The Banshees of Inisherin
Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: October 21, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 62 Critic Reviews
Positive:
58
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatBenjamin FranzDec 23, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is a magnificent film telling a great, compelling story. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 26, 2022
In “Banshees,” Gleeson and Farrell once again are pure movie magic together, with Gleeson’s gruff and rugged and imposing persona the perfect counterpart to Farrell’s handsome and wide-eyed transparency, which at times borders on the, well, the not-too-bright. Earnest, but not too bright. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldOct 25, 2022
Wickedly clever and unexpectedly touching. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeOct 24, 2022
It’s an end-of-friendship breakup movie that swings between the hilarious, the horrifying and the heartbreaking in magnificent fashion. Read full review
100
Little White LiesHannah StrongOct 21, 2022
Its delicate blend of wryly observed humanity and thoughtful, understated visuals mean that the more dramatic beats hit harder. Even the occasional moments of gore feel shocking for the sparsity with which McDonagh chooses to deploy them. Read full review
100
SlateDana StevensOct 21, 2022
As it moves toward an ambiguous and haunting finale, The Banshees of Inisherin has the fanciful yet gruesome quality of a folk tale or fairytale, a mood enhanced by Carter Burwell’s harp-and-flute-heavy score and Ben Davis’ painterly widescreen cinematography. Read full review
100
ObserverRex ReedOct 21, 2022
Mr. McDonogh’s keenly observed plot turns and his understated but meticulously chronicled dialogue, combined with shocks you don’t see coming, stark but beautiful cinematography by Ben Davis, and uniformly brilliant performances by a perfect cast add up to an exemplary film that will leave you stunned. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithOct 21, 2022
Wounded but funny, quiet but resonant and resistant to anything like a Hollywood formula, The Banshees of Inisherin is a strangely profound little comedy. It’s one of the few true originals among movies this year. Read full review
100
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyOct 21, 2022
The Banshees of the Inisherin is really a beautiful work to behold. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubTomris LafflyOct 20, 2022
Writer-director Martin McDonagh’s soulful masterpiece offers a a windswept elegy on a camaraderie that has reached its inexplicable expiration, as well as melancholic rumination on mortality. Read full review
100
The Associated PressLindsey BahrOct 18, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is a rich, soulful journey, full of agony, dry Irish wit and big, haunting questions. If it’s answers you’re looking for, however, you’re not going to find them on Inisherin. Read full review
100
We Got This CoveredBeau PaulOct 5, 2022
In Martin McDonagh's morbidly hilarious meditation on male friendship, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson turn in performances every bit as powerful as in 'In Bruges' and paint a heartbreaking but comic look at one happens when one man doesn't want to be friends with another anymore. Read full review
100
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 6, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is a beautifully-shot and deftly-played comedy. It is at once masterful, surprisingly poignant, and profound. Its portrait of a friendship faltering ultimately proves how vital friendship actually is: how vulnerable and naked we are without it. Read full review
100
VarietyGuy LodgeSep 5, 2022
The result feels closer than any of his previous films to the barbed, intimate lyricism of McDonagh’s work as a playwright, and more deeply, sorrowfully felt to boot. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 5, 2022
This is an often shoulder-shudderingly funny film, whose comic dialogue is dazzlingly designed and performed. But McDonagh leaves fate itself with the last, black, bone-rattling laugh. Read full review
98
Paste MagazineMatthew JacksonSep 28, 2022
In its unwavering devotion to the straightforward nature of its story, The Banshees of Inisherin has found something profound and universal, something that will leave you both laughing and shaken to your core. It’s the kind of film that crawls into your soul and stays there. Read full review
96
The AtlanticShirley LiOct 25, 2022
It’s bleak and brutal—and deeply affecting. Read full review
95
SlashfilmMarshall ShafferSep 5, 2022
Within The Banshees of Inisherin, McDonagh manages to capture both the elemental resonance of folklore with the sophisticated weightiness of classic stage drama. This tragicomic tale nimbly balances both the personal and political dimensions of his richly developed characters and scenarios. Read full review
92
TheWrapSteve PondSep 5, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is lovely and disturbing in equal measure, turning its darkest urges and blackest humors into a touching and evocative portrait of a time, a place, a community and a pair of crazy men. Read full review
91
Original-CinKaren GordonOct 27, 2022
The Irish have struggled to find peace on a road historically paved with war. The little village in The Banshees of Inisherin seems a microcosm of the complexity of maintaining that peace, even among ostensible friends. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 14, 2022
To be corny, which the film is decidedly not, it's about life: the brevity of it, the risks we do or don't take, who in the end we choose to share it with. And for all the pettiness, absurdity, and outright threats of violence, it's pretty feckin' wonderful. Read full review
91
ColliderBrian FormoSep 5, 2022
Like the sparse land of its setting, Inisherin is a film that reveals multitudes through observation and reflection. While I’m writing mostly of its emotional seriousness, it is also compassionate and humorous. Read full review
91
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 5, 2022
Rich, layered, and full of beautiful shapeshifting emotional depth—at times laugh-out-loud funny, and then stopping on a dime to turn melancholy, heartrending, and or horrifying—The Banshee of Insherin will surely unsettle audiences trying to pinpoint blame or ascribe a hero or villain to the piece. Its morality and personal sympathies are purposefully opaque. Read full review
90
VoxAlissa WilkinsonOct 25, 2022
The break between Colm and Pádraic works on its own terms, but it’s also a startlingly violent fight between men who are basically brothers, a fight that has a logic to it and yet is heartbreaking precisely because of the depth of history between them. It’s the conflict in microcosm. Read full review
90
Rolling StoneDavid FearOct 24, 2022
McDonagh also wants to give his actors a hell of a showcase, too, and it’s the two stars butting brows at the center of The Banshees of Inisherin that make this a masterpiece of men behaving very feckin’ badly. Read full review
90
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorOct 24, 2022
Both Colm’s initial rejection of Padraic and Padraic’s final crazed reaction are not the stuff of realism or reason but of fairy tales and nightmares, yet Gleeson and Farrell make the film a delight. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 20, 2022
One measure of the movie’s skill, and its generosity, is that it embraces the wisdom of both its protagonists. You’ll share Colm’s exasperation and defend his right to pursue an unimpeded life of music and the mind, but you’ll also concede Pádraic’s point that kindness and camaraderie leave behind their own indelible if often invisible legacies. Read full review
90
ABC NewsPeter TraversOct 14, 2022
Ignited by career-best performances from Farrell and Gleason, this new classic from son of Ireland Martin McDonagh brims over with dark comic magic and jolts of bloody scary hell. Fasten your seatbelts for a spellbinder that stands high with the best movies of the year. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreSep 16, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is like watching two cars slowly set out on a collision course ending in a crash that would be easily averted if one would just give way. But it’s also a caustic masterstroke of anti-romanticism, a counter to every starry-eyed screen portrait (often made by an American) of rural Ireland as a verdant sanctuary of close traditions, quirky characters, and a more authentic way of life. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 5, 2022
Farrell brings extra layers of depth and mournfulness to the classic McDonagh pattern. He’s the character you want to protect, and the one who sends your heart sinking when you see him harden, out of necessity, against the world. He gives The Banshees of Inisherin its soul and its beauty. To look at his face is to understand the half-welcoming, half-unforgiving place known as home. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 5, 2022
There’s more than a hint of other-worldly tragedy here, limned in parallel with the allusions to political conflict whose root causes no-one can quite remember. Read full review
90
UproxxMike RyanSep 5, 2022
Like In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin is a dark movie that is often downright hilarious. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 5, 2022
For all its wit, its lively talk and deceptive lightness, this is arguably the writer-director’s most affecting work. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleTrace SauveurOct 26, 2022
Every laugh-out-loud line is punctuated by an ever-present sense of both despair and unpredictability. Read full review
88
USA TodayBrian TruittNov 3, 2022
Banshees masterfully explores the complications of a platonic friendship – when old pals stop being polite and start getting real – with a sailor’s mouth and a mix of hilarity and tragedy in one wail of a tale. Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenOct 21, 2022
It’s Farrell who truly makes the dialogue sing, polishing off the punchlines (or responding to them) with facial reactions that add a few more laughs to every scene. Then, as the seriousness sets in, Farrell brings a deep sadness to the performance that’s staggering. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 19, 2022
The tapestry is large enough for the big screen and the overall experience will reward the movie-goer far more than something slick and superficial like Don’t Worry Darling. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineMark HansonSep 22, 2022
As dark as things get, the film never abandons its sly sense of humor. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiSep 13, 2022
Banshees, reuniting Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell from “In Bruges,” is a scream from start to finish-erin. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennySep 6, 2022
With 2008’s “In Bruges,” and now “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the Irish actors, under the writing and directing aegis of frequently pleasantly perverse Martin McDonagh, display a chemistry and virtuosic interplay that recalls nothing so much as the maestros of the early 20th-century Comedy of Exasperation. Read full review
83
ConsequencePaolo RagusaOct 17, 2022
As an allegory to civil war, it’s well-worked and deeply thoughtful. But overall, the film leaves a slightly bitter taste, and — perhaps purposely — lacks some of the final third conviction that McDonagh has achieved so often in his stage and film work. Read full review
83
The Film StageLuke HicksSep 7, 2022
Without his trademark vulgarity and narrative absurdity, McDonagh’s challenged himself to draw humor and meaning from the mundane. And he does. Read full review
83
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 5, 2022
This isn’t a film that strives for big laughs — McDonagh seems more interested in putting you in a particular frame of mind, even when doing so requires a fair bit of downtime and dead air — but 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. Read full review
80
NMEJames MottramNov 2, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin is that rare thing: a film that will have you chuckling one minute, gasping the next. A story about what matters more – your legacy or your life – McDonagh has created a work of feckin’ brilliance. Read full review
80
BBCNicholas BarberOct 26, 2022
It has the ring of a tall tale that has been told in pub after pub, gathering weird new details every time, until it has become a part of Irish folklore. It's a story that you'll want to hear – and tell – again and again. Read full review
80
PolygonSiddhant AdlakhaOct 21, 2022
The movie is such a rich, emotionally detailed text that not sticking the landing is only a minor mark against it. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeOct 21, 2022
Gleeson and Farrell play off one another in a perfect complement — sulky gorilla opposite enthusiastic puppy — that, as awards season kicks up a gear, has been entertaining premiere audiences on both red carpets and inside the auditorium. Read full review
80
IGNHanna FlintOct 17, 2022
Colin Farrell plumbs emotional and comedic depths in Martin McDonagh’s witty and wistful period drama, with Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan on solid supporting duty. Set against the stunning vistas of Ireland, The Banshees of Inisherin tells an effective and corrosive tale of friendship. Read full review
80
Screen RantMatthew CreithSep 26, 2022
Dark and violent at times, The Banshees of Inisherin's use of juxtaposition make for a compelling and simultaneously hysterical film for the ages. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenSep 5, 2022
What makes it work so well, aside from a rollickingly funny but never smirky McDonagh script that arms every member of its small ensemble with killer moments, is the reuniting of In Bruges’s two leads, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinSep 5, 2022
The film is engrossing and beautifully mounted, and is sure to not disappoint anyone who’s enjoyed McDonagh’s previous rough rides. Read full review
80
Total FilmJordan FarleySep 5, 2022
McDonagh’s latest is a worthy In Bruges reunion: smart, funny, deeply felt. Read full review
80
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 5, 2022
Those wary of McDonagh after the bulldozer that was Billboards should seek out this film; at its best, The Banshees of Inisherin whispers and laments and amuses the way McDonagh’s best stage writing does. And it offers the invaluable opportunity to see Farrell in his hangdog element, as Pádraic scrambles about trying to find purchase in the world, ever creaking and groaning in motion. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 5, 2022
There are plenty of genuine laughs in this movie, but each of them seems to dovetail into a banshee-wail of pain. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 14, 2022
Equal parts funny and forlorn, with a smattering of the violence that always been a sort of Emerald Isle background noise, The Banshees of Inisherin is Martin McDonagh’s most Irish film, because it’s a lot like Ireland itself. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 26, 2022
The result is McDonagh’s most fully realized work since his breakthrough play, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” a generation ago. “Banshees” has its limitations; it’s pretty glib, like everything McDonagh writes, in its mashup of blackhearted laughs and occasional sincerity. He’s akin to the Coen brothers in that regard. He’s also a formidable craftsman and his best lines are pearls. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottOct 21, 2022
The Banshees of Inisherin might feel a little thin if you hold it to conventional standards of comedy or drama. It’s better thought of as a piece of village gossip, given a bit of literary polish and a handsome pastoral finish. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 17, 2022
What animates The Banshees of Inisherin and saves it from stiffness is the clout of the performances. Within the oxlike Colm, thanks to Gleeson, we glimpse a ruminative despair, and Farrell adds Pádraic to his gallery of heroes so hapless that they forfeit all claim to the heroic. The movie, however, belongs to Condon. Read full review
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