Five (and a Half) Movies About Palestine

Regardless of whether you stand with Israel, support a free Palestine, yearn for a two-state solution, or just believe in the right of men, women, and children to not be massacred where they live, these movies — all available on VOD — put faces and feelings to a place too few Americans understand.

“5 Broken Cameras” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, 2011, streaming on Kanopy and Plex, for rent on Kino Now) – A devastating homemade documentary of incursion in the West Bank, with Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat filming the building of a barrier wall that cut through his village’s fields and the protests and police reprisals that followed. Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi worked with Burnat to finish the feature, which won a number of Israeli film awards and was nominated for an Oscar for Feature Documentary.

“200 Meters” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, 2020, streaming on Hoopla; for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and YouTube) – A Palestinian construction worker (Ali Suliman, “The Kingdom”) learns his son is in an Israeli hospital within walking distance of a border checkpoint but is denied entry on a technicality and must come up with another way to cross over. Tautly directed by Ameen Nayfeh, with a wrenching lead performance from Suliman, a talented actor usually relegated to supporting parts.

“Foxtrot” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, 2017, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and YouTube) – Israeli writer-director Samuel Moaz caused a ruckus with this drama that starts with a Tel Aviv couple (Lior Ashkenazi and Sarah Adler) being told that their IDF soldier son (Yonathan Shiray), has been killed. But nothing is quite what it seems in a tricky, troubled, compassionate film that both won the Grand Jury prize at Venice and was denounced by Israel's Minister of Culture.

“Gaza Mon Amour” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, 2020, streaming on Amazon Prime, Kanopy, and Plex; for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and YouTube) – For a change-up, a delicately funny romance and a reminder of what life in Gaza was and could be. Salim Daw plays a raffish old fisherman who falls in love late in the day; the great Hiam Abbass – Marcia Roy on “Succession” – plays the widow he sets his cap for. A charmer, but one with grit and clarity (and a hilarious performance by Manal Awad as the fisherman’s sister.)

“Paradise Now” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, 2004, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, and YouTube) From the gifted Palestinian-Dutch filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, a stark philosophical thriller about two best friends (Ali Suliman and Kais Nashef) who are recruited as suicide bombers before coming to a moral fork in the road. Winner of a Golden Globe for Foreign Language Film and nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar.

“The Present” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, 2020, streaming on Amazon Prime, Kanopy, and Netflix; for rent on Amazon and YouTube) – Farah Nabulsi directed this 25-minute short film, nominated for a 2021 Oscar (as was the fine Israeli short “White Eye”), about a father (Saleh Bakri) and his young daughter (Maryam Kanj) trying to cross a West Bank checkpoint to bring home a new refrigerator. An all-too-real parable of day-to-day existence in an armed and Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

Comments? Other recommendations? Please don’t hesitate to weigh in.

If you enjoyed this edition of Ty Burr’s Watch List, feel free to pass it along to others.

If you’re not a paying subscriber and would like to sign up for additional postings and to join the discussions — or just help underwrite this enterprise, for which the author would be eternally grateful — here’s how.

You can give a paid Watch List gift subscription to your movie-mad friends —

Or refer friends to the Watch List and get credit for new subscribers. When you use the referral link below, or the “Share” button on any post, you'll:

• Get a 1 month comp for 3 referrals
• Get a 3 month comp for 5 referrals
• Get a 6 month comp for 25 referrals. Simply send the link in a text, email, or share it on social media with friends.

There’s a leaderboard where you can track your shares. To learn more, check out Substack’s FAQ.