What are the worst Irish movies ever made?
We think we have come up with the Top 5 but if you have any better or worse ideas, feel free to join in.
From stereotypical views of Ireland in “Leap Year” and atrocious acting and accents in “Far and Away” to the embarrassing tales of “High Spirits” and “A Tiger’s Tale,” there have been some really awful films made about or in Ireland.
Here at Irish Central, we’ve saved the number one spot for one of the most bizarre movies ever made. “Holy Water” is a tale about a group of men who put Viagra in their town’s water supply. Need we say more?
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READ MORE:
The ten worst Irish accents in Hollywood movies
IrishCentral's top ten Irish mob movies - SEE VIDEOS
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Here’s our full list of the top worst Irish movies of all time:
Holy Water (2009)
Just a short description of this Irish movie will show you quickly why it got our number one vote. The story centers around the town of Kilcoulins Leap, home of a famous Holy Well. A postman, Podger Byrnes, comes up with a plan to hijack a van of Viagra and sell it in Amsterdam. When the plan goes wrong and Viagra’s makers send in their muscle, the postman and his friends hide the load of Viagra down the town’s Holy Well. You can guess the hilarity that follows.
Far and Away (1992)
Back in 1992, “Entertainment Weekly” spelled out perfectly what was wrong with this Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman epic about venturing into the Wild West in the 1800s. The review reads, “Cruise has no edge, no inner fire. He lacks the passionate, volatile qualities that might have expanded the character into something more than a screenwriter’s concoction. … Machine-tooled and weightless — that’s Cruise in ‘Far and Away’. And that’s the movie as well."
This movie is also an example of some of the worst Irish accents and lines in an Irish movie. The most famously bad line from this movie is one of Cruise’s when he says to Kidman’s character, “You're a corker, Shannon. What a corker you are.”
Leap Year (2010)
Guilty of leaving Ireland in the dark ages, “Leap Year” casted Oscar nominee Amy Adams as Anna, a woman desperate to marry her long term boyfriend. She plans a trip to the Emerald Isle for February 29, when traditionally in Ireland women can propose to men.
“The New York Times” got it right when a critic described “Leap Year” as one of the worst movies of the year. The romantic comedy paints modern Ireland as a backward country where a power surge caused by Adam’s Blackberry wipes out electricity for an entire town. The hackneyed love story does little to promote the true identity and lure of Ireland.
The Tiger’s Tail (2006)
Written and directed by Englishman John Boorman, this is one Irish film that belongs on the editor’s floor. Good points start and end with the cast line up, which includes Brendan Gleeson and Kim Cattrall (with a very unconvincing Irish accent).
Gleeson plays Liam, a property developer in Ireland’s economic heyday whose dodgy dealings leave him seeing a double of himself, akin to Macbeth’s ghosts who haunt him for the duration of the film.
High Spirits (1988)
The brilliant Peter O’Toole plays a major role in this movie which does not paint the Irish or Americans in the best light. Stereotypes and an embarrassingly predictable story earned this movie a place on our list.
The movie tells the story of a busload of American tourists who arrive at Peter Plunkett’s Iris castle, where Peter himself pretends that it is haunted.
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READ MORE:
The ten worst Irish accents in Hollywood movies
IrishCentral's top ten Irish mob movies - SEE VIDEOS
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16 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.McSpartacus | Jun 28, 2011, 02:57 PM EDT
High Spirits was over-the-top, big dumb fun: it was having a laugh sending up the cheesy stereotypes, instead of just using them as a crutch. And it had a few moments of joyful, dead-on skewering of Irishisms too: I still remember almost cracking a rib laughing at the mini-bus driver who was wearing a baseball cap with Chinese characters (in order to look more exotic, you know, to keep with the character of the place...)
hooligan6a | Jun 28, 2011, 10:14 AM EDT
The Irish do curse a lot, but F**k all.
dicanio71 | Jun 27, 2011, 10:42 PM EDT
the butcher boy was class..frankie brady a disturbed young man in adolscence , caught up in a working class town be , his brain working overtime and surrounded by alchies and grown ups.. agreed the language in the commitments was a lil coarse but the music and plot line was class..outspan and mickah wallace very believable characters in dublin for anyone who grew up there... sometimes irish folk use swears and french words as adjectives, to describe a term or occasion... no need to be offended, its simply entertainment, albeit a lil colorful,,sin e a chairde..johnny vaughan..
boydshield | Jun 27, 2011, 07:54 PM EDT
No! I loved Darby O'Gill as a child, and I still think, 'The Quiet Man,' is one of the greatest movies of all time.
seanomelbourne | Jun 27, 2011, 07:21 PM EDT
add finians rainbow,darby o'gill and the little people.
Pittsburghkid | Jun 27, 2011, 06:15 PM EDT
Far and Away was a good movie. My family history relates to this story, which is about Irish come to America to become American. My father ask his mother, who was born in 1870. Why don't we wear green on St Patricks Day? An the wise old Irish woman replied, "Your face is enough." I also like "Leap Year". I think Amy Adams is a wonderful actrist. Forget about quoting the New York Times. This paper has been declining in readership for years. I can't wait for Murdock to buy it out.
Chiefjustice | Jun 27, 2011, 05:46 PM EDT
I have seen these flicks. Hasent any one made a good Irish Movie sense EVELYN????
joycean | Jun 27, 2011, 05:20 PM EDT
Leap Year.I loved the screwy geography. Did anyone writing or filming look at a map?I lusted after the Louis Vuitton. What do you mean, no male lead?
PhoenixZouave | Jun 27, 2011, 02:47 PM EDT
I don't know about the worst movie, but I know that the Irish feel that Brad Pitt had the best Irish accent. My nephew finished his Masters program at the John Huston school of Film in Galway. Being one of only two Irish-Americans in the class, he asked many Irish students who had the best Irish accent, and they all said Brad Pitt n "The Devil's Own." Actually the "Deil's Own" was the nickname of the 88th Foot, the Connaught Rangers in the British army from 1773 until 1924. Maureen O'Sullivan's (ME TARZEN--- YOU JANE!)father served as a captain in the Connaught Rangers in WWI.
Sparklet | Jun 27, 2011, 02:45 PM EDT
There were some really stupid bits though, like going from Wales and ending up in Kerry.
JulieHood | Jun 27, 2011, 12:25 PM EDT
I enjoyed Leap Year but did not like the male lead. Great scenery, photography. Had just been to Ireland so I liked it. Thought Amy Adams was very good. Not deserving of such a harsh rating.
Sparklet | Jun 27, 2011, 11:34 AM EDT
I enjoyed Leap Year. It was good fun. Would have been even better with an Irish male lead, but Matthew Goode actually did a pretty good job.
sham1977 | Jun 27, 2011, 10:36 AM EDT
The Butcher Boy was crap also, not to mention an insult to catholicism - can you imagine the Blessed Mother dropping the "f" bomb - even if it was in a dream scene!Cringeworthy...
BallinaLass | Jun 27, 2011, 10:10 AM EDT
I thought High Spirits was a laugh too; just a light film for when your brain doesn't need anything too taxing. I nominate "Eclipse" as the worst Irish film. It has a good cast (Ciaran Hinds & Aidan Quinn) but it was a confused drama with an occasional attempt at being a thriller that failed on all levels.
donal1951 | Jun 27, 2011, 09:41 AM EDT
High Spirits was good fun, although it could just as well have been set in any country with allegedly haunted castles. It made me laugh, so it wasn't all bad. The worst, the Leprechaun movies!
GeorgeDillon | Jun 27, 2011, 08:02 AM EDT
Got to be The Commitments. About as funny as lower back pain. A nasty middle-class stereotype of the Dublin working class, written by the utterly talentless author Doyle. As we left the cinema (early) my girlfriend of that time asked me "Why do Irish people curse so much?". How right she was, as we even see on this site a couple of decades later. Any Irish out there like to tell us why they can't speak a sentence without a vulgarity?