The best Irish movie of 2026 is available to watch now

JOE spoke to the director and star of the new crowd-pleasing comedy-drama, which we believe could become a new classic.

Co-written and directed by John Carney (the modern Irish classics Once and Sing Street), the film stars Paul Rudd (Ant-Man, Anchorman) as Rick Power, an American musician who, as a young man, dreamed of being a rock star.

While on tour with his band, however, he met and fell in love with an Irish woman named Rachel (Marcella Plunkett, Bachelors Walk), later settling down with her in Dublin. Years later, the pair are happily married and have a teenage daughter (Beth Fallon). Rick still plays music, though now in a wedding band, cleverly named 'The Bride and Groove'.

At one of these wedding bookings, Rick has a chance encounter with Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas, Jumanji), a young American popstar. Once in a massive boy band, the singer has struggled to launch his solo career.

Hitting it off, Danny invites Rick to his hotel suite. There, they spend a magical night jamming and playing each other their tunes.

After this, the two bid each other farewell and go their separate ways. A few months later, however, Rick hears a familiar tune on the radio while out shopping. It turns out that Danny has passed off one of Rick's songs as one of his own, and it's become a smash hit.

This sends the Dublin-based husband and father into a spiral, as he tries and fails to prove that the track originated from him.

Watch the trailer for Power Ballad here:

Power Ballad Review

It'll be hard for Carney to top the near-perfection of his earlier music-themed hit, Sing Street, but Power Ballad sure comes close.

A former bassist for the Dublin rock band The Frames, the director might be the best at capturing on screen the joy that comes from composing and performing music, as well as the atmosphere of the Irish capital.

These gifts of Carney's are front and centre in his latest, but are complemented beautifully by the presence of Paul Rudd, one of the most likeable stars on the planet, and an intriguing 'what if' scenario, that brings big laughs, while probing fascinating ideas.

On top of it just being a treat to see Paul Rudd wander around Dublin locations like Dame Street, Ringsend, and Dundrum Town Centre (where Rick hears his plagiarised song on the radio for the first time), it's hilariously frustrating to see our hero's family and bandmates cast doubt on his claims of authorship.

While Power Ballad mostly remains a light crowd-pleaser, Rudd truly does sell his character's transformation from affable and kind at the start to bitter and angry after he's been aggrieved.

Co-writer Peter McDonald (Moone Boy, Your Bad Self) is incredibly funny as Sandy, Rick's bumbling, rock-obsessed bandmate. The only one who fully believes Rick wrote Danny's hit, Sandy winds up accompanying his long-time friend on a mission to get what he's owed.

Peter McDonald and Paul Rudd in Power Ballad

Like 'Falling Slowly' in Once, 'Drive It Like You Stole It' in Sing Street and 'Meet in the Middle' from Flora and Son, the song that causes all the chaos in Carney's latest is a genuine earworm. Even better, Power Ballad wraps up its central conflict with an all-timer ending, bowing out on a high note.

Power Ballad Interview

While star Paul Rudd and co-writer/director John Carney were in the Irish capital for Power Ballad's world premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival last February, JOE interviewed them. You can watch that conversation in full at the top of his article.

We asked Carney what it was like to shoot scenes with such a big star on the Irish city's streets. To this, he replied: "We didn't have any major obstructions. We didn't film on Grafton Street or something like that.

"So no, it was OK actually. I think famously Irish people are good [with stars]. I've heard a lot of pop stars, say actually: 'Walking down Grafton Street's kind of a breeze, it's pretty easy.'"

Laughing, he added: "There's a 'we've kind of seen it all' [attitude to Irish people]."

Rudd, meanwhile, is already well-known for having a deep affection for Ireland. In fact, he shared with JOE that seeing director John Sayles' 1994 Ireland-set film The Secret of Roan Inish started his "love of the place".

The actor explained that a reason why his experience of making Power Ballad was so great was that it allowed him to see a side of Ireland he wouldn't normally see if he were just here visiting.

When JOE referred to the scene set in Dundrum Town Centre, Rudd said enthusiastically: "I loved working here, and I had never been to that mall!"

He added: "I feel like I'm a little more familiar with [Ireland] now, and so when I come back, it's nice that it's like: 'Oh yeah, I know exactly [where I am]. I recognise this street and that street, even coming in from the airport.'"

In terms of getting downtime to explore Dublin, Rudd revealed that he and Carney went to "several pubs", particularly in the Ringsend suburb, with the pair shouting out The Yacht.

Carney told JOE: "Basically, wherever we were shooting, if we got the chance, we would go to the nearest pub after filming just for one or two and a bag of Tayto... Drinking while filming is the best."

We noted to the writer-director how exciting it's been to see both Hollywood stars like Paul Rudd coming to Ireland to film, and Irish stars being celebrated in Hollywood.

In response, Carney said: "It's amazing. It is absolutely bizarre. Myself and a friend of mine, Tom Hall, made movies back in the 90s, just before the Film Board. It was like, you might as well go and look under the carpet for coins to get financing to make a film. It was impossible.

"Then the Film Board (now known as Screen Ireland / Fís Éireann) got restarted, and there were suddenly now taxpayers paying into a fund for developing scripts and movie directors and all of that stuff.

"It took about 20 years, and now look at what's happened. You just throw a stone at the Oscars, and it's Irish, Irish, Irish, and it's because of that.

"This is a tiny island. The only reason that we're in that race is that we've developed talent slowly and surely and quietly, and relatively inexpensively, over the last 20 years, so that now you're getting the Paul Mescals and the Jesse Buckleys, all those great actors that are coming up, film directors, writers.

"When I was starting off, nobody did this. There was Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan, a couple of weird guys who made movies, but that was it. It wasn't a movie country."

Paul Rudd in Dundrum Town Centre

We then joked to Rudd if there is a fear in Hollywood about Ireland taking over, to which he quipped: "I think there's more of a fear of AI taking over than anything else, unless that means American Irish."

Discussing Ireland's success, he added: "It's not surprising when you look at all of the art that has come from Ireland. The greatest music, playwrights, and writers.

"It's in the soul of this place and the people. There is an artistry here. There's an artistic soul, I feel like, in the Irish people.

"I've no doubt that there's going to be great [Irish] actors and I'd love to see even more."

Power Ballad is in cinemas now.