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In interviews, Cillian Murphy always gives the impression that his enormous and continuing success as an actor has been a complete accident. Not your usual, 'who, little old me? No!' kind of Hollywood accident, but a genuine clerical error.
It's as if he was just doing some acting at home in his spare time, and one day he realised that Christopher Nolan had filmed him through the bedroom window and cut him into Inception, and since then has played along out of embarrassment.
Obviously, Murphy's natural reticence disguises the truth. He's brilliant. Directors love his soulful, expressive eyes and ability to soften superficially awful characters with a backbone of nobility, and it's led him to some extremely interesting places. But which of those places is the best? We've run through his filmography and put all his feature-length movies in order of excellence.
Oh, and before anyone says anything: we're not counting The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises because he's basically not in them. Do not argue.
33. Aloft (2014)
Wafting along propelled by a noxious blend of wibbly-woo mysticism, barely-there plot, some extremely self-satisfied navel-gazing and Murphy playing a falcon trainer, Aloft very barely gets off the ground.
32. In Time (2011)
Fairly rote action thing that doesn't ever really get over how clever it thinks its central premise is. Its central premise? In the future, everyone – including Justin Timberlake – has a clock in their arm that starts counting down the years they have left to live when they hit 25. Time is currency, basically. Murphy is a Timekeeper, basically a cop who reckons Timberlake killed an old man for his time units. The film succeeds in making you think about how precious each passing moment of life is, though only because you'll soon realise this is 109 minutes you won't get back.
31. Transcendence (2014)
Another post-Inception techno-thriller that doesn't come close to hitting the mark, and frequently makes little to no sense. Something about nanoparticles which could save the world but there are some dark forces at work that don't like it and etc etc. Plus, Johnny Depp's in it. Honk.
30. In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
Ron Howard's story of the story behind Moby Dick stiffed at the box office, and it hasn't improved since then.
29. Red Lights (2012)
Plodding drama in which Murphy helps Sigourney Weaver investigate a psychic medium played by Robert De Niro. But hang on, is he really the big liar they think he is? Is he a charlatan? Or is he the real deal? (He's a charlatan.) There's also an absolutely honking twist at the end, which I'll save you from right now: Murphy is an actual psychic all along and is, for some reason, on the wind-up. Rubbish.
28. Tron: Legacy (2010)
The brevity of this uncredited cameo would normally disqualify this follow-up to 1982's Tron from entry onto the rankings, but seeing as he's in it roughly as much as Daft Punk, and that their cameo is one of the few bits of the film anyone remembers, we'll allow it. And there's Michael Sheen doing Glass Spider-era David Bowie. Murphy is uncredited as a shitty waistcoated tech bro and has a couple of lines in a boardroom scene, but the main takeaway is his 2007 scene kid haircut.
27. Anna (2019)
Luc Besson directing a highly stylised action flick about a sexy assassin? Quelle surprise. If you're a Besson fan – and, lord above, there can't be many of you around these days after all the allegations against him – you'll probably feel like you've seen this film a few times before. Plus Helen Mirren's in it, and as brilliant as she is she's been in uniformly rubbish films since 2015.
26. The Edge of Love (2008)
Loosely based on real life, this love triangle drama pivots around the poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys), his wife, the writer Caitlin (Sienna Miller), and singer Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley), who still carries a flame for Thomas from their youth together in Swansea. Murphy is William Killick, Vera's husband who finds himself on a collision course with Thomas. It's a little overegged, and it's tonally wobbly.
25. The Trench (1999)
You'll notice the logo in that new trailer pinches the 1917 look pretty shamelessly, but low-budget First World War drama The Trench doesn't have anywhere near that film's muddy authenticity or flat-out horror. It's a bit stagey, and you never really get the sense that anyone's anywhere except stood on a set in a hangar somewhere near Elstree. That said, the cast's strong – Daniel Craig, Ben Whishaw, Danny Dyer before he went pwopa nawty – and the claustrophobia of the trench is well evoked.
24. Peacock (2010)
Your enjoyment of Peacock will hinge on exactly how comfortable you are with a psychological thriller that uses a character's dissociative identity disorder as its narrative engine, but it's a fairly functional film with an intense, sweaty, deeply impressive performance from Murphy at the heart of it as both the intensely grey John and his other persona, Emma. John is forced to lie to the town and tell them Emma's his wife, which obviously causes more problems than it solves. Susan Sarandon and Ellen Page are in it too.
23. On The Edge (2001)
Another low-budget drama, this one sees Murphy play a suicidal young man who, in 24 hours sees his dad die, does a lot of cocaine, cops off with someone else's girlfriend and drives a stolen car off a cliff. Sent to a mental health facility, he tries to sort himself out. It's a little bit like an Irish One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: it's more offbeat and downbeat, but it's still about the healing power of rebellion.
22. Cold Mountain (2003)
This star-studded saga set in the dying days of the American Civil War scored seven Oscar nominations and critical acclaim, but don't watch it if you're hoping for loads of Murphy. His character Bardolph basically looks at a baby, takes off his shoes and trousers, and then gets shot by Natalie Portman.
21. Intermission (2003)
That trailer sells this as some kind of knockabout caper, but it's a fair bit darker than that. Colin Farrell, Shirley Henderson, Colm Meaney, Kelly Macdonald star alongside Murphy in a rogue's gallery of absolute scumbags and grotesques whose lives intersect and yet, somehow, they combine to make a surprisingly likeable film about an attempted abduction, collapsing relationships and an unfortunate bus crash.
20. How Harry Became A Tree (2001)
Murphy plays Gus, the put-upon son of Harry Maloney (Colm Meany), the local hard bastard, in this slightly odd little film. Maloney is out to ruin the reputation of businessman, matchmaker and all-round Mr Big George O'Flaherty, while Gus needs his help to set him up with barmaid Eileen. Its rhythms are a bit stilted and off-kilter, but it's charming.
19. The Tale of Sweety Barrett (1998)
Murphy's first big-screen appearance came in this whimsical Irish drama alongside Brendan Gleeson, Game of Thrones' Liam Cunningham and Andy Serkis. Gleeson is Sweety Barrett, a slightly dim circus performer who swallows unlikely things but loses his job and ends up doing odd jobs to get by, and gets mixed up in some legal bother. Murphy pootles about not really doing very much but he does it very tidily.
18. Girl With A Pearl Earring (2003)
Murphy's Pieter is the lovelorn suitor to Johannes Vermeer's (Colin Firth) housemaid and muse Griet (Scarlett Johansson), and as the slow-burning drama burns – slowly – it becomes clear that poor old Piety can't really hold a candle to the Dutch master and Colin Firth's outrageous wig, and that his pursuit probably isn't going to do much good. Or will it? No, it won't. A superior costume drama, but not much more.
17. Sunburn (1999)
Not a prequel to Sunshine in which everyone makes the most of the last few months of free vitamin D by slapping on the tanning oil, but a playful comedy-drama about a gang of Irish students who head to America for the summer. At the height of the second golden age of American college flicks, this struck a less aggressively testosterone-fuelled tone. Quite nice.
16. Perrier's Bounty (2009)
Sounds like the fizzy water brand has bought out the makers of the coconut bar wrapped in a gentle chocolate cuddle, but is actually a slightly uneven black comedy about heists, debts and crims in Dublin. The cast makes it worth giving a whirl though: Jodie Whittaker is Murphy's mate Brenda, Domhnall Gleeson turns up as a snooker-obsessed drug dealer, Jim Broadbent plays Murphy's dad, and Brendan Gleeson is the gangland big man Perrier. He does look quite distractingly like Phoenix Nights' Den Perry, though.
15. Retreat (2011)
This moody – some would say rather relentlessly, batteringly moody – chamber piece about an incredibly deadly outbreak of disease doesn't feel like quite such a laugh now that everyone's stocking up on face masks and hand sanitiser, but it's a well managed claustrophobic thriller. Married couple Martin and Kate (Murphy and Thandie Newton) are on their hols on a remote Scottish island when news of the outbreak lands, along with a very intense soldier (Jamie Bell). Is it true though? Or are they all losing their marbles?
14. Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Making a hopeful and warm comedy out of a story about a trans woman, Kitten (Murphy), who was abandoned as a child, becomes homeless, smuggles guns for the IRA and is nearly murdered by a man paying her for sex seems an uphill struggle, but here we are. The big guns of Irish cinema are here too, including Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson.
13. Broken (2012)
This downbeat coming-of-age drama focuses on 11-year-old Skunk, who's merrily pottering about on her summer holidays when she sees one of her friends being beaten up by an adult on her estate. Murphy is Skunk's favourite teacher, but he gets hauled into the intrigue when he's accused of having got a very angry dad's daughter pregnant. It's all a bit 'oh dear, Broken Britain'.
12. The Delinquent Season (2018)
This unshowy, autumnal love triangle drama didn't make much of a dent when it originally opened, despite starring not just Murphy but Andrew Scott too. Jim (Murphy) and Danielle (Eva Birthistle) are happily and mundanely married, while Danielle's friends Yvonne (Catherine Walker) and Chris (Scott) are less happily so. When Chris exits the scene, affairs and intrigue abound. Underrated.
11. Red Eye (2005)
Directed by A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream's Wes Craven, this seems on first glance to be an entirely inane rom-com, but changes gears very abruptly into the mode of a psychological horror thriller. Trapped on a plane next to the glassily menacing Murphy, Rachel McAdams has to find a way to outsmart his character, Rippner, before he directs his accomplice to kill her politician father. Oh yeah: just to give you an idea of the tone, Murphy's character is called Jackson Rippner. Subtle. It's a very solid thriller though.
10. The Party (2017)
A witty black-and-white story that unfurls over 71 real-time minutes, The Party is about a very unassuming soirée to celebrate a politician's ascension to shadow health minister – only Murphy's character has other things on his mind, and a gun in his hand. There's a pretty stellar ensemble involved including Kristin Scott Thomas, Timothy Spall, Patricia Clarkson and Bruno Ganz, and it blasts by.
9. Anthropoid (2016)
While the Czechoslovakian government was in exile in London, two agents were sent back to their homeland with a plan: assassinate high-ranking Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, the man in charge of the occupied country. It's appropriately tough and doesn't feel the need to embroider an already incredible, devastating story. Plus, it's another opportunity for Murphy to wear some nice mid-century suits.
8. Disco Pigs (2001)
The stage play of Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs was Murphy's first gig as an actor, and it catapulted him into the broader consciousness. He returned to the part of the intensely volatile and obsessive 17-year-old boy 'Pig' for the film, which follows 'Pig' and his soulmate 'Runt'. Born in the same hospital at almost the same moment, they have a near-telepathic connection, but when they begin to leave childhood, 'Pig' struggles to let go of the relationship they had. It's haunting, and if you want a distillation of what Murphy was all about in the first part of his career, start here.
7. Sunshine (2007)
The second collaboration between Danny Boyle, Murphy and Ex Machina and Annihilation writer Alex Garland doesn't work quite as well as 28 Days Later, but it's still got everything you'd expect of the three. In 2057, Earth begins to freeze, so Murphy's Dr Robert Capa leads a mission to relight the dying Sun using a gigantic nuclear warhead. Boyle brings his kinetic, wide-eyed style, Garland's script focuses on the big questions of existence and the human condition, and Murphy is believably wracked. It goes off the boil in the last third, but it's more interesting than most blockbusters.
6. Free Fire (2016)
Ben Wheatley's follow-up to the splenetic, scenic, slow-burning Sightseers couldn't have been much further from that story of road-tripping Brummie murderers. Murphy and a top ensemble cast – Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Michael Smiley and Sam Riley, plus a cameo from Paul Williams, who wrote loads of songs for the Muppets and Bugsy Malone – are at the centre of an IRA gun deal that goes south, and which leads to 90 minutes of explosive every-man-for-himself action. High-grade genre thrills.
5. Dunkirk (2017)
Probably Christopher Nolan's most conventional time-warping film, but still one of the most unusual and original summer blockbusters ever. To tell the miracle-from-disaster story of the Dunkirk evacuation in May and June 1940, three timelines interweave: a week on the beach; a day Mark Rylance's little boat; and an hour with Tom Hardy in the air. Known only as 'Shivering Soldier', the shell-shocked Murphy is picked up by Rylance somewhere in the English Channel. His wild intensity and haunted, sunken eyes – plus his traumatic war experiences – echo Tommy Shelby, and in spite of the slightly tally-ho tone of some moments, his storyline is the most poignant and bittersweet of the three.
4. Batman Begins (2005)
Yes, yes, The Dark Knight's great. We all remember the three consecutive Halloweens when you'd see at least three Heath Ledger Jokers at any one time. But Batman Begins is better. No, listen. Listen. Batman Begins was an enormous surprise when it arrived, lean and poised and untroubled by the spectre of the Batman & Robin debacle. It was a proper action blockbuster, not a kids' film which hoped you'd forgive its obvious shitness in the name of camp. Sure, tapping up Christian Bale to channel his Patrick Bateman energy into Bruce Wayne was inspired, as was pairing him with Michael Caine. But Murphy as corrupt and very sweaty psychologist Dr Jonathan Crane – The Scarecrow – makes for such a convincing bad guy that the final twist about the identity of Ra's al Ghul lands that much harder.
3. Inception (2010)
Chris Nolan has his favourites, and Murphy is second only to Michael Caine as a lucky gonk in his filmography. The dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream construction of Inception could have been unwieldy and confusing, but with Murphy at its centre as the subject of an elaborate brain-heist it all hangs together. As fun as the gang's adventures through the subconscious are, it wouldn't work without Murphy making you feel for fundamentally unsympathetic member of the one percent. Robert Fischer (Murphy) takes over his dad's company, but Leo DiCaprio's gang are going to change his mind about it from the inside. That Murphy manages to make you care about a man who is essentially empty spiritually is a huge achievement. Plus, look at that cast: DiCaprio, Hardy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Caine and the much-missed Pete Postlethwaite. Murphy keeps up with them all, not least in the heartstring-tugging final meeting with his dad.
2. 28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle's not-a-zombie-horror-zombie-horror gave the genre a new year zero, sidestepping most of the conventions that George A Romero's Dead series set out in the 1960s and 70s. These 'zombies' were victims of the Rage virus, and they wouldn't shuffle awkwardly along – they'd sprint after you. Murphy is Jim, a cycle courier who wakes in hospital to find central London abandoned – his stupefied, dreamlike wander across Westminster Bridge, down Whitehall, around Horseguards' Parade and along the mall is still a haunting bit of cinema.
1. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)
Ken Loach's Palme D'Or winning treatise on the Irish War of Independence and Civil War in the years following the First World War remains a staggering achievement. It follows Damien O'Donovan (Murphy) and his brother Teddy (Pádraic Delaney), and Damien's decision to sack off becoming a doctor in London to join Teddy's flying column of the IRA and try to push the British army out of Ireland.
The boiling foment of the time firstly brings the brothers together, but eventually threatens to tear them apart. As Loach said at the time: "Every time a colony wants independence, the questions on the agenda are: a) how do you get the imperialists out, and b) what kind of society do you build?"
Damien wants nothing less than a total revolution, Murphy captures that fervour and allies it with a soulfulness, and his infolding political awakening – from intrigue, to excitement, to joy, to vengeful anger – is the empathetic engine at the centre of it all.
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