Neil Jordan is one of Ireland’s greatest genre filmmakers and writers. He tackles progressive themes and concepts in his work, often relatable stories grounded in realism that overlap with the fantastical and the horrifying. It’s been 40 years since the world was introduced to Jordan with three consecutive brilliant films — Angel, In the Company of Wolves, and Mona Lisa, followed by a career of fascinating films like In Dreams, The End of the Affair, The Good Thief, and Michael Collins. Below is a selection of Jordan’s movies that made a major impact upon release.
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8 The Brave One (2007)
Warner Bros.
Jordan’s anemic 2007 Jodie Foster vehicle The Brave One had a fascinating premise, and Foster embracing the revenge subgenre had a ton of potential. At the time, the idea did seem like it might be a real crowd-pleaser. It didn’t, and although it has its moments, the movie is ultimately ruined by rote plotting, Foster’s barely believable descent into vigilante justice, and ‘justifiable homicide’ – it didn’t really ring true. And tacking a redemption arc (the film had three screenwriters) in the third act was cringe-worthy and Movie-of-the-Week sentimental. A missed opportunity.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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7 Greta (2018)
Focus Features
Just how far would you go to attain a perfect relationship? What would you be willing to do to hold onto that relationship once it’s in your grasp? How much would a connection like that compromise you: financially, morally, and physically? In Neil Jordan’s 2018 homage to psychodramas like Single White Female, Fatal Attraction, and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Isabelle Huppert perfectly depicts a thoroughly unhinged Grand Dame with major abandonment issues, and a homicidal streak. Chloë Grace Moretz plays the wide-eyed new girl in the city who finds herself in the cross-hairs of the woman’s obsession.
6 Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Warner Bros.
Not his first excursion into genre-centric territory, Interview with the Vampire is the first mainstream horror movie the director made that enjoyed commercial and critical success. Jordan’s lavish, creepy, and baroque adaptation of Anne Rice’s source material is a beloved Gothic masterpiece. Interview with the Vampire follows a trio of vampires – the remorseless Lestat (Tom Cruise), tortured Louis (Brad Pitt), and vampire child Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) as their immortal (often difficult) existence spans decades, betrayals, pettiness, and multiple-murder. Louise relates his tale to Christian Slater’s initially disbelieving journalist.
5 Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Pathe Distribution
Breakfast on Pluto (based on the Patrick McCabe novel of the same name) is Neil Jordan’s second attempt at tackling a transgender character (an amazing Cillian Murphy playing the protagonist, Kitten) amidst The Troubles. This cinematic incarnation of Kitten (Pussy Braden in the novel) underwent a considerably more market-friendly re-write. The multi-layered and sociopathic glamour-puss from the novel was gone, and we were offered a dreamy and whimsical character in her place. The film might have benefited from the inclusion of grittier and more grounded elements in the source material.
4 The Crying Game (1992)
Palace Pictures
In 1992 Neil Jordan tackled the IRA, personal redemption, and gender fluidity in the Irish/British production The Crying Game, which revolved around Stephen Rea’s redemption-seeking Fergus. The former IRA member relocates to the UK to make amends by tracking down the lover of Jody (Forest Whitaker), a man whose death Fergus is responsible for. His search leads him to the enigmatic and beautiful lounge singer Dil (Jaye Davidson) and things become increasingly more complicated. Miranda Richardson’s scene-stealing villain is a joy to watch. The so-called twist at the movie’s midway point is controversial now.
3 Byzantium (2012)
IFC Films
Neil Jordan subverts the vampire trope with a uniquely feminist slant in 2012’s Byzantium. Vampire duo Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor Webb (Saoirse Ronan) have eluded a misogynistic order of vampires, led by the suitably named Ruthven (Johnny Lee Miller). They flee to an out-of-the-way seaside town where Clara hooks up with the recently bereaved Noel (Daniel Mays), a lonely man who brings the women to a dilapidated hotel he owns called Byzantium. It is a small-scale movie that feels simultaneously expansive, and is Jordan’s second-best genre entry on the list.
2 The Butcher Boy (1997)
It is widely held that The Butcher Boy is Neil Jordan’s greatest film, and the adaptation of Patrick McCabe’s novel is so faithful to the original story, that Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens) practically walks off the page. In conservative small-town Ireland, Francie stands out like a sore thumb. A troubled boy from a troubled family and largely left to his own devices, he provokes and creates problems in a town under the thumb of the Catholic Church. Francie lives in the shadow of his father’s brutality, and his mother’s fragility and retreats into fantasy. He makes an enemy of Mrs. Nugent (Fiona Shaw) and it ends in tragedy.
1 In The Company of Wolves (1984)
ITC Entertainment
Released between his brilliant early films Angel and Mona Lisa, In The Company of Wolves is (in collaboration with Angela Carter) Neil Jordan’s experimental horror portmanteau, and is chock-full of the imaginative and grotesque imagery of fairytales. In the aftermath of a tragedy, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) is sent to her grandmother’s (the late Angela Lansbury) house, and Jordan and Carter slyly satirize Little Red Riding Hood for a modern audience (at the time of its release) with some astonishingly gruesome deviations from the original fairytale.
