Movies Similar to The Best Years

Life After Life(1995)

Leo Doyle, a convicted IRA murderer, is released into the community after 14 years in prison on a scheme to rehabilitate former terrorists. He soon finds that the ceasefire has robbed him of both purpose and identity. Relationships with his family are difficult and reach boiling point when they find that he has rekindled his affair with a former fiancee Roisin, now married with three children.

0.0

Holy Cross(2003)

Violence erupts in north Belfast when the residents of Glenbyrn, a predominantly Protestant suburb, object to schoolgirls walking through their neighbourhood from the Catholic area of Ardoyne to the Holy Cross primary school.

4.0

Brendan Smyth: Betrayal of Trust(2011)

The true story of the notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, and how one family in Belfast, aided by journalist Chris Moore, uncovered the true extent of the clerical abuse scandal.

4.0

The Devil's Own(1997)

Frankie McGuire, one of the IRA's deadliest assassins, draws an American family into the crossfire of terrorism. But when he is sent to the U.S. to buy weapons, Frankie is housed with the family of Tom O'Meara, a New York cop who knows nothing about Frankie's real identity. Their surprising friendship, and Tom's growing suspicions, forces Frankie to choose between the promise of peace or a lifetime of murder.

6.2

In the Name of the Father(1993)

A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in prison fighting to prove his innocence.

7.9

Omagh(2005)

The movie starts at the 1998 bomb attack by the Real IRA at Omagh, Northern Ireland. The attack killed 31 people. Michael Gallagher one of the relatives of the victims starts an examination to bring the people responsible to court.

6.3

Bloody Sunday(2002)

The dramatised story of the Irish civil rights protest march on January 30 1972 which ended in a massacre by British troops.

7.3

Maze(2017)

Inspired by the true events of the infamous 1983 prison breakout of 38 IRA prisoners from HMP Maze, which was to become the biggest prison escape in Europe since World War II.

5.9

It Is in Us All(2022)

A Londoner returns to his ancestral homeland of Donegal in the west of Ireland and is drawn in by a teenage boy who almost kills him in a car crash.

5.2

Five Minutes of Heaven(2009)

The story of former Ulster Volunteer Force member Alistair Little. Twenty-five years after Little killed Joe Griffin's brother, the media arrange an auspicious meeting between the two.

6.1

The Craic(1999)

When Fergus and Wesley get in the bad books of a local rough in their home town in Northern Ireland they decide to flee to Australia. After making a new life for themselves in Sydney they soon outstay their visas and must go on the run again, this time from the immigration officials.

5.5

The Crying Game(1992)

Irish Republican Army member Fergus forms an unexpected bond with Jody, a kidnapped British soldier in his custody, despite the warnings of fellow IRA members Jude and Maguire. Jody makes Fergus promise he'll visit his girlfriend, Dil, in London, and when Fergus flees to the city, he seeks her out. Hounded by his former IRA colleagues, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic, and surprising, Dil.

6.8

Patriot Games(1992)

When CIA Analyst Jack Ryan interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets Jack and his family as revenge.

6.7

Kneecap(2024)

When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed "low life scum" Naoise and Liam Óg, the needle drops on a hip-hop act like no other. Rapping in their native Irish, they lead a movement to save their mother tongue.

7.2

The Attendant(2012)

Frankie is a car park attendant at the spectacular Giant’s Causeway in Co. Antrim. His friend Cathy and her husband Paul are in trouble. Nevertheless as Frankie always says, "Something will turn up!"

4.3

Hunger(2008)

The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.

7.2

Cyprus Avenue(2019)

David Ireland's award-winning dark comedy about sectarian hatred in Northern Ireland. Eric Miller, a Belfast loyalist, mistakes his five-week-old granddaughter for Gerry Adams.

9.0

The Writing on the Wall(1983)

A youth workshop in Derry is mounting various projects, including a dramatized enquiry into the death of a soldier. But when a squaddie is shot on the doorstep, then real life intrudes in the shape of the police and security forces.

0.0

Elephant(1989)

A chilling depiction of a series of violent killings during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

6.5

Mickybo and Me(2005)

The film tells the story of two boys who become friends at the start of the Troubles in 1970. The boys share an obsession with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with the consequence that they run away to Australia.

7.0