Brendan Gleeson

Having just carried out a particularly difficult hit in London, two hitmen seek shelter in Bruges, Belgium, only to find their views on life and death permanently altered by their interactions with the locals, the tourists, and a film crew. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes star in an action comedy from director Martin McDonagh. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Young wizard-in-training Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts for his fifth year of studies, only to find that the magical community seems to be in a curious state of denial about his recent encounter with the sinister Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in the fifth installment of the popular fantasy film series based on the best-selling books by author J.K. Rowling. Rumor has it that the dreaded Lord Voldemort has returned, but Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) isn't so sure what to make of all the hearsay currently floating around the campus of Hogwarts. Suspecting that Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) may be fueling the rumors regarding Voldemort's return in order to undermine his authority and lay claim to his job, Fudge entrusts newly arrived Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) with the task of tracking Dumbledore and keeping a protective watch over the nervous student body. The young wizards of Hogwarts will need something much more effective than Umbridge's Ministry-approved course in defensive magic if they are to truly succeed in the extraordinary battle that lies ahead, however, and when the administration fails to provide the students with the tools that they will need to defend Hogwarts against the fearsome powers of the Dark Arts, Hermione (Emma Watson), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Harry take it upon themselves to recruit a small group of students to form "Dumbledore's Army" in preparation for the ultimate supernatural showdown. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Deliverance and Tailor of Panama director John Boorman returns to the director's chair for this tale of a hawkish businessman who slowly finds his life being taken over by the twin brother he never knew he had. Liam O'Leary (Brendan Gleeson) is a no-nonsense real-estate developer who isn't above greasing the politician's wheels a bit to get the permits he needs. His 20-year marriage to Jane (Kim Cattrall) has been stale for over a decade, and his adolescent son, Connor (Brian Gleeson), has most recently taken to communism as a means of showcasing his rebellious streak. Though Liam still dotes on his aging mother (Moira Deady), it's plain to see that his sister, Oona (Sinéad Cusack), is the favored child in the family. One day, stuck in traffic on the way home from work and frustrated at his inability to obtain planning permission for a multi-million pound stadium, Liam is shocked to see his spitting image approach his car and begin cleaning the windshield while begging for change. Now, after discovering that he was not only adopted but has an identical twin as well, Liam finds his life rapidly being taken over by a cunning doppelganger who has had enough of life on the streets, and has finally found a means of turning his luck around by simply stepping into the shoes of his more successful counterpart. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Directed by Mike Newell, the fourth installment to the Harry Potter series finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) wondering why his legendary scar -- the famous result of a death curse gone wrong -- is aching in pain, and perhaps even causing mysterious visions. Before he can think too much about it, however, Harry boards the train to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he will attend his fourth year of magical education. Shortly after his reunion with his best friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), Harry is introduced to yet another Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: the grizzled Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson), a former dark wizard catcher who agreed to take on the infamous "DADA" professorship as a personal favor to Headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Of course, Harry's wishes for an uneventful school year are almost immediately shattered when he is unexpectedly chosen, along with fellow student Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson), as Hogwarts' representative in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, which awards whoever completes three magical tasks the most skillfully with a thousand-galleon purse and the admiration of the international wizard community. As difficult as it is to deal with his schoolwork, friendships, and the tournament at the same time (not to mention his feelings toward the ever unfathomable Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), Harry doesn't realize that the most feared wizard in the world, Lord Voldemort, is anticipating the tournament, as well. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

An Irish boy becomes an emotional and sexual outcast as the 1960s fade into the 1970s in this period drama from director Neil Jordan. When he was just a baby in the early '60s, Patrick Braden (Conor McEvoy) was abandoned by his mother and left on the doorstep of a church overseen by Father Bernard (Liam Neeson). Placed in a foster home, sensitive Patrick doesn't much care for the emotionally chilly attitude of his new "family," and psychologically buffers himself against the world by writing stories that make fun of Father Bernard and the other authority figures in his life. As he grows into adulthood, Patrick (played as an adult by Cillian Murphy) also discovers that he enjoys dressing in women's clothes and prefers the company of men, and as a teenager he falls into an affair with Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), a nightclub performer who also runs guns for the Irish Republican Army. In the early '70s, Patrick -- who has since taken on the drag name "Kitten" -- makes his way to London, where he becomes involved with Bertie (Stephen Rea), a small-time nightclub magician who gives the young man a place to say, a sense of security, and a job as his on-stage assistant. However, Patrick's idyllic life with Bertie proves short-lived when his old friends come to town on IRA "business." Breakfast on Pluto also features a supporting performance from former Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Homer's sprawling tale of love and war in ancient Greece comes to the screen in all its grandeur in this epic-scale adventure. In 1193 B.C., Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom), has fallen in love; however, the beautiful woman who has beguiled him is Helen, Queen of Sparta (Diane Kruger), who is wed to King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). While Helen is hardly immune to Paris' charms, this doesn't blunt Menelaus' fury when Paris steals her away from him. Menelaus' brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox), the power-hungry king of the Mycenaeans, is eager to expand his empire through Troy to the lands of the Aegean Sea, and he uses Paris' romantic slight against Menelaus as an excuse to wage an all-out war against the great walled city. Priam, King of Troy (Peter O'Toole), summons his armies, led by Prince Hector (Eric Bana), to meet the onslaught of Agamemnon's forces, but while the great city has yet to yield in a battle, Agamemnon has a formidable ally -- Achilles (Brad Pitt), a mighty and seemingly unstoppable warrior whose presence could tip the scales in Agamemnon's favor. Sean Bean, Julie Christie, Saffron Burrows, and Rose Byrne highlight the film's supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The many emotional scars left by South Africa's history of institutionalized racism come under the microscope in this drama. As South Africa comes to terms with the legacy of apartheid, their government has created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which the perpetrators of racial violence and injustice must come face to face with their victims if they are to be forgiven for their crimes. Langston Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is an African-American journalist who is assigned to cover these hearings by The Washington Post; Whitfield doubts the efficacy of this process, and sets out to interview Col. De Jager (Brendan Gleeson), a notorious former officer of the South African police who was famous for his violence against blacks in order to put this method to the test. While in South Africa, Whitfield meets Anna Malan (Juliette Binoche), an Afrikaner poet who is covering the hearing for a radio station and is both appalled and disturbed by the details of the violence inflicted against her countrymen. After striking up a friendship, Whitfield and Malan become romantically involved as they try to come to terms with their feelings about what they've learned. Also screened under the title Country of My Skull, In My Country was adapted from a book by South African author Antjie Krog. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Charles Frazier, Anthony Minghella's star-studded Cold Mountain is a sweeping tale set in the final days of the American Civil War. Jude Law stars as Inman, a young soldier who, despite an injury, is struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, NC, where his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman) awaits. In Inman's absence, Ada befriends Ruby (Renée Zellweger), who helps her keep up her late father's farm. Meanwhile, in his travels, Inman encounters a menagerie of interesting folks. Also starring Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Donald Sutherland, and Philip Seymore Hoffman, Cold Mountain features original music by Jack White of the White Stripes. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

The violent rise of gangland power in New York City at a time of massive political corruption and the city's evolution into a cultural melting pot set the stage for this lavish historical epic, which director Martin Scorsese finally brought to the screen almost 30 years after he first began to plan the project. In 1846, as waves of Irish immigrants poured into the New York neighborhood of Five Points, a number of citizens of British and Dutch heritage who were born in the United States began making an open display of their resentment toward the new arrivals. William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), better known as "Bill the Butcher" for his deadly skill with a knife, bands his fellow "Native Americans" into a gang to take on the Irish immigrants; the immigrants in turn form a gang of their own, "The Dead Rabbits," organized by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). After an especially bloody clash between the Natives and the Rabbits leaves Vallon dead, his son goes missing; the boy ends up in a brutal reform school before returning to the Five Points in 1862 as Amsterdam (Leonardo DiCaprio). Now a strapping adult who has learned how to fight, Amsterdam has come to seek vengeance against Bill the Butcher, whose underworld control of the Five Points through violence and intimidation dovetails with the open corruption of New York politician "Boss" Tweed (Jim Broadbent). Amsterdam gradually penetrates Bill the Butcher's inner circle, and he soon becomes his trusted assistant. Amsterdam also finds himself falling for Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful but street-smart thief who was once involved with Bill. Amsterdam is learning a great deal from Bill, but before he can turn the tables on the man who killed his father, Amsterdam's true identity is exposed, even though he has concealed it from nearly everyone, including Jenny. Gangs Of New York was the first film in two years from actor Leonardo DiCaprio; ironically, it was at one time scheduled to open on the same day as Catch Me if You Can, the Steven Spielberg project that DiCaprio began filming immediately after Gangs wrapped. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss, this science fiction fantasy bears similarities to Pinocchio (1940) and originated as a long-gestating project of director Stanley Kubrick that passed to his friend Steven Spielberg after Kubrick's death. Haley Joel Osment stars as David, a "mecha" or robot of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and submerged many coastal cities, causing worldwide starvation and human dependence upon robotic assistance. The first mecha designed to experience love, David is the "son" of Henry (Sam Robards), an employee of the company that built the boy, and the grief-stricken Monica (Frances O'Connor). David is meant to replace the couple's hopelessly comatose son, but when their natural child recovers, David is abandoned and sets out to become "a real boy" worthy of his mother's affection. Along the way, David is mentored by a pleasure-providing mecha named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) and a talking "super toy" bear named Teddy. His adventures take him to the Roman Circus-style "Flesh Fair," where mechas are destroyed for the amusement of humans; Rouge City, where Gigolo Joe narrowly avoids capture by police; and finally a submerged New York City, where David's creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt) reveals the secrets of the boy's creation. Brendan Gleeson and narrator Ben Kingsley co-star in A.I., which was adapted from Kubrick's treatment by Spielberg, in his first crack at screenwriting since Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

French director Elie Chouraqui adapts the novel of the same name into this drama, that, although set in 1991, became tragically topical in the weeks before its release due to the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Andie MacDowell stars as Sarah, a photo editor for Newsweek and the happily married wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Harrison Lloyd (David Strathairn). Harrison has been reconsidering his career of covering the world's war zone "hot spots" in order to spend more time with his family, and is accused by his colleague, Kyle (Adrien Brody), of playing it too safe in his risky profession. Harrison elects to accept one more combat assignment to cover the simmering tensions in Croatia, a conflict that quickly erupts into a full-scale, genocidal Civil War. Informed that Harrison is believed to have been killed in the fighting, Sarah refuses to accept her husband's death and becomes convinced that she's seen him, alive, in a news broadcast. She travels to Croatia on a quest to find him, and is eventually aided by Kyle, as well as two of Harrison's other colleagues, Yeager (Elias Koteas) and Stevenson (Brendan Gleeson). The group, armed with cameras instead of weapons, witnesses the horrors and atrocities unfolding in the region, while tracing the elusive path of Harrison, who may well be dead already. Harrison's Flowers was distributed by Universal Focus, the art house division of Universal Pictures that previously released Mulholland Drive (2001) and Billy Elliott (2000). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Trendy young playwright and screenwriter Conor McPherson (I Went Down, 1997) makes his directing debut with this understated comedy. Widowed fish-and-chips shop owner George Beneventi (Brian Cox) lives in a sleepy coastal town along with his three children. Eldest son Frank (Peter McDonald) helps with the shop, college student Carmel (Valerie Spelman) is involved with a lecherous philosophy professor, and younger brother Joe (Laurence Kinlan) causes trouble at school. Being the off-season, George is having a hard time gathering the funds to pay his smooth but deadly bookie, "Simple" Simon McCurdie (Brendan Gleeson). Frank, who seethes with the knowledge that his dad is indebted to the thug, stages an inept though miraculously successful robbery of the criminal's lair. Meanwhile, Joe befriends Damien, the new kid in town, only to discover that his pal is a psychopath. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide