Liam Neeson Crime Thriller Ranks Among Biggest Movies on Netflix

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 has 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, Liam Neeson showed off a very different set of skills by pivoting to comedy in 2025’s The Naked Gun. Yet one of his 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 United States and No. 7 worldwide.

Irish crime thriller In the Land of Saints and Sinners puts a slower spin on the hardened-killer roles Liam Neeson has made his specialty. That has not stopped the film from finding success on Netflix.

What is In the Land of Saints and Sinners about?

Set in Ireland in 1974, In the Land of Saints and Sinners stars Liam 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.

Things do not 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 is willing to go to protect the people around him and whether escaping his violent past is possible.

The premise sounds like a classic Liam Neeson movie, but In the Land of Saints and Sinners is closer to a Western than to another Taken-style revenge story.

The feature also surrounds Liam Neeson with a stacked Irish cast. Along with Kerry Condon, the film stars Ciarán Hinds from Belfast, Colm Meaney from Layer Cake, Jack Gleeson from Game of Thrones, Sarah Greene from Bad Sisters, and Niamh Cusack from We Live in Time.

What is Next for Liam Neeson?

In the Land of Saints and Sinners was also better received than many of Liam Neeson’s recent action movies. The film holds an 83% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site consensus calling it one of the better action thrillers that Liam Neeson has made in recent years. Audiences gave it a 74% score.

Liam Neeson, now 74, is not slowing down. He will 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.

He returns to more familiar territory on Oct. 30 with The Mongoose. Liam Neeson plays a decorated war veteran who leads authorities on a televised cross-country car chase after being accused of a crime he did not commit. Marisa Tomei, Ving Rhames, and Michael Chiklis co-star.

Source: Polygon