Michael Collins

Michael Collins (1996), Neil Jordan's historical drama, is available to watch online on iFILM. Liam Neeson plays the man who pulled Ireland's fight for independence out of open battle and pushed it into the shadows: ambushes, intelligence work and a guerrilla campaign against British rule.

The story runs from the doomed Easter Rising to the treaty talks that split former comrades down the middle. Collins signs the deal that creates the Irish Free State and, in the same stroke, turns from hero into traitor for everyone who wanted a full republic. Around him stand friend and rival Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), his fiancée Kitty (Julia Roberts), the icy politician de Valera (Alan Rickman) and an informer played by Stephen Rea.

Jordan didn't carve a statue; he sketched a man who invented modern urban guerrilla tactics and then recoiled at where they led. The film was honored at Venice, and Neeson carries the whole thing on his back. Stream Michael Collins (1996) online on iFILM.