Search icon

Movies & TV

15th Sep 2019

QUESTION: What is the single greatest moment in Irish cinema history?

Rory Cashin

The Snapper play

Not as easy to answer as it sounds…

With the arrival of Extra Ordinary in Irish cinemas this week, JOE’s movie show gang The Big Reviewski asked a pretty big question: “What is the greatest single moment in Irish cinema history?”

This isn’t as easy as, say, what do you think is the greatest Irish movie in cinema history, because you could have a terrible Irish movie with a moment so great and memorable that it outranks everything else.

We’re looking at you, Taffin…

Clip via Ultimate Action Movie Club

Or even if you do want to go with actually GOOD movies, then you’ve got hugely memorable moments from the likes of In Bruges, The Wind That Shakes The Barely, Michael Collins, The Guard, The Snapper, The Quiet Man, The Commitments, Intermission, My Left Foot, Brooklyn, Hunger, Into The West, Calvary, The Boxer, Waking Ned, The Van, The Butcher Boy, I Went Down, What Richard Did, Once, Breakfast On Pluto… we could go on and on and on.

So, like we said, not an easy one to immediately answer, but one that the movie gang do try to answer as best they can.

It all kicks off on the latest episode of The Big Reviewski from the 2.42 mark below:

Paul picked the hugely emotional scene from In The Name Of The Father when the prisoners celebrate the death of Giuseppe Conlon (Pete Postlethwaite), in which Gerry (Daniel Day-Lewis) watches a wave of burning paper fall from the windows of the prison.

Justine went for the iconic interaction from The Snapper, when Dessie Curley (Colm Meaney) first sets up on George Burgess (the late, great Pat Laffan) after he discovers that his age-inappropriate neighbour got his daughter pregnant.

Eoghan chose the feel-good scene from Good Vibrations, in which real-life music promoter Terri Hooley (here played by Richard Dormer) finally gets hit song ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones played on the radio. And then played again, immediately afterwards.

And finally, Rory also went a bit musical with his choice of the first music video from Sing Street, when the newly formed band try to perform ‘The Riddle Of The Model’ in one take down a back alley, and it doesn’t all go exactly according to plan…

So they were all of our answers. Make sure you tell us yours on Twitter right here!