Liam Neeson’s 106-Minute Netflix Thriller Finds a Huge Audience

Liam Neeson’s 106-Minute Netflix Thriller Finds a Huge Audience

Liam Neeson’s long-running action-star era shows no sign of fading. The actor, who became an unlikely leading man in the genre after Taken, has built a second career around dangerous men, troubled histories and highly specific professional skills.

His filmography includes the airborne thriller Non-Stop, the revenge story Cold Pursuit, an ice-road adventure and several crime dramas. He also moved into comedy with 2025’s The Naked Gun. Now, a 106-minute thriller released in 2024 has attracted a substantial new audience on Netflix, reaching No. 3 in the United States and No. 7 worldwide on the streaming charts.

What is In the Land of Saints and Sinners about?

In the Land of Saints and Sinners is set in Ireland in 1974. Neeson plays Finbar Murphy, a contract killer living in the remote coastal village of Glencolmcille in County Donegal.

After years of working as an assassin, Finbar hopes to abandon violence and spend the rest of his life in relative peace. That plan collapses when a botched bombing in Belfast drives a group of IRA members towards Donegal.

The group is led by Doireann McCann, played by Kerry Condon, who received an Oscar nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin. Their arrival brings Finbar into conflict with them and forces him to weigh his wish for a quiet life against his instinct to protect the people around him.

Although the setup may sound familiar to anyone who knows Neeson’s action work, this film takes a more measured route. Its atmosphere and moral conflict place it closer to a Western than a conventional Taken-style revenge film.

The cast also includes several prominent Irish performers: Ciarán Hinds, known for Belfast; Colm Meaney, who appeared in Layer Cake; Jack Gleeson from Game of Thrones; Sarah Greene from Bad Sisters; and Niamh Cusack, who featured in We Live in Time.

Why is the film doing well on Netflix?

The thriller’s streaming performance is notable because it arrived two years before its current chart climb. Its slower pace and Irish crime setting offer a different variation on Neeson’s familiar screen persona, while the cast gives the film a strong dramatic foundation.

Critical and audience responses have also been relatively positive. The film holds an 83% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences have given it 74%. The critics’ consensus describes it as one of Neeson’s stronger action thrillers of recent years.

For readers who enjoy the film’s crime-world tension, the movie’s cast and story details provide a useful place to continue exploring it. And if you enjoy watching action on a big screen, RETROCADE’s arcade news and features cover the wider entertainment and gaming world.

What comes next for Liam Neeson?

Neeson is now 74, but his upcoming projects continue to favour action. He is set to appear with Zachary Levi in The Fix, which follows former CIA operatives travelling to Tehran for a dangerous rescue mission. The film is due on September 11.

On October 30, Neeson returns to a more recognisable kind of thriller in The Mongoose. He plays a decorated war veteran accused of a crime he did not commit, who leads authorities on a televised cross-country car chase. Marisa Tomei, Ving Rhames and Michael Chiklis also star.

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