The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (1996)

Cillian Murphy and Pádraic Delaney play brothers who join the Irish Republican Army in 1920 after witnessing the killing of a friend at the hands of the Black and Tans, the British body employed to suppress revolution in Ireland. As the conflict gets increasingly violent and friends and family are tortured and murdered, the brothers become ideologically divided, with tragic results.
The film provoked controversy, with many critics decrying it (some without having seen it) for its negative view of the British. – BFI