Between them, the film industries in Ireland and Northern Ireland turn out on average about ten feature films a year and support the production of very many more short films, animations and documentaries. This is achieved through collaboration and co-operation across borders and involves a complex mix of internal sources (state-funded production agencies, the broadcasters, independent producers and the increasing number of schools and colleges that now teach filmmaking) and external provision (larger supra-state funding agencies as well as the international commercial film industry). In this regard the Irish film industry resembles that of most other medium- and small-scale European industries, in that film production is the result of a complex structure of national and transnational funding initiatives in a mixed economy with private capital. As in other European industries, in Ireland state support for film production is designed to promote an indigenous film industry and to develop a more pluralist film culture in a country where cinema screens are dominated by Hollywood films.

Ireland, however, differs from most other small-scale European national film industries in one major respect. Although the native language (Irish Gaelic) is still spoken in small pockets of the country, Ireland reflects its status as a former colony of Britain in the fact that it is now an overwhelmingly English-speaking culture with an Anglophone cinema.