| The Banshees of Inisherin | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Martin McDonagh |
| Written by | Martin McDonagh |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Ben Davis |
| Edited by | Mikkel E. G. Nielsen |
| Music by | Carter Burwell |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Searchlight Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 114 minutes[1] |
| Countries |
|
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million[2] |
| Box office | $52.3 million[3][4] |
The Banshees of Inisherin (/ˌɪnɪˈʃɛrɪn/in-ih-SHERR-in) is a 2022blacktragicomedy film directed, written, and co-produced byMartin McDonagh.[5][6][7] Set on a fictional remote island off the west coast of Ireland in 1923,[a] the film starsColin Farrell andBrendan Gleeson as two lifelong friends who find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their friendship, with severe consequences for both of them.Kerry Condon andBarry Keoghan co-star. It reunites Farrell and Gleeson after McDonagh's directorial debutIn Bruges (2008).[8][9][10]
The film had its world premiere on 5 September 2022 at the79th Venice International Film Festival, where Farrell won theVolpi Cup for Best Actor and McDonagh wonBest Screenplay.[11] It was theatrically released in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States on 21 October 2022 bySearchlight Pictures. The film received largely positive reviews, with particular praise for McDonagh's direction and screenplay, the performances of the cast, andCarter Burwell'sscore. It grossed $52 million worldwide against a $20 million budget.
The Banshees of Inisherin received nine nominations at the95th Academy Awards, includingBest Picture andBest Director.[12][13][14] At the80th Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards:Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy,Best Actor – Musical or Comedy (Farrell), andBest Screenplay.[15] It also won fourBAFTA Awards from ten nominations at the76th British Academy Film Awards:Outstanding British Film,Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Keoghan),Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Condon), andBest Original Screenplay.[16]
The film was also named one of theTop Ten Films of 2022 by theNational Board of Review.[17] It has since been cited as among the best films of the 2020s and the 21st century so far.[18][19][20][21]
In the spring of 1923, near the end of theIrish Civil War, on the fictional isle of Inisherin (lit. 'the island ofIreland'),[a][22][23]fiddler Colm Doherty abruptly begins ignoring his lifelong best friend and drinking buddy Pádraic Súilleabháin. When a hurt Pádraic presses Colm for an explanation, he says that Pádraic is too dull, and he would rather spend the remainder of his life composing music and doing things for which he will be remembered. Pádraic is devastated and refuses to accept the situation, while Colm only becomes more resistant to his old friend's attempts to make amends, eventually giving Pádraic anultimatum: every time Pádraic talks to him, Colm will cut off one of his own fingers.
The localGarda, Peadar Kearney, beats his troubled son Dominic severely for drinking hispoitín, and Pádraic and his sister, Siobhán, take Dominic in for a night. While delivering milk to the market, Pádraic is insulted by Peadar and retaliates by making public the fact that Peadarabuses his son. Peadar punches him to the ground. Having witnessed this, Colm drives Pádraic home; the two do not speak.
Siobhán and Dominic try to defuse the pair's feud, to no avail. Pádraic drunkenly confronts Colm and berates him for throwing away their friendship, as well as for drinking with Peadar, whom he publicly accuses ofmolesting Dominic. After Siobhán leads Pádraic away, Colm says that this is the most interesting Pádraic has ever been, which Dominic overhears. The next morning, not remembering what he has said, Pádraic attempts to apologise to Colm, but the conversation goes badly. Colm responds by cutting off his left index finger and throwing it at Pádraic's door.
Pádraic later sees Colm meeting with Declan, a fiddler from the mainland. Jealous, Pádraic tricks Declan into returning home by lying that his father was hit by a bread van. As the tensions worsen, local elder Mrs McCormick warns Pádraic that death will come to the island soon. Dominic tells Pádraic what Colm said about him in the pub; encouraged, Pádraic tells Dominic what he did to Declan, but Dominic, disappointed, rejects him as mean and refuses to speak to him anymore. Thereafter, Siobhán sympathetically rejects Dominic's romantic advances.
Pádraic gets drunk and starts another confrontation with Colm at Colm's house; Colm says he has finished composing his song ("TheBanshees of Inisherin") and seems finally open to renewing their friendship, but Pádraic drunkenly reveals what he did to Declan. Instead of meeting Pádraic at the pub, Colm cuts off all four of his remaining left fingers and throws them at Padraic's door.
Fed up by the feud and long bored with life on the island, Siobhán moves to the mainland for a job in a library. Devastated, Pádraic comes home to find his pet donkey Jenny has choked to death on one of Colm's fingers. He confronts Colm at the pub; Colm offers a truce, but an embittered Pádraic informs him that he will burn his house down the next day at 2 pm. At the promised time the next day, Pádraic does so; he looks in a window and sees Colm calmly sitting inside. Pádraic takes Colm's dog Sammy with him to save him from the fire. Peadar watches Pádraic burn down the house, and as he rushes to Pádraic's house to confront him, he encounters Mrs McCormick, who leads Peadar to Dominic's corpse in the lake. After returning home, Pádraic writes a letter to Siobhán that says Jenny is doing well and glosses over his lonely, friendless life.
The next morning, Pádraic takes Sammy back and finds Colm, who survived the fire, standing on the beach beside his burnt-out house. Colm apologises for the donkey's death and suggests destroying the house has ended their feud; Pádraic replies that it would have ended only if Colm had stayed inside. Colm wonders whether the Civil War is coming to an end; Pádraic replies he is sure the fighting will begin again soon because "some things there's no moving on from", adding that he thinks that is "a good thing" before leaving. Unbeknownst to either, Mrs McCormick silently watches them from the remains of Colm's house.
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In February 2020, it was reported thatMartin McDonagh had set his next directorial effort up withSearchlight Pictures, and that it would reunite him with hisIn Bruges starsColin Farrell andBrendan Gleeson.[8][9][10] In August 2021,Kerry Condon andBarry Keoghan were added to the cast.[24][25]
Principal photography began in August 2021 onInishmore (Inis Mór) before moving toAchill Island,County Mayo, later that month.[26] Locations used on Achill include Cloughmore (JJ Devine's Pub), Corrymore Lake (Mrs McCormick's cottage),Keem Bay (Colm's house), Purteen Harbour (O'Riordan's shop), and St. Thomas's Church inDugort.[27][28][29] Filming wrapped on 23 October 2021.[30]
Costume designerEimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh discussed the pains she and her team took to make thewardrobe not feel like "a pastiche of theAran Islands", which included using cloth that was entirely homespun and only using Irish wools, linens, and overdyed fabrics. For Pádraic's red jumper, Mhaoldomhnaigh envisioned what his sister, Siobhán, would have genuinely been motivated to make for him. "I can imagine Siobhán thinking, 'Oh my God, the winter's going to be very cold. I'm going to knit him a jumper,' then making the little collar as a kind of personal touch ... there's a beautiful naiveté to the way he dresses, but it's very tender as well, that idea that she adds this little touch to it. I think it says so much about him and his relationship with Siobhán, and his relationship with where he lives and his Irishness", Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh explained.[31]
For Colm, Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh said: "There had to be something of the poet in the way he dressed, but without it being very ostentatious. So, he wears some corduroy that's nicely dyed and a saffron-colored linen shirt. There's that element of, not vanity, but a knowingness of somebody who has travelled to the outside world at some point and brought back ideas of what a poet or a musician should look like."[31]
The donkey, Jenny, was designed by the film's creature-effects supervisor Tahra Zafar.[32]
The original score is byCarter Burwell, McDonagh's frequent collaborator. McDonagh did not want Burwell to compose an "Irish-based" score, despite the film's setting.[33][34][35] For Pádraic's character, Burwell attempted "child-like" and "Disney character" music; he also usedfiddle-themed compositions for Colm.[36] The soundtrack was digitally released byHollywood Records on 21 October 2022 along with the film.[37]
The film also hastraditional pub music session scenes withIrish music, in which traditional musicians join Gleeson, who plays the fiddle. The other musicians areJohn Carty (fiddle), his son James Carty (fiddle), Conor Connolly (accordion), Oliver Farrelly (accordion), and Ryan Owens (bodhrán). In one scene,Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola sings the Irish song "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day".[citation needed]
The film's opening scene is set to the traditional Bulgarian folk song "Polegnala e Todora (Love Song)", arranged byFilip Kutev and performed by theBulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir.[38][39]
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The Banshees of Inisherin had its world premiere on 5 September 2022 at the79th Venice International Film Festival, where it received a 15-minute standing ovation from the audience, the longest of that year's festival.[40][41] It also screened at the47th Toronto International Film Festival that month and as the opening-night film of the 31stPhiladelphia Film Festival on 19 October 2022.[42] It was theatrically released on 21 October 2022.[43]
The film returned to U.S. cinemas on 27 January 2023 to celebrate itsAcademy Award nominations.[44]
The film was released on rentalPVOD and made available to stream onHBO Max on 13 December 2022, and was released onBlu-ray andDVD on 20 December 2022 by20th Century Home Entertainment andDisney / Buena Vista; bonus features include the featurette "CreatingThe Banshees of Inisherin" anddeleted scenes.[45][46][47][48]
The Banshees of Inisherin was released onDisney+ as part of theStar content hub in selected regions on 14 December 2022 and 21 December 2022 in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[49] The film was also released onDisney+ Hotstar in India on 14 December 2022.[50] It was made available to stream onHulu on 4 September 2023.[51]
The Banshees of Inisherin grossed $10.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $41.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $52.3 million.[3][4]
In the film's opening weekend in the U.S. it made $184,454 from four theaters, for a per-venue average of $46,113, making it the second-highest grossing opener for a Fall 2022 platform release, behindTill.[52] The next weekend the film expanded to 58 theaters, making $535,170.[53] The following weekend it expanded to 895 theaters, making $2.1 million and finishing seventh at the box office.[54] These moderate results were attributed to the increasing change in audience behavior to the detriment ofprestige films in a moviegoing environment altered by theCOVID-19 pandemic restrictions, where moviegoers refused to see and support such titles in favor offranchise and straightforwardhorror films.[55][56] Upon its return to theaters during the weekend of 27 January 2023, following theAcademy Award nomination announcements, it rose 383% domestically.[57]
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On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 96% of 377 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Featuring some of Martin McDonagh's finest work and a pair of outstanding lead performances,The Banshees of Inisherin is a finely crafted feel-bad treat."[58]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 87 out of 100, based on 62 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[59]
Peter Bradshaw ofThe Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, writing that "as a study of male loneliness and swallowed anger it is weirdly compelling and often very funny".[60]Todd McCarthy ofDeadline Hollywood wrote that the film is "a simple and diabolical tale of a friendship's end shot through with bristling humor and sudden moments of startling violence". He praisedBen Davis's cinematography andCarter Burwell'sscore.[61]David Ehrlich ofIndieWire rated it B+, writing that "its constant undercurrent of humor affords the story's most pressing questions an appropriately ridiculous context, one that speaks to the absurdities of all existence". He also called it McDonagh's best work sinceIn Bruges.[62]
Matthew Creith ofScreen Rant wrote that the film's "demonstration of the metaphorical aspects of civil disobedience and internal protest between a set of individuals is remarkably hilarious".[63]The New York Times's Kyle Buchanan wrote: "The film was rapturously received here in Venice, earning a lengthy standing ovation and rave reviews."[64] ForVariety, Guy Lodge wrote: "What begins as a doleful, anecdotal narrative becomes something closer to mythic in its rage and resonance: McDonagh has long fixated on the most visceral, vengeful extremes of human behavior, but never has he formed something this sorely heartbroken from that fascination."[65]
David Rooney ofThe Hollywood Reporter called the film "a ruminative ensemble piece that expertly balances the tragicomic with the macabre, inhabiting territory adjacent to McDonagh's stage work yet also sweepingly cinematic".[66]Robbie Collin ofThe Telegraph awarded it 5/5 stars and called it "an often shoulder-shudderingly funny film, whose comic dialogue is dazzlingly designed and performed".[67]
Conversely,Mark Feeney, writing forThe Boston Globe, gave the film an unenthusiastic review, calling it "a short story trying to be a novel" and the metaphor for the Irish Civil War "awfully flat-footed".[68] Multiple critics took issue with the film's portrayal of Ireland:Mark O'Connell ofSlate criticized the film's characters' portrayal of "Irishness", writing: "It's worth noting, though maybe not surprising, that international critics have failed to take issue with its deployment of the hoariestIrish stereotypes."[69] Ed Power ofThe Telegraph wrote that "underneath itsQuiet Man curlicues, a much better movie strains for freedom" and was disappointed that McDonagh chose to "shroud his character study in hackneyed Paddy-isms".[70]The Spectator's Joy Porter attacked the "insidious falsehood perpetuated by this film about [her] home country's history of partition and civil war", summarising it as a "beautifully staged but dangerously ahistorical and misleading film".[71]John Waters, however, praised the film in his review forFirst Things for taking "the kitschified, cliched landscape of Ireland and [handing] it back to itself, cleansed ... Most Irish writers and artists simply run away from the tainted iconography, but McDonagh cleans it off and kisses it, redeeming it with a new meaning in which the irony is both present and transcended".[72]
The film has appeared on a number of critics' lists of the best films of 2022, ranking first on several.[b]
In April 2023,Screen Rant rankedThe Banshees of Inisherin fourth on "The 10 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)", calling it "one of the great movies that can break the audience's heart while still making them laugh".[19] In September 2023,Collider ranked it fourth on its list of "The 20 Best Drama Movies of the 2020s So Far", calling it "one of the greatest 'breakup' movies ever made" and adding that "in a decade where he has already given some great performances, Farrell does his best work ever; Pádraic's idealism fades as he realizes that there's no reward for being nice".[20] The site also ranked it 15th on its list of the "50 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)".[78]
IndieWire includedThe Banshees of Inisherin on its list of "The 48 Saddest Movies", with Alison Foreman writing: "Martin McDonagh movies are practically synonymous with tragicomic clashes of philosophy, particularly if they're punctuated by outbursts of over-the-top violence ... Still, riding on the wee legs of little Jenny the miniature donkey,The Banshees of Inisherin pulls far ahead in the race for McDonagh's outright saddest film when two old drinking partners suddenly go their separate ways."[79] The site also ranked it #41 on its list of "The 92 Best Comedies of the 21st Century", with Christian Zilko writing that it "resonates because its premise is simply and painfully relatable. Anyone who's ever lost a friend, through their own fault or not, will be able to see themselves in the tale".[21]
In August 2023, JJ Devine's Pub was reassembled with the help ofKilkerrin local and publican Luke Mee, becoming a tourist destination due to the film's familiarity and popularity in the area.[80][81]
In July 2025,The Banshees of Inisherin ranked 123rd on the "Readers' Choice" edition ofThe New York Times's list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century".[82]
