One of the best Irish movies of the decade is now streaming on BBC iPlayer

Stephen Porzio

It picked up the IFTA award for Best Irish Film this year.

The BBC iPlayer has just added That They May Face the Rising Sun, the 2024 Irish film with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

An adaptation of the final novel from legendary Irish writer John McGahern, the drama centres around Joe (Barry Ward) and Kate Ruttledge (Anna Bederke) – a couple in the ’80s who have returned from London to live and work in a small Irish lakeside community near to where Joe grew up.

“Now deeply embedded in the life around the lake, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters that move about them unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons,” a plot synopsis for the movie reads.

Described as a “lyrical celebration of the everyday”, That They May Face the Rising Sun earned rave reviews upon release and picked up the top award for Best Irish Film at this year’s IFTAs (the Irish version of the Oscars).

You can read a sample of some of the glowing write-ups for the drama right here:

Loud and Clear Reviews: “It is a testament to a way of life that is now largely gone and a way of honouring and remembering the daily lives of rural communities. As such, the film gives importance to the everyday moments of ordinary, mundane life.”

Radio Times: “This is a slow piece of great warmth and sympathy that invites viewers to find the beauty in birdsong, long grass and works left half-finished.”

The Scotsman: “The film is true to the spirit of McGahern’s prose in the sense that nothing much happens, yet everything happens too, something veteran documentary maker Pat Collins – making his fiction debut – understands.”

Sunday Times (UK): “There’s not much more to the film than that: the passing of the seasons, a death, a marriage, all sewn together with excerpts of Joe’s writing… But the film casts a drowsy spell, like a summer meadow you cannot quite bring yourself to leave.”

The Upcoming: “[A] staggeringly beautiful and delicately moving drama, which thoughtfully examines life in a close-knit rural community.”

Co-written and directed by Pat Collins and also featuring amongst its cast Lalor Roddy and Sean McGinley, the drama is now streaming in the UK via the BBC iPlayer.

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