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Jim Sheridan
Jim Sheridan
Born	6 February 1949 (age 75); Dublin, Ireland
Other names	Shay
Occupations	Film director; screenwriter; producer; playwright;
Years active	1979–present
Known for	My Left Foot (1989); In the Name of the Father (1993); The Boxer (1997); In America (2002);

Jim Sheridan (born 6 February 1949) is an Irish playwright and filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), and In the Name of the Father (1993), and later directed the films The Boxer (1997), In America (2003), and Brothers (2009). Sheridan has received six Academy Award nominations for his work.^[1]

Life and career

Jim Sheridan was born in Dublin on 6 February 1949.^[2] He is the brother of playwright Peter Sheridan.^[2] The family ran a lodging house, while Anna Sheridan worked at a hotel and Peter Sheridan Snr was a railway clerk with CIÉ.^[3] Sheridan's early education was at a Christian Brothers school. In 1969 he attended University College Dublin to study English and History. In 1972, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He became involved in student theatre there, where he met Neil Jordan, who also was later to become an important Irish film director. After graduating from UCD in 1972, Sheridan and his brother began writing and staging plays, and in the late 1970s began working with the Project Theatre Company.^[4]

In 1981, Sheridan emigrated to Canada, but eventually settled in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City in the United States. He enrolled in the New York University Tisch School of the Arts and became the artistic director of the Irish Arts Center.^[5]

Sheridan returned to Ireland in the late 1980s. In 1989, he directed My Left Foot (with Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker), which became a critical and commercial success and won Day-Lewis and Fricker Academy Awards. He followed that with The Field (with Richard Harris) in 1990; then with In the Name of the Father in 1993, a fictionalised re-telling of the case of the Guildford Four. The film won the Golden Bear at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.^[6]

In 1996 he co-wrote Some Mother's Son with Terry George. The Boxer was nominated for a Golden Globe for best film drama in 1997. The film was Sheridan's third collaboration with Day-Lewis after My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father, making him the only director to work with Day-Lewis on three films. In 2003, he released the semi-autobiographical In America, which tells the story of a family of Irish immigrants trying to succeed in New York. The film received positive reviews and earned Samantha Morton and Djimon Hounsou Academy Award nominations. In 2005 he released Get Rich or Die Tryin', a film starring rap star 50 Cent.

Sheridan directed the 2009 film Brothers, starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman, which was shot in New Mexico. He also directed the thriller Dream House,^[7] which starred Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz.^[8]

Filmography

Films


Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes
1989	My Left Foot	Yes	Yes	No
1990	The Field	Yes	Yes	No
1992	Into the West	No	Yes	No
1993	In the Name of the Father	Yes	Yes	Yes
1996	Some Mother's Son	No	Yes	Yes
1997	The Boxer	Yes	Yes	Yes
1999	Agnes Browne	No	No	Yes
2002	In America	Yes	Yes	Yes
2005	Get Rich or Die Tryin'	Yes	No	Yes
2009	Brothers	Yes	No	No
2011	Dream House	Yes	No	No
2016	The Secret Scripture	Yes	Yes	Yes
2017	11th Hour	Yes	Yes	No	Short film
2024	Re-Creation	Yes	No	Yes	^[9]

Executive producer

Borstal Boy (2000)
On the Edge (2001)
Bloody Sunday (2002)
Where's Daddy! (2006) (Short film)
Dollhouse (2012)
Omar Sharif's Tribute (2015) (Documentary)
Shelter Me: Apollo House (2018) (Documentary)
First Disco (2019) (Short film)

Acting credits


Title	Year	Role	Notes
Words Upon the Window Pane	1994	Jonathan Swift / Dean Swift
The General	1998	CPAD Leader
The Bridge of San Luis Rey	2004	The King of Spain
The Carpenter and His Clumsy Wife	2004	Narrator (voice)	Short film
What If	2006	Himself
Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion	2012	Father O'Brien
The Family Way	2017	Eugene

Television series


Title	Year	Credited as	Notes
Thursday Play Date	1979	Writer and actor	Episode "Mobile Homes"
Inside Apollo House	2017	Executive producer	Documentary
Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie	2021	Director and executive producer
Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba	2022	Director

Music video

"You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart" by Sinéad O'Connor (1994)

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Best Adapted Screenplay – My Left Foot (1990), nomination (as co-writer)
Best Director – My Left Foot (1990), nomination (as director)
Best Adapted Screenplay – In the Name of the Father (1994), nomination (as co-writer)
Best Director – In the Name of the Father (1994), nomination (as director)
Best Picture – In the Name of the Father (1994), nomination (as producer)
Best Original Screenplay – In America (2004), nomination (as co-writer)

Berlin International Film Festival

1994, Golden Bear – In the Name of the Father, winner^[6]
1998, Golden Bear – The Boxer, nomination^[10]

British Academy Film Awards

Best Adapted Screenplay – My Left Foot (1990), nomination (as co-writer)
Best Adapted Screenplay – In the Name of the Father (1993), nomination (as co-writer)

European Film Awards