Best of Israeli Cinema
The best movies made in Israel (including short movies).
This list is still being edited and is not final.
I believe that many of those movies represent Israeli culture, customs and day to day conflicts.
This list is still being edited and is not final.
I believe that many of those movies represent Israeli culture, customs and day to day conflicts.
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30 titles
- DirectorAvraham HeffnerStarsAvraham Ben-YosefFanny LubitschA short film which penetrates the essence of a quarrel and reconciliation between an elderly couple in Tel Aviv of 1967.
- DirectorRafi BukaiStarsSalim DawSuhel HaddadTuvia GelberOn June 11, 1967, the Six-Day War ended and ceasefire began. Egyptian soldiers Gassan and Haled journey through the Sinai desert to reach the Suez Canal, encountering Israeli soldiers and a news reporter.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsOded KotlerShai OshorovJudith SoléBased on a short story by Abraham B. Jehoshua, the movie follows Eli (Oded Kotler) taking care of an old girlfriend's child for three days. He wants him to get hurt, he worries about him. Will the child survive the three days? Will Eli?
- DirectorRenen SchorrStarsDor ZweigenboimYoav TzafirShahar Segal"Blues for the Big Vacation" follows 7 teens during a pivotal time between exams and IDF recruitment in 1970. They navigate identity, dreams, and activism amidst the backdrop of war. Key figures are Yossi, Arle, Musi, and Margo.
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
- DirectorNir BergmanStarsOrly SilbersatzMaya MaronNitai GvirtzDaphne and her four children try to cope with the abrupt death of husband/father. As the family seems to fall apart, a sudden incident gives them a chance to heal their 'broken wings'.
- DirectorUri BarbashStarsArnon ZadokMohammad BakriHillel Ne'emanIn Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri's daughter and Issan's wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsYehoram GaonOded KotlerPier AngeliDuring the Six-Day War, an Israeli pilot, hoping to bring peace to his country, fly his plane towards Egypt to hopefully commiserate with Abdel Nasser. Shot down en route, he finds himself halfway between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.
- DirectorYaky YoshaStarsMiriam Bernstein-CohenGedalia BesserLevana FinkelsteinAmi Sus'etz, an Israeli artist, abandons his wife and daughter in New York, and comes back to his home land after years of absence. Sus'etz wishes to decipher his constant feeling of failure as a human being, as a family man, as an artist. His best friends were killed in war, his paintings were burned not without intent. He has no past and no future. Back home Sus'etz reunites with his dying father, with his mother, who unsuccessfully tries to understand her son, and with a childhood friend, Ansberg, now a philosopher/homeless. Ansberg has adopted unusual methods in order to bring love back to Tel Aviv and expects "conscientious" Sus'etz to assist him in that. Sus'etz cannot be a "conscientious", or anything else for that matter, not before he resolves his own personal fate: who is he, why was he born, why does he live. Ami Sus'etz decides to make a movie, about himself, his parents, his hometown Tel Aviv, and about all that constitutes the puzzle we call human life. His movie fails in resolving the pattern but ironically becomes a commercial blockbuster. At the end of the day, the movie gets burned, just like the paintings, not without intent.
- DirectorJudd Ne'emanStarsGidi GovMoni MoshonovShlomo Bar-AbaNot everyone is born to be a soldier. Not even in Israel, where universal conscription is the tradition. This movie is about a Sad Sack in the Israeli army, incompetent to complete training and yet incompetent to extricate himself.
- DirectorEran RiklisStarsHiam AbbassMakram KhouryClara KhouryIn Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.
- DirectorJoseph CedarStarsShlomo Bar-AbaLior AshkenaziAliza RosenEliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are father and son as well as rival professors in Talmudic Studies. When both men learn that Eliezer will be lauded for his work, their complicated relationship reaches a new peak.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsArik EinsteinUri ZoharSima EliyahuGote and Eli are two aging friends who don't want to age. Gote is a lifeguard who's fighting peepers on the Tel-Aviv beach. Eli is a guitar player who dreams of building a night club in Altman's restaurant.
- DirectorMichael MayerStarsNicholas JacobMichael AloniJameel KhouryA drama centered on the love affair between two men on opposite sides of the Mid-East conflict: Palestinian student Nimer and Roy, an Israeli lawyer.
- DirectorYosef MilloStarsAssi DayanIris YotvatShraga FriedmanBased on the novel by Moshe Shamìr.
- DirectorGur BentwichStarsAlon AboutboulRafi DinnarZohar DinnarMulli, an Israeli young man, looses his backpack en route to Cairo and instead heads off to a surreal quest around the streets of Tel Aviv and Israel.
- DirectorGur BentwichStarsSarah AdlerSasha AgronovGur BentwichThis is the story of Nits, a restless bum and a hopeless cynic as he returns from his journey with an obsessive intention of bringing back his ex- girlfriend and their beloved dog. She however, throws him down the drain and so he finds himself, contrary to his anti- political and anti-everything attitude, stuck on top of a tree overlooking his beloved's apartment fearlessly leading an environmental battle against real estate sharks. For once in his life, he finds some comfort by staying put. He refuses to disembark even when the bulldozers charge in. Perhaps it's because he's had enough time on the road and finally understands there's nowhere to run to and perhaps because he can't remember what he's doing up that tree in the first place.
- DirectorOded BinnunMihal BrezisStarsSarah AdlerUlrich ThomsenTwo strangers unexpectedly meet at an airport. He mistakenly assumes her to be his assigned driver. She, enchanted by the random encounter, does not hurry to prove him wrong.
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsGila AlmagorAkram TillawiSmadar KilchinskyThe film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.
- DirectorElad KeidanStarsItay TiranUri KlauznerMichaela EshetA story of two men in the old part of Haifa. Both are walking up and down the mountain in opposing directions. This setting provides a philosophical panorama on the condition of the individual, society, loyalty, identity, and life in general.
- DirectorTzvika KertznerAkiva TevetStarsMichal Bat-AdamYftach KatzurDan TorenAtalia is a 40-year-old widow who lost her husband in the Six-Day War and lives on a kibbutz with her adolescent daughter. Lonely and feeling outcast, she enters into a forbidden affair with her daughter's classmate, Matti, an idealistic 19-year-old rejected by the army.
- DirectorAvshalom KatzStarsAhmed Yousef
- DirectorIsaac Zepel YeshurunStarsMoshe HavazeletAdi Ne'emanOsnat OferSet in Israel 1951, Noa is a member of a youth movement who fights for her individuality, her right to doubt and question all beliefs - all conformisms. An ideological battle takes place when the Kibbutz Movement must decided whether to follow Soviet Russia or join the Western world. The debate splits families and the kibbutz, and Noa's group of friends. She is not a person of compromise and fights her way independently through a world of shattered values.
- DirectorSamuel MaozStarsYoav DonatItay TiranOshri CohenDuring the First Lebanon War in 1982, a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town.
- DirectorGidi DarStarsShuli RandMichal Bat-Sheva RandShaul MizrahiAn Orthodox Jewish couple's faith is tested after praying to the Lord for a child on the Succoth holiday.