on loyalty under pressure, but as a cat-and-mouse pursuit rather than a labor drama—tense, economical, perfectly made.

But BBC television from 1976, so the scope is intimate rather than epic. Sparse, cerebral—more interest in psychology than action. Some find it dated; others find that part of the appeal.

Come and See1985

Both films use historical labor/resistance narratives to explore the corruption of men by systems of violence. Come and See simply refuses the dignity The Molly Maguires occasionally grants its characters.

Elem Klimov's devastating Soviet film about a boy conscripted into a partisan unit fighting the Nazis. It's history and violence like The Molly Maguires, but unsparing, almost unwatchable—a complete inversion of moral complexity into nightmare. Essential.

But This is genuinely difficult to watch. Graphic violence, child trauma, despair without uplift. It's not entertainment. It's a moral assault designed to be one.