This May, we're inviting you to celebrate the legacy of one of the UK's greatest directors, Danny Boyle. Join us at Cineworld as we present our Danny Boyle season, a selection of modern classics highlighting the filmmaker's versatility in multiple genres, his stylistic flourishes, soundtrack selections and his tendency to draw memorable performances from some of the world's biggest stars.
Even better, tickets are just €5, so you can revel in Boyle's cinematic achievements for a fraction of the price. Scroll down to discover the films we're showing, the dates they're screening and the relevant booking links.
1. Sunshine (screening May 7th)
Journey into the awe-inspiring cosmos with Boyle and an all-star cast fronted by Oppenheimer Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy. With Earth stricken by falling temperatures and a global deep freeze, a group of scientists are on a do-or-die mission to reignite the sun with a devastating atomic payload. However, their mission soon starts to go disastrously wrong.
Sunshine (2007) is distinguished by Boyle's penchant for retina-scorching visuals, striking cast (Chris Evans and Michelle Yeoh also feature) bold soundtrack choices (John Murphy's soaring Adagio in D Minor is now a needle-drop staple) and provocative ideas. Boyle worked on the script with novelist-turned-filmmaker Alex Garland and the film has plenty of trenchant things to say about mankind's humility in the face of the great unknown.
2. Shallow Grave (30th Anniversary, screening May 14th)
Boyle's breakout movie, released in 1994, cemented his style: urgent, pounding, violent and visceral. Leftfield's titular song acts as our intro to this pitch-black psychological comedy-thriller about three Edinburgh flatmates who are confronted with the sudden death of a fourth. The dead man has left behind a suitcase full of money. What else is there to do other than dispose of the corpse and keep the cash? If only things were that simple.
Shallow Grave was Boyle's first collaboration with Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston and helped set in motion a run of memorable cinematic partnerships. They're joined by the mercurial Kerry Fox who completes the film's youthful ensemble, the cast bringing the energy as the film glides smoothly from dark humour into full-bore horror. It's a classic story of how greed corrupts but injected with a dash of early-1990s pre-Britpop bravado.
3. 28 Days Later (screening May 21st)
Who can forget the eerie and disquieting image of a lone Cillian Murphy wandering through a deserted London at the start of Boyle's terrifying apocalyptic chiller? 28 Days Later marked the first collaboration between Boyle and Alex Garland, and it has a lot more on its mind than rampaging, bloody set-pieces, although there are plenty of those to keep the adrenaline flowing and the tension high.
In this subversion of zombie movie cliches, the world has been overrun by the 'infected', victims of the cataclysmic Rage virus that turns people into red-eyed, bloodthirsty maniacs. Murphy, Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson play the individuals seeking sanctuary as cinematographer Antony Dod Mantle keeps things raw, handheld and verité with an almost documentarian approach, immersing us further in the landscape. As with Boyle and Garland's later film Sunshine, this is a movie that uses a fantastic concept to interrogate human weakness and complacency.
4. Trainspotting (4K Restoration, screening May 28th)
A film that embodied an entire decade, Trainspotting has lost none of its power to shock or amuse. Boyle collaborates with screenwriter John Hodge to adapt Irving Welsh's colloquial and groundbreaking novel, the story of a group of Edinburgh 'skagheads' (heroin addicts), their lives and their endless quest for the next fix.
In his role as redemption-seeking junkie Mark Renton, Ewan McGregor cemented his status as a breakout star with equally strong performances from Johnny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Kelly McDonald. The energy of the cast is matched by the film's signature pulsating aesthetic, rich in colour, surrealistic flourishes (the overdose that sinks Renton into the carpet) and vibrant soundtrack choices that mix landmark Britpop with bass-thumping club classics and melancholy hits (Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day'). It all acts as an ironic commentary on life spent on the margins of society, by turns disgusting, magnanimous, repulsive and recognisably human.
If you're an Unlimited member, you can enjoy all these landmark Danny Boyle movies with your Unlimited card. And if you're feeling inspired to sign up, be sure to do so via the link below. For less than the cost of two tickets per month, you'll reap the benefits of advance screenings, 10% off your favourite snacks and drinks and a whole lot more.
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