Liam Neeson has spent the better part of the last two decades proving that an action star’s expiration date is mostly theoretical.
After Taken transformed the Oscar-nominated star of Schindler’s List into an unlikely action hero, Liam Neeson built a second act around men with particular sets of skills and complicated pasts. He’s since battled criminals aboard a plane in Non-Stop, driven a snowplow for revenge in Cold Pursuit, and played everything from an ice-road trucker to an aging mob enforcer. More recently, he showed off a very different set of skills by pivoting to comedy in 2025’s The Naked Gun. And yet one of Neeson’s most successful projects right now arrived two years ago. A 2024 thriller starring the seemingly tireless actor is suddenly dominating Netflix’s streaming charts, climbing to No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 7 worldwide.
Irish crime thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners puts a slower spin on the hardened-killer roles Neeson has made his specialty. But that hasn’t stopped it from finding success on Netflix. Here’s what you need to know about the movie, and why it’s worth checking out for yourself.
What is In the Land of Saints and Sinners about?
Set in Ireland in 1974, In the Land of Saints and Sinners stars Neeson as Finbar Murphy, a contract killer living in the remote coastal village of Glencolmcille in County Donegal. After years of killing for money, Finbar decides he wants to leave that life behind and enjoy what remains of a quieter existence.
Of course, things don’t stay quiet for long. After a bombing in Belfast goes wrong, a group of IRA members retreats to Donegal, led by the ruthless Doireann McCann, played by Kerry Condon, an Oscar nominee for The Banshees of Inisherin. Their arrival eventually puts them on a collision course with Finbar, forcing him to decide how far he’s willing to go to protect the people around him — and whether escaping his violent past is possible at all.
The premise sounds like a Neeson classic, but In the Land of Saints and Sinners is closer to a Western than to another Taken-style revenge movie.
It also surrounds Neeson with a stacked Irish cast. Along with Condon, the film stars Ciarán Hinds (Belfast), Colm Meaney (Layer Cake), Jack Gleeson (Game of Thrones), Sarah Greene (Bad Sisters), and Niamh Cusack (We Live in Time).
What’s Next for Liam Neeson?
In the Land of Saints and Sinners was also better received than many of Neeson’s recent action movies. The film currently holds an 83% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site’s consensus calling it “one of the better action thrillers” that Neeson has made in recent years. Audiences were fairly positive, too, giving it a 74% score.
And Neeson, now 74, isn’t slowing down. He’ll next appear alongside Zachary Levi in The Fix, an action thriller about former CIA operatives who head to Tehran for a dangerous rescue mission, due Sept. 11.
Then, on Oct. 30, he returns to more familiar territory with The Mongoose, playing a decorated war veteran who, after being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, leads authorities on a televised cross-country car chase. Marisa Tomei, Ving Rhames, and Michael Chiklis co-star.