Love/Hate and Kin star’s tense 2025 Irish thriller is finally streaming at home now

The crime thriller comes from the director of Cardboard Gangsters.

Available to watch via NOW, the film arrived in Irish cinemas on 2 May before getting a UK digital release a month later. It was directed by Mark O'Connor, also known for making Cardboard Gangsters, King of the Travellers and Stalker - the third of which gave a young Barry Keoghan his first major role.

O'Connor co-wrote his latest movie with Luke McQuillan. McQuillan also stars in the film as Danny, a former soldier with PTSD who has separated from his wife, Gill (Jade Jordan), after a distressing domestic incident and is now living on Dublin's streets.

Embroiled in a custody battle for his son and struggling to find safe refuge at night, he meets and forms a connection with Will (Daniel Fee, the YouTube star making his film debut), a homeless teenager on the run from a vicious criminal gang led by the quietly sinister Power (Gillen).

As Danny seeks to protect Will, he finds himself on a collision course with Power and his many henchmen (including a scene-stealing Dane Whyte O'Hara).

At the time of its release, JOE praised Amongst the Wolves for its blend of social drama and dark thrills, a common feature of O'Connor's work.

In fact, we wrote:

"Amongst the Wolves begins as an authentic, almost social realist portrait of the difficulties homeless people face and how tough it is once you fall into homelessness to escape the situation.

"As it progresses, however, the movie evolves into a truly hard-hitting crime thriller. This is as Danny's soldier skills wind up being brutally deployed in a desperate bid to protect his family, Will and Will's family from Power and his goons."

JOE even had McQuillan and O'Connor into our studio to discuss their Irish indie crime thriller drama.

The pair spoke about how the movie came to be, with McQuillan having previously been part of the cast of O'Connor's Virgin Media TV series Darklands.

McQuillan was seeking to collaborate with O'Connor on another project, with the director telling JOE: "Luke just came with this idea, which was to look at the homeless crisis in Ireland. I felt very connected to that because I know some people in that.

"Slowly, it just evolved, very naturally, and I came on board as a writer. We started doing a lot of research, and then we brought in the idea that Danny was a soldier."

McQuillan explained that the soldier plot line was inspired in part by a friend of his.

"My friend actually served in the Royal Irish Regiment. He's been to war," the co-writer and actor said.

"He was telling me that some people actually will be at checkpoints, and these cars are coming and there are IEDs underneath them and they think they are going to lose their lives every day going to work.

"So that was a part of Danny's character with the PTSD. He's seen some things that no one should ever get to see, what war does to people."

On top of this, McQuillan and O'Connor spent a lot of time talking to homeless people about their experiences and going to parts of Dublin where people sleep rough.

McQuillan said: "We spoke to a lot of people. We were out on the street, going into a part of Dublin that people don't really like going into, just researching, talking to people.

"We spoke to real people who are actually living this, real homeless people. They shared their stories. They were bringing us out to where they live, telling us all the dangers, what goes on.

"Then it was just marrying those two [elements] into this story."

Locations the pair visited when researching Amongst the Wolves included Ballymun, Clondalkin and Finglas.

Another place that particularly stuck with O'Connor was the Usher's in Swords, a woodland where the co-writer and director says there are "a lot of homeless people staying".

He added:

"With our research meeting homeless people, they brought us to the woods and showed us how they were living, how they put away their tents and how they had to hide their tents.

"Also, you'd have people arriving in the nighttime and so they'd put little markers on the ground or put wire or booby traps up so they can hear people arriving. That all kind of organically worked its way into the film."

Summing up, the appeal of Amongst the Wolves, McQuillan told JOE: "You don't really see that many Irish crime revenge films like this one. It plays out on the streets of Dublin, which is so cinematic - the streets are dirty, the rain."

O'Connor also added: "We just wanted to make something that was very authentic but for an audience as well."

For more from JOE's interview with McQuillan and O'Connor, click here. Amongst the Wolves is currently streaming in Ireland and the UK on the service NOW.