Biography
Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor. He has received a Golden Globe Award and nominations for a Grammy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. Byrne was awarded the Irish Film and Television Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 and was listed at number 17 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors in 2020. In 2009, The Guardian named him one of the best actors who never received an Academy Award nomination. Byrne's acting career began at t...
Known For
Complete Filmography

A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann's 'The Keep'
2025
as Self (archive footage)
Exploring Michael Mann's 1983 film adapted from the F. Paul Wilson novel and its impact.

Four Letters of Love
2025
as Muiris Gore
Nicholas and Isabel were made for each other but how will they ever know it? As ghosts, fate and the sheer power of true love pull them together, so t...

Ballerina
2025
as The Chancellor
Taking place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Eve Macarro begins her training in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma.

Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story
2025
as Self
Emerging from rural Ireland, Edna O’Brien broke multiple taboos with her sexually provocative literature and equally adventurous love life. Here, she ...

Dance First
2023
as Samuel Beckett
Parisian bon vivant, World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse…Samuel Beckett lived a life of ...

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
2022
as The Horse (voice)
The unlikely friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home.

Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend
2022
as Enzo Ferrari
Follow the launch of Lamborghini’s career as a manufacturer of tractors, a creator of military vehicles during World War II, and the designer of Lambo...

Murder at Yellowstone City
2022
as Sheriff Ambrose
A former slave who arrives in Yellowstone City, Montana, a desolate former boomtown now on the decline, looking for a place to call home. On that same...

Walking with Ghosts
2022
as Himself
A stage adaptation of Gabriel Byrne's 2020 memoir of the same name

Death of a Ladies' Man
2021
as Samuel O'Shea
A carousing college professor's life takes a series of unimaginable turns, and all the old stories are given a new twist, when he begins to have surre...

Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me To Be?
2020
as Self
The son of a junkie aristocrat and a schizophrenic showgirl becomes a master of reinvention on a 50+ year journey through rock and roll, TV, and movie...

Lost Girls
2020
as Richard Dormer
When Mari Gilbert's daughter disappears, police inaction drives her own investigation into the gated Long Island community where Shannan was last seen...

Land Without God
2019
Executive Producer
An intimate portrait of a family coming to terms with decades of institutional abuse and the impact it has had and is still having on their lives.

Cursed: The True Nature of Hereditary
2018
as Self - Steve
A featurette that sheds light on the filmmaker’s approach, and how he turned a character-driven domestic drama into one of the 2018’s most harrowing c...

An L.A. Minute
2018
as Ted Gold
Best-selling author Ted Gold faces a moral dilemma when Velocity, an avant-garde performance artist and the living embodiment of integrity, rocks his ...

Hereditary
2018
as Steve Graham
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not o...

Hereditary
2018
Executive Producer
Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not o...

My Astonishing Self: Gabriel Byrne on George Bernard Shaw
2018
as Narrator
Award-winning Irish actor Gabriel Byrne explores the life, works and passions of George Bernard Shaw, a giant of world literature, and - like Byrne - ...

In the Cloud
2018
as Doc Wolff
To stop a terrorist bomber, two estranged tech geniuses reunite after the death of their mentor to devise a VR technology to extract the terrorist’s m...

Lies We Tell
2018
as Donald
A trusted driver must deal with his dead boss's Muslim mistress, her dark past pulling him into a life-and-death showdown with her notorious gangster ...

Atlantic Salmon: Lost at Sea
2018
as Narrator
An epic journey through the oceanic kingdom of the Atlantic Salmon in an attempt to unravel the mystery of their life at sea. Salmon are plummeting to...

Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death
2017
as Self
We don’t know how. We don’t know when. But death comes for us all. To be human is to wrestle with this truth and with the great unanswered question: H...

Mad to Be Normal
2017
as Jim
The story of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing and his unique community at Kingsley Hall, East London in the 1960s.

Carrie Pilby
2017
as Mr. Pilby
Awkward, isolated and disapproving of most of the people around her, a precocious 19-year-old genius is challenged to put her convictions to the test ...

No Pay, Nudity
2016
as Lester Rosenthal aka Lawrence Rose
Aging actor Lester Rosenthal (Gabriel Byrne), who has lost his way with his career, with his family, and with his friends (Nathan Lane, Frances Conroy...

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach
2016
as Self - Actor
A surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes account of the career of Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, as he prepa...

Endless Night
2015
as Bram
Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of ...

Louder Than Bombs
2015
as Gene Reed
Three years after his wife, acclaimed photographer Isabelle Reed, dies in a car crash, Gene keeps everyday life going with his shy teenage son, Conrad...

The 33
2015
as Andre Sougarret
Based on the true story of the collapse of a mine in San Jose, Chile—that left 33 miners isolated underground for 69 days.

Vampire Academy
2014
as Victor Dashkov
Rose, a rebellious half-vampire/half-human guardian-in-training and her best friend, Lissa -- a mortal, royal vampire Princess - have been on the run ...

Excalibur: Behind the Movie
2013
as Self
This retrospective documentary looks back on the making of director John Boorman's 1981 movie, Excalibur. Self-described as the toughest film he ever ...

Just a Sigh
2013
as Man
In the short break between performances in Calais, stage actress Alix makes a quick escape to Paris. On the train she meets a mysterious English stran...

All Things To All Men
2013
as Joseph Corso
A thief is caught up in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between a maverick cop and London crime boss.

Capital
2012
as Dittmar Rigule
The head of a giant European investment bank desperately clings to power when an American hedge fund company tries to buy them out.

John Ford: Dreaming the Quiet Man
2012
as Narrator
Dreaming the Quiet Man’ includes interviews with aficionados of Ford like, Martin, Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovicz, Jim Sheridan, William Dowling, and Jo...
Tent City, U.S.A
2012
Executive Producer
A documentary view of an encampment of homeless people on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee in the Southern United States.

I, Anna
2012
as D.C.I. Bernie Reid
A noir thriller told from the point of view of a femme fatale, who falls for the detective in charge of a murder case.

A Man's Story
2011
as Self
Documentary about British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng.

The Women of SNL
2010
as Priest (archive footage)
A look back at some of the funniest female characters and sketches in SNL's 39-year history.

Perrier's Bounty
2009
as Voice of the Grim Reaper (voice)
A gangster named Perrier looks to exact his revenge on a trio of fugitives responsible for the accidental death of one of his cronies.

Leningrad
2009
as Philip Parker
When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate D...

2:22
2008
as Detective Swain (uncredited)
The plan was easy; the job was not. On a snowy night a tight crew of four criminals plan to pull off a routine heist. When things go horribly wrong, f...
Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home
2008
Documentary profile of the acclaimed Irish actor.

Camelot: Live from Lincoln Center
2008
as King Arthur
A production of the beloved Lerner and Loewe musical "Camelot," about the love triangle involving King Arthur (Gabriel Byrne), Guenevere (Marin Mazzie...

Emotional Arithmetic
2008
as Christopher Lewis
An emotionally scarred fifty-something female, a high-profile but haunted British novelist, and a heroic dissident-cum-Soviet psychiatric hospital vet...

Jindabyne
2006
as Stewart
Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

Played
2006
as Eddie
An examination of the malevolent London underworld with it's despicable criminal underground. Ray (Mick Rossi) just finished an eight year prison sent...

Wah-Wah
2005
as Harry Compton
Set at the end of the 1960s, as Swaziland is about to receive independence from United Kingdom, the film follows the young Ralph Compton, at 12, throu...

Assault on Precinct 13
2005
as Captain Marcus Duvall
On New Year's Eve, inside a police station that's about to be closed for good, officer Jake Roenick must cobble together a force made up cops and crim...

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
2004
as Brother Juniper
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of seve...

P.S.
2004
as Peter Harrington
Louise, an unfulfilled divorced woman with regrets, gets the chance to relive her past when she meets a young man who bears an uncanny resemblance, in...

Vanity Fair
2004
as The Marquess of Steyne
Beautiful, funny, passionate, and calculating, Becky is the orphaned daughter of a starving English artist and a French chorus girl. She yearns for a ...

Patrick
2004
as Patrick
A fascinating story of the truth behind the legend and history of St Patrick. This special will feature the world reknown voices of two of Ireland's i...

Shade
2003
as Charlie Miller
Tiffany, Charlie and Vernon are con artists looking to up the ante from their typical scams. They figure a good way of doing this is taking down Dean ...

Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality
2003
as Narrator
Narrated by Gabriel Byrne (Usual Suspects, Vanity Fair, Miller's Crossing), this seven-time Best Documentary award-winning film (Silver Lake Film Fest...

Spider
2002
as Bill Cleg
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a k...

Ghost Ship
2002
as Captain Sean Murphy
After discovering a passenger ship missing since 1962 floating adrift on the Bering Sea, salvagers claim the vessel as their own. Once they begin towi...

Horses: The Story of Equus
2002
as Narrator
The story of three horses who were all born on the same night but their lives take very different paths.
Pursuing the Suspects
2002
as Himself
Short documentary featuring footage of the movie, director Bryan Singer talking about the casting and the five main actors telling more about their ro...

Killing Emmett Young
2002
as Jack Marlow / Stephen Bracken
In the Philadelphia police department, Emmett Young is a hotshot, a workaholic newly promoted to homicide. He learns he has a disease that will soon k...

Keyser Soze, Lie or Legend - Featurette
2002
as Self
Featurette in which director Bryan Singer tells more about the mysterious criminal Keyser Soze.

Round Up: Deposing 'The Usual Suspects'
2002
as Self
Documentary that includes interviews with Singer as well as the rest of the cast - mainly Spacey. There is no "plot" or "promotional" elements to this...

Virginia's Run
2002
as Ford Lofton
A teenage girl, trying to come to terms with the death of her mother in a horse-riding accident, nurtures the foal of her mother's horse.

When Brendan Met Trudy
2000
as Special Appearance
Brendan is an earnest, introverted schoolteacher who, aside from his participation in the local choir, has only one passion in his life -- the movies....

Mad About Mambo
2000
Executive Producer
High school student tries to improve soccer skills by practicing dance and falls for his dance partner.

Making Love
2000
as il violinista/Jeno Varga adulto
Costanza is drinking a beer in a Prague pub, a summer night in 1968, while a violinist enters and starts playing a "canone inverso" for her. It is not...

End of Days
1999
as The Man
On 28 December 1999, the citizens of New York City are getting ready for the turn of the millennium. However, Satan decides to crash the party by comi...

Stigmata
1999
as Father Andrew Kiernan
A young woman with no strong religious beliefs, Frankie Paige begins having strange and violent experiences, showing signs of the wounds that Jesus re...

Enemy of the State
1998
as 'Brill'
The life of labor lawyer and dedicated family man Robert 'Bobby' Dean is turned upside down after a chance meeting with a college buddy while holiday ...

Quest for Camelot
1998
as Lionel (voice)
During the times of King Arthur, Kayley is a brave girl who dreams of following her late father as a Knight of the Round Table. The evil Ruber wants t...

Pirates
1998
as Narrator (voice)
Discovery examines the history of "Golden age of Piracy." The program takes a detailed look at the harsh lives of pirates, their tactics, motivations ...

The Man in the Iron Mask
1998
as D'Artagnan
Years have passed since the Three Musketeers, Aramis, Athos and Porthos, have fought together with their friend, D'Artagnan. But with the tyrannical K...

Polish Wedding
1998
as Bolek
The film centers on a big Polish family. Jadzia is the mother and the ruler of the Pzoniak family (she has five children). Though she's happily marrie...

This Is the Sea
1997
as Rohan
The film is set in Northern Ireland shortly after 1994 cease-fire. Hazel is a Protestant and Malachy a Catholic. Romance between them is threatened by...

The End of Violence
1997
as Ray
In Hollywood, the lives of a successful film producer, his wife, a police detective and a surveillance agent intersect after a botched abduction.

Weapons of Mass Distraction
1997
as Lionel Powers
As two warring media moguls grapple for ownership of a coveted professional football team, they use the newspapers, magazines and television stations ...

Smilla's Sense of Snow
1997
as The Mechanic
Smilla Jaspersen attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla unco...
Somebody Is Waiting
1996
as Roger Ellis
An alcoholic father must take control of his wayward children when their mother is killed.
Somebody Is Waiting
1996
Co-Producer
An alcoholic father must take control of his wayward children when their mother is killed.

The Last of the High Kings
1996
as Jack Griffin
It is 1977, Dublin rocks to the music of Thin Lizzy and the world is stunned by the death of Elvis Presley. Frankie, caught between acne and adulthood...

The Last of the High Kings
1996
Co-Executive Producer, Screenplay
It is 1977, Dublin rocks to the music of Thin Lizzy and the world is stunned by the death of Elvis Presley. Frankie, caught between acne and adulthood...

The Brylcreem Boys
1996
as Commandant O'Brien
In 1941, as part of an effort to remain strictly neutral, the Dublin government made a deal with both Berlin and London whereby any soldier, sailor or...

The Brylcreem Boys
1996
Producer
In 1941, as part of an effort to remain strictly neutral, the Dublin government made a deal with both Berlin and London whereby any soldier, sailor or...

Mad Dog Time
1996
as Ben London
With his boss in the madhouse, a mobster is temporary boss of the criminal empire just as vicious rivals threaten the control of the empire.

Dead Man
1995
as Charlie Dickinson
William Blake, an accountant turned fugitive, is on the run. During his travels, he meets a Native American man called Nobody, who guides him on a jou...

Frankie Starlight
1995
as Jack Kelly
The quirky story of a young boy's adventures growing up with his stunningly beautiful mother and the two very different men who love her.

Irish Cinema: Ourselves Alone?
1995
as Narrator (voice)
The Irish entry in the BFI's "Century of Cinema" documentary series examines Irish filmmaking in a decade when the country is going through a highly s...

The Usual Suspects
1995
as Keaton
Held in an L.A. interrogation room, Verbal Kint attempts to convince the feds that a mythic crime lord, Keyser Soze, not only exists, but was also res...

Out of Ireland
1995
as Richard O'Gorman (voice)
Over the course of two centuries, seven million men, women and children abandoned their homeland for America's shores. In just one horrifying decade, ...

Buffalo Girls
1995
as Teddy Blue
The bold escapades of tough-talking Calamity Jane Canary and her illustrious cohorts. It's the waning days of the Wild West and Jane, the rough 'n' ru...

Little Women
1994
as Friedrich Bhaer
With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a c...

Trial by Jury
1994
as Daniel Graham
Valerie is a juror in the trial of a mob boss. When her young son's life is threatened, she has no option other than to see that justice isn't done.

A Simple Twist of Fate
1994
as John Newland
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collec...

All Things Bright and Beautiful
1994
as The Good Thief
A young boy's innocent observations leads the local priest to believe he has borne witness to a manifestation of the Virgin Mary. Set in an idyllic ru...

Prince of Jutland
1994
as Fenge
A Danish prince seeks revenge upon the villain who killed the king and his son to usurp the throne.

Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Emigration to America
1994
as Richard O'Gorman (voice)
Originally broadcast to critical acclaim on PBS, this documentary traces the story of flight from the famine-swept villages of 19th century Ireland to...

In the Name of the Father
1993
Executive Producer
A small-time Belfast thief, Gerry Conlon, is wrongly convicted of an IRA bombing in London, along with his father and friends, and spends 15 years in ...

A Dangerous Woman
1993
as Mackey
Martha Horgan is a withdrawn, mentally disabled woman who lives with her aunt, Frances. One of Martha's unusual traits is that she doesn't lie, a qual...

Point of No Return
1993
as Bob
Hardened criminal Maggie Hayward's consistent violence, even in police custody, ends in the execution chamber. However, top-secret US government agent...

Into the West
1992
as Papa Reilly
Accused of a crime they didn't commit, two city kids and a magical horse are about to become the coolest outlaws ever to ride Into The West.

Into the West
1992
Associate Producer
Accused of a crime they didn't commit, two city kids and a magical horse are about to become the coolest outlaws ever to ride Into The West.

Cool World
1992
as Jack Deebs
A bizarre accident lands Frank Harris in Cool World, a realm of cartoons. Years later, cartoonist Jack Deebs, who's been drawing Cool World, crosses o...

Shipwrecked
1990
as Lt. John Merrick
A young Norwegian boy in 1850s England goes to work as a cabin boy and discovers some of his shipmates are actually pirates.

Miller's Crossing
1990
as Tom Reagan
Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

Dark Obsession
1990
as Hugo
Hugo Buckton seems to have it all: He is apparently rich and has a beautiful wife and a doting son. In actuality, though, Hugo is having money problem...

A Soldier's Tale
1988
as Saul
In the days following the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, a British platoon leader named Saul (Gabriel Byrne) and his corporal (Paul Wyett) reach ...

The Courier
1988
as Val
When a courier at the D-Day Courier Service mistakenly finds a pile of money in his regular delivery, he does some digging only to discover that the m...

Julia and Julia
1988
as Paolo
Giulia, an American woman living in Italy, becomes depressed and traumatized after her husband Paolo is killed in a car accident on their wedding day....

Siesta
1987
as Augustine
American Claire wakes up blood-soaked and bruised at the end of a runway in Spain. As she tries to account for her state, she has flashbacks from the ...

Hello Again
1987
as Kevin Scanlon
A suburban housewife chokes to death and is brought back to life by a spell cast by her wacky sister.

Lionheart
1987
as Black Prince
A young knight sets out to join King Richards crusaders. Along the way, he encounters The Black Prince who captures children and sells them as slaves ...

Gothic
1987
as Lord Byron
Living on an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and a...

Defence of the Realm
1986
as Nicholas 'Nick' Mullen
A reporter named Mullen 'stumbles' onto a story linking a prominent Member of Parliament to a KGB agent and a near-nuclear disaster involving a teenag...
Reflections
1984
as William Masters
A historian writing a biography of Isaac Newton spends a Summer with a dysfunctional family in Co. Cork, Ireland.
The Treatment
1984
as Father Michael
Liam is a south London teenager, out of a job, living for Saturday afternoon, for the excitement of the match and the hope of a fight after it. A beau...

The Keep
1983
as Major Kaempffer
Set during World War II, a German army garrison is sent to guard a mountain pass in a village in Romania's Carpathian mountains and sets up barracks i...

Hanna K.
1983
as Joshué Herzog
Israeli attorney Hanna Kaufman has her beliefs challenged when she is appointed to the defense of Selim Bakri. Kaufman, who was born in the United Sta...

The Rocking Horse Winner
1982
as Bassett
In Paul's family, there is always talk about needing more money. The tension in the household over lack of funds weighs heavily on Paul's young mind. ...

The Search for Alexander the Great
1981
as Ptolemy
Friends, contemporaries and even enemies of Alexander the Great gather in a tent to tell his tale through their eyes.

Excalibur
1981
as Uther
A surreal adaptation of Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" chronicling Arthur Pendragon's conception, his rise to the throne, the search by his K...

The Outsider
1979
as Man in Street
Michael Flaherty (Craig Wasson), an American Vietnam veteran of Irish descent, returns to Belfast to join the cause of his grandfather, Seamus (Sterli...

On a Paving Stone Mounted
1978
An impressionistic look at Irish emigrants in London, representing the emigrant's journey, a confusion of anticipation, memories and experience.
Sauver Mozart
N/A
Adaptation of the novel of the same name by Raphaël Jerusalmy.

Nothing Is What It Seems: The Making Of 'The Usual Suspects'
N/A
as Self
Documentary about the origins and making of the 1995 Oscar-winning suspense thriller. Includes rare unseen footage and revisits many of the film's ic...

Diary Of A Mad Old Man
N/A
A stubborn professor who becomes consumed by desire when he forms a bond with his best friend’s daughter who is tasked with taking care of him.