The Best Irish American Movies

A mild-mannered man becomes a local hero through an act of violence, which sets off repercussions that will shake his family to its very core.

A musician and a fireman work against certain expectations in order to pursue their respective dreams.

An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.

A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.

Ash Wednesday is set in the Manhattan of the early 1980's and is about a pair of Irish-American brothers (Burns and Wood) who become embroiled in a conflict with the Irish Mob.

Chicago crime kid, Mick O'Brien, is sent to reform school after accidentally killing a rival's kid brother.

A blood-soaked chronicle of the final desperate gang war between Boston's Irish and Italian mobs.

A young Irishman enters the US illegally with his wayward friend Seamus. Landing in New York the pair start out with dreams of striking it rich but soon find themselves in dead-end jobs and drifting apart. As Seamus pursues various get-rich schemes, the more cautious Patrick finds himself devoting time to looking after Tom, an Irish author down on his luck, and courting Helen a struggling actress caught in sordid relationship with a much older man.

This, but his sordid past in form of his gangster older brother keeps biting him on heels.

A teenage boy longs to win the attention of his emotionally distant father.

When a death row prisoner tells him he wouldn't have led a life of crime if only he had had one friend as a child, Father Edward Flanagan decides to start a home for young boys.

The true story of James J. Braddock, a supposedly washed-up boxer, who returned to the spotlight to win the heavyweight championship of the world.

A high-priced call girl, shocked by her mother's death, decides to get out of the business and have a baby. The steps that she takes to free herself from her pimp and find a father for the baby are the central story of this movie.

An Irishman emigrates to New York during the most heated point of the tensions in Northern Ireland in 1991. However, escaping the conflict in his home country does not free him from the strife. Soon he finds himself in the middle of a gun running operation involving his cousin and two hot-headed friends. And things get further complicated when the Irishman gets involved with the long-suffering wife of one of the gun-runners.

A young Irish couple flee to the States, but subsequently struggle to obtain land and prosper freely.

In 1862, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher; his father's killer.

The adventures of an investigator (Cagney) for the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

For two lifelong friends from Boston "green" means money. So when they start up a counterfeiting ring it seems that they will be in the "green" for good. But no matter how close their friendship or how strong the bond of trust between them. They are about to find out the hard way. Money changes everything Friendship and trust take a backseat to greed and dishonesty in this compelling drama from writer/director Marc Powers. "GREEN" is an interesting as well as honest look at what the effects of money, along with other influences, can have on any relationship.

Will Hunting, a janitor at MIT, has a gift for mathematics, but needs help from a psychologist to find direction in his life.

A new transfer student to St. Basil's Boys' Prep School tries to fit in while romantically pursuing a troubled young girl.

"Irish Eyes" explores the relationship between two Irish-American brothers in Boston born to immigrant parents and raised in a rough, working class Irish neighborhood. After watching their father being gunned down in front of their eyes as children, Thomas and Sean Phelan grow up building their lives on opposite ends of the law. Thomas, the studious and responsible brother, creates a better life for himself through education and hard, honest work. Eventually, he builds a successful career as a US Attorney. Sean, the more rebellious of the two, gets caught up in a life of crime and rises through the ranks to become the head of the Irish Mob. Spanning from post World War II during the late 1950's through the Irish Mob wars of the 1970's and culminating in their adulthood in the 1990's, the story is set to the backdrop of backroom politics and the realities of the Irish Mob and it's gang wars. The theme of the film simultaneously addresses the similarities between the two factions of law and crime while revealing the similarities between the two brothers.

A family of Irish immigrants adjust to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

The O'Leary brothers--honest Jack and roguish Dion--become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.

The true story of Danny Greene, a tough Irish thug working for mobsters in Cleveland during the 1970's.

The tenements are home to an international community, including the friends and family of a tough young ragamuffin named Annie Rooney, but their neighborhood is threatened by a dangerous street gang.