Tom Hickey

Acting

Tom Hickey

Born 1944-01-01 · Kildare, County Kildare, Ireland

Tom Hickey (1944 – May 1, 2021) was an Irish actor who appeared on stage and screen in a career that began in the early 1960s. He was best known for playing Benjy Riordan in the long-running television series, The Riordans.

Acting credits

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown poster
7.5

No one expects much from Christy Brown, a boy with cerebral palsy born into a working-class Irish family. Though Christy is a spastic quadriplegic and essentially paralyzed, a miraculous event occurs when, at the age of 5, he demonstrates control of his left foot by using chalk to scrawl a word on the floor. With the help of his steely mother — and no shortage of grit and determination — Christy overcomes his infirmity to become a painter, poet and author.

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown

1989

Gothic poster
5.7

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 aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, it becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality.

Gothic

1987

Breakfast on Pluto poster
7.2

In the 1970s, a young transgender woman called “Kitten” leaves her small Irish town for London in search of love, acceptance, and her long-lost mother.

Breakfast on Pluto

2005

High Spirits poster
5.8

When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests.

High Spirits

1988

What Richard Did poster
5.7

What Richard Did is a striking portrait of the fall of a Dublin golden-boy and high school rugby star whose world unravels one summer night.

What Richard Did

2012

Possession poster
6.0

Maud Bailey, a brilliant English academic, is researching the life and work of poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Michell is an American scholar in London to study Randolph Henry Ash, now best-known for a collection of poems dedicated to his wife. When Maud and Roland discover a cache of love letters that appear to be from Ash to La Motte, they follow a trail of clues across England, echoing the journey of the couple over a century earlier.

Possession

2002

An Awfully Big Adventure poster
6.5

Liverpool. 1947. Right after World War II, a star struck naive teenage girl joins a shabby theatre troupe in Liverpool. During a winter production of Peter Pan, the play quickly turns into a dark metaphor for youth as she becomes drawn into a web of sexual politics and intrigue and learns about the grown-up world of the theater.

An Awfully Big Adventure

1995

Nuns on the Run poster
5.9

Set up by their boss to be knocked off following a final heist, soon-to-retire crooks Brian Hope and Charlie McManus get wind of their impending demise and run off with the spoils of their crime. Fleeing their boss, the drug dealers they robbed, the police, and Brian's angry girlfriend, the duo take refuge in a training convent for nuns. In disguise, they convince Sister Superior that they're nuns, a charade they're forced to maintain as their enemies arrive.

Nuns on the Run

1990

The Butcher Boy poster
6.8

Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.

The Butcher Boy

1998

Circle of Friends poster
6.3

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

Circle of Friends

1995

Inside I'm Dancing poster
7.4

Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.

Inside I'm Dancing

2004

Cal poster
5.8

Cal, a young man on the fringes of the IRA, falls in love with Marcella, a Catholic woman whose husband, a Protestant policeman, was killed one year earlier by the IRA.

Cal

1984

Raining Stones poster
6.9

Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to increasingly questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.

Raining Stones

1993

Unnatural Pursuits poster
NR

An English playwright sacrifices his health waiting for his play's make-or-break opening on Broadway.

Unnatural Pursuits

1992

Before I Sleep poster
7.5

"Before I Sleep" is one man's odyssey through Dublin city. It is a crowded hectic film, unmistakably Dublin, yet with one constant character - John Harte, a recently unemployed middle class man in a state of quiet anxiety.

Before I Sleep

1997

The Miracle poster
6.0

Two teenagers Jimmy and Rose spend their vacation at the small Irish sea-resort Bray. Out of boredom they observe other people and imagine wild stories about them. One day they observe the blonde Renee, and Jimmy is immediately fascinated by her and even follows her home. She, too, seems to like him, but for a mysterious reason keeps him at a distance.

The Miracle

1991

The Treaty poster
6.8

How the Anglo-Irish Treaty between the unrecognised Irish Republic, represented by Michael Collins, and the British government was concluded after high-stakes negotiations in 1921.

The Treaty

1991

Garage poster
6.6

Due to a learning disability, Josie's life in a tiny town revolves around a menial job taking care of a garage that could close at any day. Things start to change, however, when David, the son of his boss' girlfriend, comes to work with him. Josie hangs out with David and his teenage friends, bringing them beer, and despite being a grown man himself, finds that the new company lifts his spirits. But his simple-mindedness blinds him to some potential legal dangers.

Garage

2007

The Last September poster
5.2

In 1920s Ireland, an elderly couple reside over a tired country estate. Living with them are their high-spirited niece, their Oxford student nephew, and married house guests, who are trying to cover up that they are presently homeless. The niece enjoys romantic frolics with a soldier and a hidden guerrilla fighter. All of the principals are thrown into turmoil when one more guest arrives with considerable wit and unwanted advice.

The Last September

2000

Stella Days poster
6.4

A priest stationed in Tipperary, Ireland, is eager to return to Rome. Told he cannot do so until he has raised enough money for the building of a new church, he decides to open a cinema in the local town.

Stella Days

2012

Flight of the Doves poster
5.9

While fleeing across the Irish countryside, two orphans are pursued by their villainous uncle, a master of disguises.

Flight of the Doves

1971

Fools of Fortune poster
6.5

A Protestant Irish family is caught up in a conflict between Irish Republicans and the British army.

Fools of Fortune

1990

Gold In The Streets poster
5.0

An Irish immigrant lands in the Bronx, working at an Italian-owned bar while living with fellow undocumented immigrants. Fears of deportation and uncertainty about their place haunt him and his cousin.

Gold In The Streets

1997

Coney Island Baby poster
9.0

After spending time in New York City, Billy Hayes returns to his Ireland hometown. He wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend and take her to America in hopes of opening up a gas station. But everything isn't going Billy's way — the townspeople aren't happy to see him, and his ex-girlfriend is engaged and pregnant. Then, Billy runs into his old friends who are planning a scam.

Coney Island Baby

2002