
Acting
Des McAleer
Born 1952-05-25 · Belfast, Northern Ireland
Des McAleer is a Belfast born actor of film, TV and stage.
Acting credits
6.6An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her.
How I Live Now
2013
6.7London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.
My Week with Marilyn
2011
6.6In the midst of a marital crisis, a High Court judge must decide if she should order a life-saving blood transfusion for a teen with cancer despite his family's refusal to accept medical treatment for religious reasons.
The Children Act
2018
7.3An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.
Angela's Ashes
1999
7.2The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
Hunger
2008
6.9In Ireland, American lawyer Ingrid Jessner and her activist partner, Paul Sullivan, struggle to uncover atrocities committed by the British government against the Northern Irish during the "Troubles." But when Sullivan is assassinated in the streets, Jessner teams up with Peter Kerrigan, a British investigator acting against the will of his own government, and struggles to uncover a conspiracy that may even implicate one of Kerrigan's colleagues.
Hidden Agenda
1990
6.4Deeply mentally unbalanced drifter Eunice roams grim northern Britain committing psychosexual serial murders of both men and women while ostensibly searching for an unknown woman named Judith. She spares the life of lonely but kind-hearted gas station cashier Miriam, who abandons her dismal life to follow her damaged new lover. While attempting to hide the evidence of her multiple crimes, Miriam tries to understand Eunice's bizarre quest.
Butterfly Kiss
1995
5.6A young boy and his sister are drawn into one man's obsessive pursuit of his former lover.
I Want You
1998
8-year-old Terry comes to stay with his uncle and aunt on their farm on one of the magical Irish isles. But this is a lonely place for a little boy whose mother has just died... A movie of Celtic pathos, "The Schooner" will remain in the memory long after its viewing.
The Schooner
1983
6.0This poignant testament to the physical and emotional cost of war, centres on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Lost Lives
2019
6.4Isolated on a farm and fighting against his family's decision, Aaron struggles to be heard as he watches his mother willingly die.
North
2014
6.0The 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 Rohan (leader in militant underground and pal of Malachy's brother Padhar), who wants Malachy to be recruited and fight for the cause and by Hazel's brother Jef, who spies on her meetings.
This Is the Sea
1997
6.7Lee, a soccer player who descends into depression when he goes blind, is encouraged to take up the game again by a maverick American and the inspiration of Leeds Utd legend, Billy Bremner.
The Penalty King
2006
6.6After a police investigation, a young mother, confused and scared, confesses to a crime she did not commit and is charged with murder.
Out of Innocence
2019
7.0Two bored twentysomethings buy a Vauxhall Cavalier kit it out with a siren and spend their evenings masquerading as police officers in this Screen One TV movie
Coppers
1988
4.7Fact-based story about Irish crime-investigating reporter Sinead Hamilton, who invaded the Irish underworld and attempted to expose the illegitimate activities she found. Hampered by the system, a police consort is ineffectual at aiding her despite trying to step outside of the normal bounds. Kevin McNally plays her husband, who hates her activities and the danger in which she places herself. Nonetheless, he grudgingly admires her persistence and encourages her investigation.
When the Sky Falls
2000
5.9Colin is a Catholic and George is a poetry-loving Protestant. In Belfast in the 1980s, they could have been enemies, but instead they became business partners. After persuading a mad wig salesman, known as the Scalper, to sell them his leads, the two embark on a series of house calls
An Everlasting Piece
2000
NRShoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.
Shoot to Kill
1990
5.3Belfast 1972: The politically naive Bernie is trying to bring up a normal family in less than normal surroundings. Her best friend is accidentally shot dead by the IRA, and her neighbours are constantly raided by the army. In this climate of fear she stands up and condemns the murders. Criticising both factions, her call for a ceasefire is interpreted as an attack against the IRA, and as her peace movement takes momentum, she and her family are placed in the frontline.
Titanic Town
1998
10.0Leo Doyle, a convicted IRA murderer, is released into the community after 14 years in prison on a scheme to rehabilitate former terrorists. He soon finds that the ceasefire has robbed him of both purpose and identity. Relationships with his family are difficult and reach boiling point when they find that he has rekindled his affair with a former fiancee Roisin, now married with three children.
Life After Life
1995
6.6Two couples, one Catholic, one Protestant, exist on two sides of the chasm that is everyday life in Northern Ireland.
Four Days in July
1984
NROn a summer's day in a makeshift theatre by a lake, Konstantin's cutting-edge new play is performed, changing the lives of everyone involved forever. Chekhov's masterly meditation on how the old takes revenge on the young is both comic and tragic, and marks the birth of the modern stage. Adapted by David Hare whose stage plays include Skylight, Pravada, and screenplays include The Hours and The Reader, directed by Jonathan Kent (Gypsy, Private Lives).
National Theatre Live: The Seagull
2016
9.0Alex Randal (Stephen Moyer), a young reporter on the make, decides, without knowing anything about the situation, to go to Beirut on October 23, 1983, when he hears a radio report about suicide trucks exploding on both an American base and a French base, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. Seduced by a gifted and enigmatic photographer, Julia Muller (Anne Parillaud), Randal finds a capitol torn by civil war, where political, financial and strategic interests intertwine.
Deadlines
2005
7.0The Nuremberg trials, 1946 Goering and the Nazi high command stand trial. Within the prison a dangerous mind game is being conducted by Goering and the prison guards who stand watch over the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand
2006