Cillian Murphy's 10 best roles - the Culture countdown

We Irish have known about Cillian Murphy’s prowess as an actor for decades by this stage, but it’s only in recent years that the rest of the world has cottoned on, too.

Indeed, the last 12 months have been huge for the Cork native, with the role of a lifetime in Oppenheimer, an Oscar win for the same and now a powerful homegrown story in Tim Mielants’ adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These for the big screen.

To mark the release of that film, here’s a rundown of Murphy’s ten best TV and film roles to date...

1. DISCO PIGS (2001)

Murphy’s partnership with playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh stretches right back to 1996, when he made his professional theatre debut in Disco Pigs. In 2001, he reprised the role of teenage Darren (aka Pig) opposite co-star Elaine Cassidy (aka Runt) in the dark coming-of-age drama. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan, Murphy excels as the complex Pig, whose obsessive relationship with his childhood friend leads down a dark and violent path.

2. 28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Danny Boyle’s horror was a revelation in a multitude of ways - not least because it revolutionised the zombie genre for a new generation, but because of Murphy’s performance. Who can forget that iconic scene of him in hospital scrubs, head bandaged, walking across an eerily deserted London Bridge? He rose to the challenge of a big budget, effects-laden studio movie with aplomb, losing none of his charisma amid the CGI. What's more, he'll be back in at least one of a new trilogy of sequels...

3. BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (2005)

Having been drawn to leftfield theatre work in his various collaborations with the aforementioned Walsh, Murphy threw fans of his work another curveball in Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Patrick McCabe’s 1998 novel. His performance as Patrick 'Kitten’ Braden, a transgender woman in search of her birth mother in 1970s Northern Ireland and London, was revelatory as he portrayed the damaged Kitten with tender pathos and wry humour.

4. BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

Christopher Nolan is a figure who has loomed large throughout Murphy’s career, and with good reason; the auteur has provided him with some of his meatiest and most challenging roles to date. His first collaboration with Nolan was as the villainous Professor Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow in the first of Nolan’s acclaimed Batman trilogy, a criminal mastermind intent on wreaking havoc on Gotham; turns out he’s a pretty convincing baddie, too.

5. THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (2006)

For schoolkids of a certain generation, this may have been their first introduction to Murphy; Ken Loach’s Irish Civil War drama is still shown in classrooms the length and breadth of the country. Murphy plays Damien O’Donovan, who fights for independence against the British with his brother Teddy (Pádraic Delaney) - but finds their fraternal bond fractured as they choose opposing sides during the subsequent Civil War. Loach won the Palme d’Or for the film at the Cannes Film Festival, which was praised for both its historical accuracy and its heartrending story of two brothers divided - but Murphy’s central performance was worthy of an award, too.

6. SUNSHINE (2007)

Murphy returned to the sci-fi fold with his second Danny Boyle film - in Sunshine, he played an astronaut in 2057, who is part of a mission to reignite the dying sun and save humanity on a freezing Earth. As his ship makes its way to the sun, they receive a distress call from another ship - and, well, you can guess that things don’t quite go to plan. Influenced by the likes of Kubrick, Tarkovsky and Ridley Scott’s Alien, it remains an underrated gem in both Murphy and Boyle’s catalogue.

7. INCEPTION (2010)

Whenever you read about Inception, it’s usually praising Christopher Nolan’s direction or Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance. Not without reason, of course - but Murphy was part of an impressive ensemble that also featured the likes of Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine. He played the spoiled heir to a business empire (apparently basing his performance on Rupert Murdoch’s sons) and the target for DiCaprio’s team, who attempt to infiltrate his subconscious in a bid to implode his father’s business. Standard Nolan fare...

8. PEAKY BLINDERS (2013)

If there’s one thing you can’t fault Cillian Murphy on, it’s his ability to nail accents. In 2013, he took on his first major TV role playing the ice-cool antihero Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, and perfecting the Brummie accent, to boot. Murphy was roundly praised for his steely portrayal of Shelby, the leader of the notorious late 19th century Birmingham gang who is frequently caught between family, the law and rival gangs. He also single-handedly revived the peaked cap as a fashion statement, too.

9. OPPENHEIMER (2023)

Murphy has been part of ensembles in various Christopher Nolan films over the years, but this one placed him front and centre for the first time - and he rose to the challenge with an astoundingly convincing leading man performance. In Nolan’s atomic bomb epic, Murphy’s portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer was perfectly pitched between ambition and contrition; he inhabited the notorious physicist so convincingly that it deservedly won him an Oscar and a Golden Globe (among numberous other awards) for his efforts.

10. SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE (2024)

The joy of following Murphy’s career is that you never quite know where he’s going to go next. From the biggest role of his career in the epic Oppenheimer to a story set in 1950s smalltown Ireland about the Magdalene Laundries, his CV remains enjoyably mercurial. In Small Things Like These (adapted by his old mucker Enda Walsh from Claire Keegan’s superb novel), he plays Bill Furlong - an unassuming coal merchant and father, who is drawn into a dark secret following a discovery when making a delivery at the local convent. His understated performance, laced with a disquieted anguish, is central to the beautiful film’s emotional arc.

Small Things Like These is in cinemas nationwide now.