Netflix has announced a formidable ensemble for Bad Bridgets, the eagerly awaited second feature from Kneecap director Rich Peppiatt, with cameras set to roll in Northern Ireland and Ireland in mid-July 2026.
Colin Farrell, Steve Coogan, Charlie Heaton, Domhnall Gleeson, Himesh Patel, Niamh Algar and Simone Kirby have all joined the previously announced leads Emilia Jones and Alison Oliver for the period drama, which Peppiatt has written, directs and produces.
It is a serious statement of intent from Netflix and a major coup for the local industry, marrying Hollywood star power with a deep bench of Irish and Irish-connected talent. Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin, In Bruges) and Coogan (Philomena, the upcoming Legends) anchor a supporting cast that also takes in Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things, Industry), Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina, Echo Valley), Himesh Patel (Yesterday, The Odyssey), Niamh Algar (The Iris Affair, Mary & George) and Simone Kirby, who reunites with Peppiatt after Kneecap and is also known for His Dark Materials.
Set against the teeming streets of nineteenth-century New York, the film follows a young Irish woman whose passage across the Atlantic begins with a mysterious letter offering escape. Once there, she is pulled into the unruly world of “the Bridgets,” where mayhem follows in her wake.
Bad Bridgets is inspired by the acclaimed book Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women by Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick. The pair, historians at Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University respectively, unearthed a startling hidden history of Irish emigrant women in North America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — a world in which Irish women at times outnumbered Irish men behind bars, in which a person could be jailed for “stubbornness,” and which produced figures such as Lizzie Halliday, branded by the New York Times as “the worst woman on earth.” The project was developed with the support of Queen’s University Belfast.
For Peppiatt, it is a hotly anticipated follow-up to Kneecap, the genre-reviving Belfast hip-hop drama that swept the board on the awards circuit and earned the director a BAFTA. Bad Bridgets sees him stepping back in time and considerably up in scale, while keeping faith with the collaborators who helped make that film such a phenomenon.
The film is produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap — the company behind Barbie, Saltburn, Promising Young Woman and Maid, with its stated focus on female-driven storytelling — alongside Trevor Birney and Peppiatt’s Northern Irish production company Coup d’Etat. Cáit Collins serves as executive producer.
Peppiatt has assembled a heavyweight, award-laden department-head team. Kneecap cinematographer Ryan Kernaghan, a BAFTA winner for Trespasses, returns to shoot the film. Oscar and BAFTA winner James Price (Poor Things) is on board as production designer, with Academy Award and BAFTA winner Kate Hawley (Frankenstein) designing the costumes.
Bad Bridgets is being produced with the support of Northern Ireland Screen and will shoot on location across Northern Ireland and Ireland from mid-July.