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Arabic-Language Movies

The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Gillo Pontecorvo · 71 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV, Shout! Factory TV, Plex · Streaming on Kanopy, Criterion Channel, TCM
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.
The Night of Counting the Years (1969)
Shadi Abdel Salam · 10 critic votes
Free on Public Domain Movies
An archaeologist unearths the mummy of an Egyptian queen. He doesn't realize that his daughter has a strong resemblance to the dead queen, and soon the mummy awakens. Complications ensue.
Cairo Station (1958)
Youssef Chahine · 9 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.
Divine Intervention (2002)
Elia Suleiman · 6 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Chai Flicks
Santa Claus tries to outrun a gang of knife-wielding youth. It's one of several vignettes of Palestinian life in Israel - in a neighborhood in Nazareth and at Al-Ram checkpoint in East Jerusalem. Most of the stories are droll, some absurd, one is mythic and fanciful; few words are spoken. A man who goes through his mail methodically each morning has a heart attack. His son visits him in the hospital. The son regularly meets a woman at Al-Ram; they sit in a car, hands caressing. Once, she defies Israeli guards at the checkpoint; later, ninja-like, she takes on soldiers at a target range. A red balloon floats free overhead. Neighbors toss garbage over walls. Life goes on until it doesn't.
Timbuktu (2014)
Abderrahmane Sissako · 4 critic votes
Free on Tubi TV · Streaming on Kanopy, Cohen Media Amazon Channel
Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.
Alexandria Again and Forever (1990)
Youssef Chahine · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Set in 1987 against the backdrop of a hunger strike by the Egyptian film industry, Chahine himself steps in to play Yehia, the famed Egyptian director whose life is chronicled in "Alexandria, Why?" and "An Egyptian Story". Obsessed with Amr, the handsome actor he discovered and cast as his alter-ego in parts one and two of The Alexandria Trilogy, Yehia pressures Amr to star in various film projects that change even as Yehia's perception of the young actor begins to change. He first casts Amr as Hamlet, which the actor deems too demanding for his talents, then as the lead in a musical biopic of demigod Alexander the Great, who founded the city of Alexandria in 332 B.C.
Les SILENCES DU PALAIS (1994)
Moufida Tlatli · 3 critic votes
The death of a prince brings a young woman back to the palace where she was born into servitude. The lingering legacy is brought into light from behind frosted windows and velvet curtains.
Tahia ya didou! (1971)
Mohamed Zinet · 2 critic votes
Originally commissioned by the city of Algiers to promote tourism, Mohamed Zinet’s Tahia ya Didou blends documentary with fiction to create a poetic, acerbic and rapturous portrait of the director’s native city. The camera travels freely, through the port, market, streets and cafés, capturing everyday people, some of whom recur frequently enough to seem like protagonists. The nominal plotline follows a French tourist couple’s leisurely visit to the city, the man having previously served in the army during the Algerian war. As they walk around, his comments betray his mindset’s racist colonial prejudices, while his wife reiterates asinine clichés. Their unhurried wandering is interrupted when he comes across a blind man and realises that he tortured him during his army service. The film is punctuated with punchy sequences that show a poet named Momo delivering verse as an elegy for Algiers.
The Dupes (1973)
Tewfik Saleh · 2 critic votes
The film follows three Palestinian refugees brought together by dispossession and hope for a better future. Hiding in the tank of a truck, the men attempt to make their way across the border into Kuwait, the "promised land."
The Razor's Edge (1985)
Jocelyne Saab · 2 critic votes
Samar, a child of the war, finds relief from the chaos around her through Egyptian movies she watches on television. Karim, an artist in retreat from life, remains in his apartment in war-torn West Beirut, confident that he is safe in his familiar neighborhood. An unlikely bond is formed between the two as they face the devastating civil war.
Stars in Broad Daylight (1988)
Ossama Mohammed · 2 critic votes
In his debut feature film, director Muhammad explores the inexorable dissolution of a family, ironically during the planning of a wedding, the kind of ritual that ought to bond family members together in shared joy. The film exposes the divisive dynamics of patriarchal oppression, and the terrible connections between familial and sociopolitical violence.
Waiting for Happiness (2002)
Abderrahmane Sissako · 2 critic votes
Before immigrating to the West, Abdallah travels to the coastal city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, to visit his mother. Although he grew up there, Abdallah feels anything but at home in his old neighborhood: he can no longer speak the local dialect and he wears western clothes that immediately cast him as an outsider. But, as Abdallah spends time with a young boy and an elderly electrician, he can't help but feel a sense of loss for the life he's abandoning.
Babel (2006)
Alejandro González Iñárritu · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, fuboTV, Paramount+ Amazon Channel
Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.
Daratt (2006)
Mahamat Saleh Haroun · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Chad, 2006. After a forty-year civil war, the radio announces the government has just amnestied the war criminals. Outraged by the news, Gumar Abatcha orders his grandson Atim, a sixteen-year-old youth, to trace the man who killed his father and to execute him. Atim obeys him and, armed with his father's own gun, he goes in search of Nassara, the man who made him an orphan. It does not take long before he finds him. Nassara, who now goes straight, is married, goes to the mosque and owns a small bakery. After some hesitation Atim offers him his services as an apprentice. He is hired then it will be easy for him to gun down the murderer of his father. At least, that is what he thinks...
The Time That Remains (2009)
Elia Suleiman · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Philo
An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day. A semi-biographic film, in four chapters, about a family spanning from 1948 until recent times. Combined with intimate memories of each member, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labelled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.
Wadjda (2012)
Haifaa al-Mansour · 2 critic votes
Free on YouTube Free
An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest.
Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (2015)
Abbas Fahdel · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy
Chronicles of everyday life in Iraq before and after the U.S. invasion.
For Sama (2019)
Waad al-Kateab, Edward Watts · 2 critic votes
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
Most Dangerous Man in the World (1967)
Niazi Mostafa · 1 critic vote
Mister X is the head of an international smuggling ring in Chicago and arrives in Cairo to practice his activity. The police know about him and begin to watch him. The police exploit the great resemblance between X and the airport employee Zaki, so they exploit him in their mission, and the events follow in a comic form.
WECHMA (1970)
Hamid Benani · 1 critic vote
The story of Massaoud, a rebellious young man, oppressed by both his family and the sclerotic society.
About Some Meaningless Events (1974)
Mustapha Derkaoui · 1 critic vote
In Casablanca, a group of filmmakers conduct discussions with people about their expectations of, and aspirations for, the emerging Moroccan national cinema. When a disgruntled worker kills his superior accidentally, their inquest shifts focus, and they begin to probe the motives of the killing.
Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (1975)
Omar Amiralay · 1 critic vote
The first documentary to present an unabashed critique of the impact of the Syrian government’s agricultural and land reforms, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village delivers a powerful jab at the state’s conceit of redressing social and economic inequities.
Assarab (1979)
Ahmed Bouanani · 1 critic vote
Ahmed Bouanani’s first feature film played a pivotal role in bringing experimentalism to Moroccan cinema. It’s a fable-like story of a poor young farmer who finds treasure in a flour bag. This takes him on a journey where nothing is as it seems. The film’s narrative structure frequently makes reference to mythology and literature, utilizing Morocco’s rich history and oral traditions.
An Egyptian Story (1982)
Youssef Chahine · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
After we last see him in "Alexandria, Why?" Egyptian filmmaker Yehia Mourad is in his thirties, and successful in his work, he has grown distant from his wife and children and suﬀers a symbolic blockage of the heart while shooting the final scenes of his latest film. After being flown to England for evaluation, it's determined that Yehia must undergo emergency surgery. Fact and fiction blend seamlessly—with healthy doses of cleverly absurdist fantasy—as the film explores the various personalities and forces that have made Yehia (and Youssef Chahine) the man he has become.
Sawak al-utubis (1982)
Atef El Tayeb · 1 critic vote
A father loses his carpentry workshop after his son-in-law stops paying taxes regularly. His son Hassan, a bus driver, struggles hard to save his father’s workshop, while the daughters try to replace it with a new project inspired by the “Infitah” era.
Leila and the Wolves (1984)
Heiny Srour · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, OVID
Drawing on the Arab heritage of oral tradition and mosaic pattern, Leila and the Wolves is an exploration of the collective memory of Arab women and their hidden role in history throughout the past half century both in Palestine and in Lebanon.
Ma'loul Celebrates its Destruction (1984)
Michel Khleifi · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
After the destruction of the Palestinian village of Ma’loul in 1948 and the forced displacement of its inhabitants, the site remains uninhabited. Each year, former residents are allowed to return for a single day, gathering among the ruins to share memories, recount the village’s past, and introduce younger generations to a place they cannot permanently inhabit, sustaining collective history through ritual return and testimony.
Human Being (1994)
Ibrahim Shaddad · 1 critic vote
Sudanese filmmaker Ibrahim Shaddad provides a dramatic and powerful account of the trials and tribulations of a Sudanese villager in a large alien city. Shot entirely without dialogue, the film's innovative use of sound helps tell the story of a shepherd who leaves his wife and herd to settle in a nearby town. Since its premiere at the Alexandria Film Festival, Human Being (إنسان / Insan) has been shown in a number of festivals in the Middle East and Europe. This film is a prime example of experimental Arab cinema.
SEGELL IKHTIFA (1996)
Elia Suleiman · 1 critic vote
Chronicle of a Disappearance unfolds in a series of seemingly unconnected cinematic tableaux, each of them focused on incidents or characters which seldom reappear later in the film. Among the many unrelated scenes, there is a Palestinian actress struggling to find an apartment in West Jerusalem, the owner of the Holy Land souvenir shop preparing merchandise for incoming Japanese tourists, a group of old women gossiping about their relatives, and an Israeli police van which screeches to a halt so several heavily armed soldiers can get off the car and urinate.
There Are Many Things One Can Talk About... (1997)
Omar Amiralay · 1 critic vote
The film was based on an interview with the late dramatist Saadallah Wannous a few months before he died of cancer. Wannous narrates his somber and relentless reflections – an adieu to a generation for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the source of all disillusion. The playwright recounts, with some regret for the lost opportunities that resulted, how the Palestinian struggle became a central part of intellectual life for an entire generation
Tango of Yearning (1998)
Mohamad Soueid · 1 critic vote
Tango of Yearning (1998) is the first episode of an autobiographical trilogy on postwar Lebanon, later including Nightfall (2000) and Civil War (2002). Taking its title from Tango of Hope, a classic ballad by Nur al-Huda, the film draws from the director’s reflections on war, love, and cinema, as well as his personal experience at the public television channel TéléLiban. Conjuring various snippets of audiovisual archival material, the film is a poetic elegy to film, Beirut’s movie theaters, and a city undergoing radical transformation. Mohamed Soueid has long been a proponent of the experimental video documentary movement in Lebanon, playing a significant role in the country’s creative renaissance since the end of the civil war. Originally trained as a news videographer during the war, the experience offered him a facility with the medium, which he further developed by making non-linear documentary films with a distinctly personal take.
Wadi Grand Canyon (2001)
Amos Gitai · 1 critic vote
The Lamentations Series: The Ninth Night and Day (2005)
Jalal Toufic · 1 critic vote
While the ten-day ceremony 'Âshûrâ' is a commemoration of the slaughter of the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and his relatives and companions at Karbalâ' in 680, it is also an invocation of the occulted Twelfth Imam, the Mahdî, in the hope of hurrying his exoteric earthly return. But how would the one invoked, who is (imaginally) present albeit occulted, perceive the ceremony? He would not perceive it the way we see it but in more temporal detail. While the first part of the video appears to be a documentation of the ceremony as it might be perceived by an all too human audience member, the second part of the video, which happens across a lapse of consciousness if not of being (indicated by the cut to black on the sound of the participants' hands striking their chests), and where time is dilated, implies that the essential spectator of the ceremony is the one to whom it is addressed, the Mahdî.
I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave (2006)
Hala Alabdalla, Amma Al-Beik · 1 critic vote
Interviews with three Syrian women who live in exile.
My Country, My Country (2006)
Laura Poitras · 1 critic vote
The director follows a Sunni Arab doctor as he prepares to run for the early 2005 elections in Iraq.
Death for Sale (2011)
Faouzi Bensaïdi · 1 critic vote
In Tetouan, at the northern edge of Morocco, three young men decide to rob a jewelry store. The heist goes awry, and their destinies part drastically.
A World Not Ours (2012)
Mahdi Fleifel · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
An intimate, and often humorous, portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive, and illuminating study of belonging, friendship, and family in the lives of those for whom dispossession is the norm, and yearning their daily lives.
Coming Forth by Day (2012)
Hala Lotfy · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Fawesome
One day in the life of Soad, who lives with her mother and bed-ridden father on the outskirts of Cairo.
Bloody Beans (2013)
Narimane Mari · 1 critic vote
On an Algerian beach, kids splash about, sleep, squabble - and then suddenly go to war. And it’s neither Lord of the Flies nor La Guerre des boutons. In her first film, full of grace, Narimane Mari films this childish freefor- all closely, at the irregular pace of an imagination inspired by the highest form of reality, national History — actually, nothing less than the Algerian War of Independence. When their make-believe induces a general upheaval, we follow the flock of children as they stamp their feet up the stairs, invade houses, cross village squares, in a whirlwind of shouts and empty words. Time is stretched like in a dream, through a choreography of belligerent shadows or the night-time explosion of the cemetery, as so many warning signs of dangers to come.
The Return to Homs (2013)
Talal Derki · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
Filmed over 3 years in Homs, accompanying 2 outstanding young men from the time they were only dreaming of freedom to the time when they are forced to change course. Basset, the 19yo national football team goalkeeper, who became an outspoken demonstration leader in the city, then an icon revolution singer, till he becomes a fighter... a militia leader. Ossama, his 24yo friend, renowned citizen journalist, cynical pacifist... as his views are forced to change, until he is detained by army secret service. It is the story of a city, of which the world have heard a lot, but never really got closer than news, never really had the chance to experience how a war erupted. a modern times epic of youth in war time.
In the Last Days of the City (2016)
Tamer El Said · 1 critic vote
Streaming on OVID
In the fading grandeur of downtown Cairo, Khalid, a 35-year-old filmmaker is struggling to make a film that captures the pulse of his city at a moment when all around him dreams as much as buildings are disintegrating. With the help of his friends who send him footage from their lives in Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin, he finds the strength to keep going through the difficulty and beauty of living IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CITY.
Inhebbek Hedi (2016)
Mohamed Ben Attia · 1 critic vote
Young Tunisian Hedi lives an ordered life in which he believes there can be no more surprises. His future will play out as other people have planned, until he meets a young woman named Rim at a hotel in Mahdia Hediand. An ostensibly personal story broadens into a panorama of a society in upheaval, an allegory about breaking away from traditions. And a film about the happiness and pain of freedom.
Wajib (2017)
Annemarie Jacir · 1 critic vote
After years abroad in Italy, Shadi returns to his native Nazareth. But this is no spectacular homecoming. He's back somewhat begrudgingly to honour his "wajib" (or duty) to hand out invitations to his sister's wedding with his father. The simmering tension between the two — who are often stuck in a car, more often than not in traffic — builds, exposing the sometimes-comic chasms that exist between men who live in different worlds but share an unshakable bond.
Capernaum (2018)
Nadine Labaki · 1 critic vote
Free on YouTube Free
After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.
Party on the CAPS (2018)
Meriem Bennani · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
" ... Bennani's mother, a real-life pharmacist and pathologist, also plays one here on the CAPS. Her own mother's 80th birthday is the occasion for the titular party, at which she will debut a youthful new look, the product of an extensive rejuvenation procedure ... Shot in the artist's home city of Rabat, Morocco, the 30-minute video channel-surfs between pirate frequencies, surveillance footage, and documentation of the raucous celebration. We spend time with the party’s MC-for-hire as he slurps harira, flips off a trooper, and dispenses a longish musical interlude about a food vendor who once invoked his ire. Eventually, we land on the nightmarish, static-riven eyes and mouth of ZIP, a user interface promising an illicit escape from the CAPS, suggesting we "sign the lease" on a new body in Florida." — Maxwell Paparella (Screen Slate)
Talking about Trees (2019)
Suhaib Gasmelbari · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Criterion Channel
Filmmakers Ibrahim, Suliman, Eltayeb and Manar, close friends for many years, left their motherland in the sixties and seventies to study film abroad and founded the Sudanese Film Group in 1989. After years of distance and exile, they are reunited, hoping to finally make their old dream come true: to bring back cinema to Sudan by reopening the Halfaia Cinema, a dilapidated theater in Khartoum.
Tlamess (2019)
Ala Eddine Slim · 1 critic vote
S is a young soldier in the southern desert of Tunisia. When S learns about his mother’s death, he obtains a week’s leave and goes back home. He will never return to the camp. In his popular neighborhood starts a man hunt after which S eventually escapes through the mountain. Few years later, F, a young woman married to a rich business man who has just settled in a luxurious villa, learns of her pregnancy. One morning, she goes out alone for a walk in the forest. She will never come back.
Towards the Sun (2019)
Nour Ouayda · 1 critic vote
You are now in the main hall of the National Museum in Beirut. A guard reminds you that you are encouraged to touch the archeological objects. A voice in your headset suggests that you lick the stone. You are now facing a hole in the wall on the lower left corner of a mosaic. The voice in your headset indicates that it was made by a sniper. Out of curiosity, you dial 1-9-9-1 to listen to the rest of the story.
AN UNUSUAL SUMMER (2020)
Kamal Aljafari · 1 critic vote
Following an act of vandalism, the Palestinian filmmaker's father decides to install a surveillance camera to record the scenes unfolding in front of the house. Everyday family life, or neighbours going to work, Unusual Summer captures fleeting moments of poetry whereas, in the background, the daily choreography of Ramla, located in today's Israël, comes to the surface.
No Other Land (2024)
Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor · 1 critic vote
This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025)
Kaouther Ben Hania · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Hulu
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A five-year old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her. Her name was Hind Rajab.

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