Lee Cronin to be honoured with an Oscar Wilde Award
The US-Ireland Alliance has announced that Irish director Lee Cronin will be honoured with an Oscar Wilde Award at the 12 March 2026 event. The annual party will again be held at The Ebell of Los Angeles. It was previously announced that Domhnall Gleeson and Maura Tierney will be honoured, and Irish singer Dave Lofts will perform at what will be the 20th anniversary of the event.
Growing up in the seaside town of Skerries, just outside Dublin, Lee Cronin had aspirations of being a fisherman, a clown, and a Ghostbuster. An early education in classic genre films led him to realize that moviemaking ticked all three boxes. Having cut his teeth with numerous award-winning short films, Cronin’s debut feature The Hole in the Ground premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 to critical acclaim. It was released by A24 and landed him a Saturn Award nomination for Breakthrough Director.
His sophomore feature Evil Dead Rise premiered at SXSW in 2023. It achieved critical and commercial success, grossing $150 million for Warner Bros. at the global box office and earned Cronin the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Director. Cronin lives in Ireland where he operates his freshly birthed production company Wicked/Good. This new entity produced his third feature film, the highly anticipated Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, which will be released worldwide by New Line Cinema on 17 April 2026.
Trina Vargo, president of the US-Ireland Alliance noted, “Lee’s trajectory is impressive. And to have his name precede the title of the film, that’s a rarity for any director.”
Northern Ireland Screen and Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland are among the event’s major sponsors.
