If your perfect night involves a cozy sofa and a great movie, then you probably have an excellent way to commemorate this year’s St. Patrick’s Day. There are great movies with different themes that you can choose from and join millions worldwide in the celebrations. They range from historical films, thrillers and romantic films. Each of these movie categories will teach you a thing or two about Irish culture. It would be a great idea to keep up with St. Patrick’s Day spirit by choosing one of the greatest Irish movies of all time. People hold different celebrations worldwide to commemorate this historic day, as illustrated below by Betway:
Below are some of the best films to watch on St. Patrick’s Day, all having several exciting themes.
The Guard (2011)
Brendan Gleeson is an Irish actor featured in many films, including 28 Days Later, Troy, Harry Potter, In Bruges and The Goblet of Fire. His pairing with Don Cheadle is probably one of the best cinema pairings since Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
John Michael McDonagh is the director of The Guard. Gleeson takes a grumpy and eccentric Sergeant role, while Cheadle features as an FBI Special Agent investigating a murder. The two have a dry, humorous banter in the film coupled with an exciting gunfire exchange and explosion. The end result is a movie that perfectly blends comedy, action-adventure and talkie.
The Quiet Man (1952)
In this movie, director John Ford showcases his prowess in melodrama, love stories, landscapes and action. He conglomerates all these themes in a beautiful Technicolor drama- The Quiet Man.
John Wayne features as Sean, an American boxer that takes a journey to Ireland and meets O’Hara’s, Mary Kate Danaher. He instantly falls in love with the spirited redhead, and they later kiss in a graveyard amid a rainstorm.
However, Kate’s fascination with her dowry disrupts their romantic story and ensuing marriage. The film wouldn’t be complete without a fistfight in a bale of hay or a horse-riding sequence.
Hunger
This film, directed by Steve McQueen, is a poetic and lyrical portrayal of the Irish hunger strike of 1981. The British director had received a lot of criticism and applause for his movie 12 Years a Slave. He started his collaboration with actor Michael Fassbender in Hunger. Fassbender, an Irish-German actor stars as IRA member Bobby Sands in this film. He goes on a hunger strike to protest the British Government.
What ensues is neither a typical prison movie nor a conventional historical drama. The prisoners smudge the prison walls with feces like a monochromatic painting. The movie received awards like the Camera d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. It also made it to the Criterion Collection ranks almost immediately after they released it.
Leprechaun
Mark Jones’ Leprechaun is well-regarded by many, including St. Patrick’s Day celebrators. This is a perfect St. Patrick’s Day horror movie that will have you screaming with amusement instead of dread.
The film is a dark twist on the delightful creatures from Irish legends, Leprechaun. Warwick Davis plays the homicidal Leprechaun searching for gold that was stolen from him. He has been trapped in a crate for a decade, and his mood has become worse, making him very vengeful.
It becomes troublesome when the Leprechaun believes that a family renting the farmhouse where he was trapped was the one that had stolen his gold. The film becomes more thrilling as he starts hunting down the family, and the family tries to find ways of destroying the evil creature.
Sing Street
John Carney directed sing Street. It is the story of a teenage boy called Conor forced to transfer from his private school and join a more brutal inner-city school in Dublin called Synge Street CBS during the 1980s recession.
Conor enlists his friends from the new school to start a band to impress a beautiful girl called Raphina. The film celebrates family, friendship and comradeship within the context of 1980s Ireland. It is a great pick to enjoy with your family.
