With the catalogue of films available on IFI@Home growing steadily since the platform’s establishment, it was felt that new viewers might appreciate some tips on where to start, while viewers more familiar with the range of titles on offer may welcome recommendations of films they might not previously have considered. To this end, we have asked some of the guests we are fortunate enough to have had pass through our Eustace Street home to recommend five films that can be seen on the platform, according to their own personal tastes. We hope this will help viewers to find undiscovered gems. This month, filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea picks her current top five films on IFI@Home. If you enjoy this selection, you might also enjoy Sinéad’s films which are available to stream on IFI@Home now: Pray For Our Sinners and Blue Road: The Enda O’Brien Story.
I’m sure everyone asked to do this balks at the idea of choosing just five titles from the many brilliant films on offer. I hadn’t realised myself just how much is here.
It’s actually very difficult to watch certain films once they’ve finished their limited theatrical runs. There are so many excellent films made each year that don’t have Oscar runs and are unlikely to be acquired by Netflix. One of the glories of a place like Laser Video which closed ten years ago in Dublin was that you could go in and discover a director’s entire oeuvre. That’s possible on this site too now with filmmakers such as Haneke, Varda and Bergman because so many of their films are available to rent in one place.
Agnès Varda is one of the most beloved filmmakers of all time and I think Vagabond is a gateway drug to her sensibility at its best. It stars Sandrine Bonnaire as Mona, a young vagrant or vagabond in rural France. The opening images tell us that she has frozen to death and the film tells the story of her final days. This is obviously a bleak scenario but there is a playfulness and a defiance to this story which makes it a classic. Bonnaire is incredible and it’s so atmospheric. Vagabond stays with you.
IFI@Home also has what I think is the best film of recent years, Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania. It’s a documentary/drama about Olfa, a Tunisia woman and mother of four girls. Her two older daughters have disappeared and joined Islamic State. It’s based on a real case, and features both the real life Olfa and an actor who plays her. The missing daughters are played by actors and the two younger daughters are on camera as themselves. Together they try to tell the story of what really happened and why the older girls left.
It’s brilliantly executed and very moving. I think most films feel a bit tepid compared to this, especially my own. Ben Hania has just premiered a new drama called The Voice of Hind Rajab and it looks as if it will draw even greater appreciation. She is incredible at exploring nuance and is technically audacious.
Documentaries are particularly difficult to access once they have left cinemas . Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Anna Hint was a winner at Sundance so very successful by some metrics but still elusive. It’s a film about a group of Estonian women and their sauna which I think occupy the same place in their community as pubs might have been for some people in Ireland. The women sweat, and scrub, and gossip and share memories. It’s a bit raucous and funny and moving too. I admire it a lot and it’s a reminder of just how many extraordinary documentaries are being made all the time.
There are lots of great Irish documentaries being made too and one of my favourite is Tomorrow is Saturday which was directed by Gillian Marsh and Gretta Ohle who also edited. It was released in 2020 and I don’t think it received the attention it deserved because of the Covid lockdowns and the attendant lack of cinema access. It’s an exploration of the life of an artist, Sean Hillen and how he engages with the space around him, his past and romance. I found it funny, touching and very skillfully done. It’s short too which is a real accomplishment. I asked Gretta to edit my most recent documentary, Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story because of this film.
Finally, I was glad to see Young Mothers by the Dardenne Brothers on the site. I know the directors probably care little for such fripperies, but it’s such a good film and I thought it deserved a more successful cinema release. The Dardenne Brothers are synonymous with Cannes and arthouse but I feel that association can be easily misunderstood as people assume such work is going to be slow and esoteric. That kind of filmmaking is just incompetent, I think.
The work of the Dardenne brothers is gorgeous and accessible, very technical but understated. This is a story about a group of teenage mums who are coping with early motherhood. It’s never ponderous. These young mothers are especially vulnerable but I think all mothers will relate to some of their situations.
Sinéad O’Shea, Fives of Others Guest, November 2025
If you enjoyed Sinéad’s selection, you might also enjoy her films on IFI@Home: Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.
Previous Fives of Others contributors include Donald Clarke.
