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Global backing for Palestinian rights is growing, including Hollywood, where numerous of film workers have joined a pledge to avoid Israel’s film groups considered complicit in the war in Gaza, and well-known celebrities are supporting films that center the Palestinian lived reality.

However, Palestinian films still struggle to secure release and achieve visibility – even after a significant Oscars win last year. To highlight Palestine’s rich tradition of cinema, we asked prominent Palestinian directors and artists to share their favorite Palestinian films.

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

Director Cherien Dabis’s film All That’s Left of You, which debuted recently at the Sundance Film Festival, is a rare film, unflinching and unforgettable. By portraying the story of a one Palestinian clan, from its roots in pre-Nakba the city of Jaffa through generations of exile, it does not just tell a story – it celebrates a legacy.

The cinematography are vivid and transportive. Every shot feels intentional, every frame a memory – the citrus orchards of Jaffa, the roads of Nablus, the isolation of exile. The acting are unforgettable, highlighting Dabis’s extraordinary range together with three generations of the Bakri family – the family of actors most synonymous with Palestinian film. They are layered, restrained and deeply real.

What’s most impressive is how seamlessly the movie moves between different eras without ever losing its narrative thread. Every period of the Palestinian history is brought to life with remarkable precision, both in imagery and in feeling. The filmmaking is skillful in that way, guiding you through years 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 unseen ways it shapes who we are. It’s a film that stays with you – not because of spectacle, but because of truth.

• Mo Amer is a Palestinian-American performer and comedian and the creator of a popular Netflix show.

‘A Groundbreaking Masterpiece’: Cherien Dabis on Divine Intervention

A sunglasses-clad Palestinian female boldly struts through a checkpoint. Israeli troops watch, guns raised, confused. Her presence subdues them and causes the guard tower crashing down. It’s an memorable scene from Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention that has remained in my mind ever since I first saw the film. I was a second-year postgraduate cinema student at a university when it premiered in the United States in the early 2000s. I remember being amazed by its impact, its defiance, and its pure audacity.

At a time when most Palestinian film tended to be the serious or tragic, the director carved a fresh direction. Through satire, deadpan acting, and almost silent storytelling, he portrayed the bizarre absurdity of existence under occupation. Portraying the film’s silent main character personally, he centered his own gaze at the core of the narrative. That choice felt revolutionary. His performance was composed and restrained, which only heightened the stress all around him.

Divine Intervention is both intimately personal and politically charged. Its imagery is global, yet rooted in the divided reality of Palestinian identity. Suleiman transforms disconnection, displacement and resistance into something approaching poetry. The result is poignant, dreamlike, sometimes hilarious and consistently painfully truthful.

There existed nothing remotely like it in Palestinian film at the time. There still isn’t. It continues to be, for me, the most innovative and imaginative Palestinian film ever created.

• Cherien Dabis is a Palestinian-American director, screenwriter, film producer and actress, whose most recent movie is a selected submission for the Oscars.

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

For me, a outstanding film needs to do two things. It needs to provide an journey that’s unfamiliar, feeling and intelligent. It needs to give me an element I’ve been lacking – a perspective that contradicts my belief system, a way to think about issues beyond my own life, a view to a different era and place. In short, I need to feel enriched, emotionally and in mind.

Additionally, it needs to impress me with its talent. A ability that is not focused trying to impress but is employed to reveal to an idea more important.

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

To a Land Unknown made me feel what it’s like to be a vulnerable migrant, in a strange country, where all factors works in opposition to your efforts to leave the ghetto. It demonstrated me that in certain situations, although conditions outside your control conspire to hinder you, you personally can nonetheless turn into your own biggest obstacle. And its interplay between story and cinematic style astonished me in its craft.

In To a Land Unknown, Palestine has found a talent that will support its mission without shedding a one ounce of violence.

• Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian Dutch director, screenwriter and two-time Academy Award nominee for his celebrated works.

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

Among my most loved Palestinian movies is The Wanted 18. It recounts the story of Palestinians in Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem in the West Bank, during the first intifada of the 1980s. It records their effort to {