Cillian Murphy · Filmography Ranked

Best Cillian Murphy Films, Ranked by IQ Score

Two decades of one of contemporary cinema's most-disciplined leading men. Every Murphy film, ranked.

9 titles · ranked by IQ Score

1. 1
   

   Oppenheimer

   Masterclass historical, biography, drama

   The physicist Robert Oppenheimer leads the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, then faces political persecution during the McCarthy era. Educational value from the physics, the historical context, and the moral…

   188/200
2. 2
   

   The Wind That Shakes the Barley

   Masterclass drama, historical, war

   2006 Palme d'Or winner. Ken Loach's account of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War through two brothers who end up on opposite sides. Moderate cognitive demands. Exceptional educational value from the Irish indep…

   164/200
3. 3
   

   Dunkirk

   Masterclass drama, war, history

   Christopher Nolan's non-linear account of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation from three temporal perspectives. Exceptional craft and educational about a defining WWII moment. The sound design and practical effects represent the…

   164/200
4. 4
   

   Small Things Like These

   Masterclass drama

   Tim Mielants's 2024 Claire Keegan adaptation anchored by Cillian Murphy as a Wexford coal merchant in 1985 Ireland discovering the abuse at a Magdalene-laundry convent. The structural commitment to letting Murphy's conta…

   164/200
5. 5
   

   Sunshine

   Masterclass sci-fi, thriller

   Danny Boyle's 2007 deep-space-sun-mission film anchored by Cillian Murphy. The structural commitment to letting first-act physics-and-mission-procedural material be the actual subject — and the canonical John Murphy scor…

   161/200
6. 6
   

   28 Days Later

   Stimulating horror, thriller, sci-fi

   Danny Boyle's 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film anchored by Cillian Murphy in his breakthrough role as a bike-courier who wakes up in an empty London. The structural commitment to letting fast-zombie genre conventions op…

   157/200
7. 7
   

   Inception

   Stimulating sci-fi, action

   A thief who specializes in extracting secrets from dreams is offered a chance at redemption through 'inception' — implanting an idea. Cognitive demands are high from tracking multiple dream layers and the shifting rules…

   152/200
8. 8
   

   Peaky Blinders

   Stimulating crime, drama

   Weaves post-WWI political upheaval with crime family dynamics, requiring sustained attention to coded dialogue, historical context, and intricate power plays between British fascism, labor unions, and Irish independence.

   141/200
9. 9
   

   A Quiet Place Part II

   Competent drama, horror, sci-fi

   Expands world-building beyond central family to multiple communities surviving in silence, examining how different groups navigate sound-based extinction threat.

   129/200