Image credit: Sony Pictures Classics, IFC Films, DreamWorks Distribution, Bleecker Street Media, The Irish Film Board, Ripple World Pictures, Fox Searchlight, Twentieth Century Fox
If you haven't seen these movies, well, what are you waiting for? There's so much more to Cillian's filmography than "Peaky Blinders" and "Oppenheimer"!
1. Breakfast on Pluto (2005) Rotten Tomatoes score: 58% Cillian Murphy plays Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a transgender woman growing up in 1970s Ireland. Frustrated by her small-town life and conservative upbringing, she heads to London in search of her mother. Along the way, she gets into a variety of scrapes: briefly joins a rock band, ends up in a peep show, and even becomes a suspect in a London bombing due to a mix-up.
2. Intermission (2003) Rotten Tomatoes score: 74% This one's a bit of a chaotic ensemble piece set in Dublin. Cillian Murphy is John, a low-key guy who decides to break up with his girlfriend Deirdre (Kelly Macdonald). But he immediately regrets it. While John tries to win her back, a bunch of other interconnected stories play out around him.
There's a loser-turned-robber, a cop having a mid-life crisis, and a woman whose entire life is flipped upside-down due to a flying can of cola.
3. Red Eye (2005) Rotten Tomatoes score: 79% Cillian Murphy is Jackson Rippner, a man seated next to Lisa (Rachel McAdams) on a flight. At first, he seems charming, but soon reveals he's a terrorist operative. His mission: force Lisa to assist in the assassination of a U.S. official, or else her father dies.
Most of the movie takes place on the plane, making the tension as tight as a drum.
4. Disco Pigs (2001) Rotten Tomatoes score: 20% Murphy is Pig, best friends since birth with Runt (Elaine Cassidy). They live in their own world, speaking in a made-up language and shunning everyone else.
But as they approach their 17th birthdays, their intense friendship takes a dark turn. Pig's feelings for Runt evolve into a twisted form of love and obsession. Runt starts to crave freedom from their insular world, leading to a disturbing climax.
This was actually one of Murphy's first major roles, and boy, does he make an impression.
5. The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Rotten Tomatoes score: 90% Set during the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War that followed, Murphy plays Damien, a young doctor who joins his brother Teddy in the fight against the British. Damien abandons his burgeoning medical career to join the Irish Republican Army.
The film shows the harsh realities of war, from brutal guerrilla tactics to the moral dilemmas faced by those involved. Though the film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, it only grossed around $22 million worldwide.
6. Sunshine (2007) Rotten Tomatoes score: 76% Here's Murphy as Capa, a physicist on a space mission to reignite the dying sun. The crew has to drop a gigantic bomb into the sun, and the stakes are — as you can guess — astronomically high.
Tensions run high as equipment fails, crew members make fatal mistakes, and they discover the distress beacon of a ship that disappeared on the same mission seven years earlier.
7. Perrier's Bounty (2009) Rotten Tomatoes score: 53% This one's a dark comedy, full of quirky characters and absurd situations. Cillian Murphy is Michael, a guy with some serious debt issues. After failing to pay back Dublin's most ruthless gangster, Perrier, he finds himself on the run with his estranged father and his love-struck neighbor.
Gunfights, car chases, and dark humor ensue as they attempt to dodge Perrier's henchmen and other chaotic elements.
8. In Time (2011) Rotten Tomatoes score: 37% Imagine a world where time is currency. Well, Murphy doesn't have to because he starred in it. He plays Raymond, a Timekeeper tasked with maintaining the status quo in a society where people stop aging at 25 and have a clock on their arms that counts down how much time they have left to live.
Justin Timberlake's character, Will, gets his hands on a century's worth of time and aims to disrupt the system. Raymond relentlessly chases him, setting off a manhunt.
9. Retreat (2011) Rotten Tomatoes score: 62% A couple, played by Thandie Newton and Cillian Murphy, go to a remote island to mend their failing marriage. Just when you think they're settling in for some serious relationship therapy, a soldier (Jamie Bell) shows up, claiming a deadly airborne virus has wiped out the population.
With no way to confirm if he's telling the truth, the tension escalates as they fortify their cottage and prepare for an attack that may or may not come.
10. Anthropoid (2016) Rotten Tomatoes score: 67% In this World War II thriller Murphy plays Josef Gabcik, a Czechoslovakian soldier sent on a mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect behind the Final Solution. Along with his comrade Jan (Jamie Dornan), they return to occupied Czechoslovakia and plan the impossible.
The tension is palpable as they hide, plan, and finally attempt the audacious act. It's history at its most harrowing.
