[4] The National Film Institute was founded in 1943 and incorporated in June 1945,[3] under the control of ultra-conservative Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid.

[5] The IFI Irish Film Archive acquires, preserves and makes available Ireland's moving image heritage.

[7] IFI International supports cultural exhibitors worldwide in curating exhibitions of new or classic Irish films, having worked with, for example, New York's MoMA and Lincoln Centre, New Delhi, Moscow, Brussels and Poland.

A series of public interviews has brought many international filmmakers and actors to IFI audiences over the years, including John Woo, Peter Greenaway, Dennis Hopper, Atom Egoyan, Sydney Pollack, Tim Roth, Joel Schumacher, Juliette Binoche, John C. Reilly, U2's Larry Mullen Jr. and Claude Miller.

Evening courses offer opportunities to explore everything from Indian cinema and America independents to Spanish film, with lectures following each screening.

The IFI is the only cinema in the country screening films in all possible formats – from Digibeta, DVD, Blu-ray and DCP, to 8, 16, 35 or 70 mm.