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Global backing for Palestine’s rights is increasing, including Hollywood, where thousands of film workers have joined a commitment to boycott Israeli film groups considered complicit in the conflict in Gaza, and well-known celebrities are backing movies that center the Palestinian lived reality.

Yet, Palestinian films still struggle to secure distribution and achieve exposure – despite a significant Oscars victory last year. To showcase Palestine’s vibrant tradition of film-making, we asked leading Palestinian directors and entertainers to share their top Palestinian movies.

‘It Brought Me to Tears’: Mo Amer Reflects on All That’s Left Of You

Cherien Dabis’s film All That’s Left of You, which premiered recently at the Sundance Film Festival, is a rare film, bold and memorable. By portraying the story of a single Palestinian clan, from its origins in pre-Nakba the city of Jaffa through decades of displacement, it does not just tell a tale – it celebrates a legacy.

The visuals are rich and immersive. Each scene feels purposeful, each image a memory – the citrus orchards of Jaffa, the roads of Nablus, the alienation of exile. The acting are unforgettable, showcasing Dabis’s remarkable versatility together with multiple generations of the Bakri family – the family of actors most synonymous with Palestinian cinema. They are complex, subtle and heartbreakingly authentic.

What’s most impressive is how smoothly the film moves between different eras without ever breaking its narrative thread. Every period of the Palestinian people’s story is depicted with remarkable precision, both visually and in feeling. The filmmaking is skillful in that way, guiding you through time with precision and sensitivity.

In the final moments, I was brought to tears. All That’s Left of You isn’t just about the history, it’s about the invisible manners it shapes who we are. It’s a movie that lingers – not because of drama, but because of honesty.

• Mo Amer is a Palestinian-American actor and comic and the creator of a well-known streaming show.

‘The Most Wildly Original Palestinian Film Ever Made’: Cherien Dabis on Divine Intervention

A shades-wearing Palestinian female defiantly struts through a checkpoint. Israeli troops watch, guns pointed, confused. Her beauty disarms them and causes the guard tower crashing down. It’s an memorable moment from director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention that has remained in my mind ever since I initially watched the movie. I was a second-year postgraduate cinema student at Columbia University when it opened in the United States in the early 2000s. I recall being amazed by its impact, its defiance, and its pure boldness.

During an era when most Palestinian cinema leaned toward the serious or sad, the director created a fresh direction. Through dark humor, straight-faced performance, and almost silent observation, he portrayed the bizarre absurdity of existence under occupation. Playing the movie’s mute main character personally, he placed his own perspective at the heart of the story. That choice felt radical. His performance was calm and understated, which only heightened the tension all around him.

Divine Intervention is both intimately personal and highly political. Its visual language is global, yet rooted in the divided reality of Palestinian identity. Suleiman transforms disconnection, exile and resistance into something resembling art. The outcome is poignant, dreamlike, at times funny and consistently deeply honest.

There existed nothing similar to it in Palestinian cinema at the period. There still isn’t. It remains, for me, the most innovative and creative Palestinian movie ever created.

• Cherien Dabis is a Palestinian American filmmaker, writer, producer and actor, whose latest movie is an official entry for the Oscars.

‘Palestine Has Gained a Talent’: Hany Abu Assad on To a Land Unknown

For me, a great film needs to do two things. It needs to provide an experience that’s new, emotional and intelligent. It needs to offer me an element I’ve been missing – a perspective that challenges my belief system, a method to consider topics beyond my own life, a view to a different time and location. Simply put, I need to feel enlightened, emotionally and intellectually.

Second, it needs to impress me with its skill. A ability that is not busy trying to impress but is employed to open my eyes to something more important.

The movie To a Land Unknown, which was launched last year, is exactly this type of film. Made by Mahdi Fleifel, it is a story about a pair of Palestinian companions searching for better lives as displaced persons in Greece.

To a Land Unknown made me feel what it’s like to be a vulnerable migrant, in a foreign country, where all factors acts against your attempts to escape the slum. It showed me that in some cases, even when conditions outside your influence conspire to hinder you, you yourself can nonetheless turn into your own worst enemy. And its dance between content and cinematic style astonished me in its artistry.

In To a Land Unknown, Palestine has gained a talent that will serve its cause without shedding a one drop of violence.

• Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian-Dutch filmmaker, writer and two-time Academy Award contender for his celebrated works.

‘It Shows Israel Views Even Cows as a Threat’: Basel Adra on The Wanted 18

Among my favorite Palestinian films is The Wanted 18. It recounts the narrative of Palestinians in Beit Sahour, a village near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, during the first intifada of the late 1980s. It documents their attempt to {