Irish cinema has long wrestled with history, identity and landscape, perhaps nowhere more powerfully than in Ken Loach's Palme d'Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Animation has been another quiet strength, with studios like Cartoon Saloon bringing genuine beauty to folklore and myth. See what Macca made of it all below.
Rating: 3.5★
There are films that arrive quietly, made on modest budgets by small studios in countries not traditionally associated with feature animation, and then somehow end up nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The Secret of Kells is precisely that kind of film. Released in 2009 and co-
Rating: 3.5★
Osama arrived in 2003 as a genuinely singular piece of cinema: the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime. That fact alone gives it a peculiar, almost documentary weight before a single frame has played. The Taliban had effectively abolished cinema in
Rating: 2.5★
The Aztec death whistle is one of those historical curiosities that sounds almost too good to be true. Unearthed by archaeologists in Mexico during the 1990s, these small clay instruments shaped like skulls produce a sound variously described as a human scream, a howling wind, or something altogether harder to
Rating: 3.5★
June 1993 is a date that carries enormous weight in Nigerian history. The military government of Ibrahim Babangida annulled what is widely regarded as the freest election the country had ever held, a result that would have seen Moshood Abiola take the presidency. The cancellation triggered waves of civil unrest,
Rating: 2.0★
The Mummy is one of those properties that refuses to stay buried. From the Universal Monsters era of the 1930s through to the sun-baked, adventure-serial fun of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the franchise has proved remarkably elastic, bending itself to suit whatever the prevailing mood in
Rating: 4.0★
Female genital mutilation is one of the most widely practised and least openly discussed human rights issues in the world. The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone some form of the procedure, with prevalence particularly high across parts of sub-
Rating: 2.5★
The Evil Dead franchise occupies a peculiar corner of horror history. Sam Raimi's original 1981 film was a shoestring-budget affair shot in rural Tennessee, equal parts terrifying and accidental slapstick, and it launched careers, spawned a devoted cult following, and essentially wrote the rulebook for a certain
Genre Drama
★★★★½ — I Swear (2025)
Genre Drama
★★★★ — The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Genre Family
★★★★½ — Song of the Sea (2014)
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