General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Six Shooter (2004 film)

Six Shooter is a 2004 Irish black comedy short film, 27 minutes long, written and directed by Martin McDonagh as his debut in filmmaking. It stars Brendan Gleeson as Donnelly, a man traveling home by train after his wife has died that morning, who shares a carriage with a strange and possibly dangerous young man known as the Kid (Rúaidhrí Conroy). The film won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Martin McDonagh, an established Irish playwright making his film debut¹
Length and format	27 minutes, shot on 35mm¹
Premiere	October 14, 2004, Cork International Film Festival³
Lead cast	Brendan Gleeson (Donnelly), Rúaidhrí Conroy (Kid), David Wilmot, Aisling O'Sullivan, Gary Lydon¹
Academy Award	Best Live Action Short Film, 78th Academy Awards, March 5, 2006²
Financing	Co-financed by the Irish Film Board and Film Four Lab, the experimental division of Film Four⁴
Budget	$200,000⁵

Spoilers

Plot

The film opens in a hospital, where a doctor tells Donnelly that his wife died at three that morning. Donnelly sits by her bedside, places a photograph of David, the family's pet rabbit, in her hands, and leaves in the early light to catch a train back to Dublin.⁵

Across from him on the train sits a chain-smoking young man known only as the Kid, whose coarse remarks about the other passengers quickly draw anger. A couple in the next seats, tense with each other, have lost their baby that night, and the Kid claims his own mother has just died. All four travelers have lost someone, and the Kid's increasingly agitated and foul-mouthed behavior turns the journey violent and dangerous for Donnelly and the other passengers.⁵^•⁶ The Kid's outlandish behavior sparks a chain of events leading to a major showdown, including a gunfight with armed Gardaí at the journey's end.¹^•⁷

Production

McDonagh was already a celebrated playwright when he made the film, having won Olivier Awards for The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman, and his plays had been sold to over 40 countries and translated into more than 28 languages. Six Shooter was his first transition into film.⁴

Missing in Action Films, Funny Farm Film & Television, and Fantastic Films produced the film, which received co-financing from the Irish Film Board, Ireland's national screen agency, and Film Four Lab, the experimental wing of Film Four that works with first-time writers and directors. It was the first collaboration between the Irish Film Board and Film Four Lab.⁴ Producers included Kenton Allen, a comedy production veteran behind the BAFTA-winning The Royle Family, Mia Bays, and Mary McCarthy and John McDonnell.⁴^•⁷

It was shot on location in Wicklow, Waterford, and Rosslare.⁴ The railway scenes were filmed on the Waterford-Rosslare line, using a Class 141 GM diesel locomotive hauling Cravens stock with a Mk1 generator coach; the line closed in September 2010. Stations identified in the film include Campile and Wellingtonbridge, and the bridge over the River Barrow between Kilkenny and Wexford appears briefly through the train window.⁸ According to one account, the crew had access to the real locomotive from 8am to 4pm each day, after which it was cleaned for the daily commute.⁹

Release and reception

The film premiered in Ireland on October 14, 2004, at the Cork International Film Festival, screened at the Foyle Film Festival in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2004, and received a limited UK theatrical release on February 5, 2005.³ It was nominated for the BAFTA short film award in 2005 before winning the Oscar in 2006.¹⁰ At the 78th Academy Awards, held March 5, 2006, it won Best Live Action Short Film, beating nominees including Cashback and Our Time Is Up.² It also won an IFTA.¹¹

The film holds a 7.4 rating on IMDb from more than 15,000 votes.⁶ A review in Estudios Irlandeses by Seán Crosson, a film scholar at the Huston Film School, described it as one of the most provocative Irish shorts in recent years, noting that it combines the darker themes and extreme violence of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino with the surrealism of David Lynch, and reads as an ironic commentary on representations of Ireland in cinema.⁷

Place in McDonagh's career

Six Shooter marked McDonagh's move from theater to film and introduced the voice of cold, brutal, morally challenging absurd comedy that characterizes his later features In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin.¹² It was also the first onscreen collaboration between McDonagh and Brendan Gleeson, who went on to star in In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin.¹³ The Kid, played by Rúaidhrí Conroy, has been described as a template for the Sam Rockwell characters in McDonagh's later films.¹⁴ The film features 34 uses of the f-word and its derivatives.⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026