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Global backing for Palestine’s causes is increasing, including the film industry, where numerous of industry professionals have signed a commitment to boycott Israel’s cinema organizations considered complicit in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, and well-known celebrities are backing films that center the Palestinian people’s experience.

However, Palestinian movies continue to face challenges to obtain release and achieve exposure – even after a significant Oscars victory recently. To showcase the Palestinian rich heritage of film-making, we invited prominent Palestinian directors and entertainers to share their top 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 premiered recently at the Sundance Film Festival, is a unique cinematic work, unflinching and memorable. By portraying the story of a one Palestinian family, from its roots in pre-Nakba Jaffa through decades of displacement, it does not just tell a story – it celebrates a legacy.

The visuals are rich and transportive. Each scene feels intentional, each image a recollection – the citrus orchards of Jaffa, the roads of Nablus, the alienation of exile. The performances are unforgettable, highlighting Dabis’s remarkable versatility alongside three generations of the Bakris – the group of actors most associated with Palestinian cinema. They are layered, subtle and deeply real.

The most striking aspect is how seamlessly the movie shifts between time periods without ever breaking its emotional throughline. Each decade of the Palestinian people’s story is depicted with stunning precision, both visually and emotionally. The filmmaking is skillful in that way, guiding you through time with precision and sensitivity.

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

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

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

A shades-wearing Palestinian woman boldly struts through a security post. Israel’s troops look on, guns raised, baffled. Her presence disarms them and brings the guard tower crashing down. It’s an memorable scene from Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention that has stayed with me ever since I initially watched the movie. I was a second-year graduate film student at a university when it opened in the US in 2003. I recall being stunned by its impact, its resistance, and its sheer audacity.

At a time when the majority of Palestinian film leaned toward the serious or sad, Suleiman carved a fresh direction. Through satire, deadpan performance, and near-silent observation, he captured the bizarre ridiculousness of existence under military control. Playing the film’s mute main character himself, he centered his own perspective at the core of the story. That decision felt revolutionary. His presence was calm and restrained, which only heightened the tension all around him.

Divine Intervention is both deeply personal and highly political. Its visual language is global, yet rooted in the fractured existence of Palestinian self. Suleiman transforms disconnection, displacement and resistance into something resembling poetry. The result is touching, dreamlike, sometimes hilarious and always deeply truthful.

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

• Cherien Dabis is a Palestinian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor, whose latest movie is a selected submission for the Academy Awards.

‘A Remarkable New Voice’: Hany Abu Assad on To a Land Unknown

In my view, a great film needs to do two aspects. It needs to deliver an experience that’s unfamiliar, emotional and smart. It needs to give me an element I’ve been lacking – a perspective that contradicts my views, a way to consider issues outside my own life, a window to a distinct era and location. Simply put, I need to feel enriched, in spirit and in mind.

Additionally, it needs to move me with its skill. A talent that is not focused seeking approval but is employed to reveal to something deeper.

The film To a Land Unknown, which was released last year, is exactly this kind of movie. Created by Mahdi Fleifel, it is a tale about a pair of Palestinian companions looking for better lives as refugees in the country of Greece.

To a Land Unknown made me feel what it’s like to be a at-risk refugee, in a strange land, where everything works in opposition to your attempts to leave the ghetto. It showed me that in some cases, even when conditions beyond your control work against you, you yourself can nonetheless turn into your own biggest obstacle. And its dance between story and cinematic style astonished me in its craft.

In To a Land Unknown, the Palestinian cause has gained a gifted artist that will serve its cause without shedding a single ounce of violence.

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

‘Even Livestock Are Seen as a Danger’: Basel Adra on The Wanted 18

One of my most loved Palestinian films is The Wanted 18. It tells the narrative of Palestinians in Beit Sahour, a village near Bethlehem in the West Bank, during the first intifada of the 1980s. It records their effort to {