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Global support for Palestinian causes is increasing, including Hollywood, where numerous of film workers have joined a pledge to avoid Israeli film groups deemed involved in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, and high-profile celebrities are backing films that focus on the Palestinian lived reality.

Yet, Palestinian-produced movies still face challenges to obtain release and achieve exposure – even after a significant Oscars victory last year. To showcase the Palestinian vibrant tradition of cinema, we invited prominent Palestinian directors and artists to share their top Palestinian-made movies.

‘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 this year at Sundance, is a unique film, unflinching and memorable. By telling the narrative of a single Palestinian family, from its roots in pre-1948 Jaffa through decades of exile, it does not just recount a story – it honors a legacy.

The cinematography are vivid and immersive. Every shot feels intentional, each image a memory – the orange groves of Jaffa, the roads of Nablus, the isolation of displacement. The acting are unforgettable, highlighting the director’s extraordinary range together with three generations of the Bakris – the family of performers most synonymous with Palestinian cinema. They are complex, restrained and heartbreakingly authentic.

What’s most impressive is how seamlessly the film shifts between time periods without ever losing its narrative thread. Every period of the Palestinian people’s history is depicted with stunning detail, both visually and in feeling. The direction 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 past, it’s about the unseen manners it influences 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 actor and comic and the maker of a popular streaming show.

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

A sunglasses-clad Palestinian female defiantly struts through a security post. Israel’s troops look on, guns pointed, baffled. Her presence disarms them and brings the watchtower to collapse. It’s an iconic scene from director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention that has remained in my mind ever since I first saw 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 defiance, and its sheer boldness.

During an era when the majority of Palestinian film leaned toward the serious or sad, Suleiman created a new path. Through dark humor, straight-faced acting, and near-silent observation, he captured the surreal absurdity of life under occupation. Playing the movie’s mute protagonist personally, he centered his own perspective at the heart of the story. That choice felt radical. His performance was composed and understated, 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 reality of Palestinian self. The filmmaker turns disconnection, exile and resistance into something resembling art. The result is touching, surreal, sometimes hilarious and always painfully honest.

There was nothing similar to it in Palestinian cinema at the time. It remains unique. It remains, for me, the most innovative and imaginative Palestinian film ever made.

• Cherien Dabis is a Palestinian-American director, screenwriter, film 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 outstanding movie needs to do two things. It needs to deliver an journey that’s unfamiliar, feeling and smart. It needs to offer me an element I’ve been lacking – a perspective that contradicts my views, a method to consider issues outside my own world, a view to a distinct time and place. Simply put, I need to feel enriched, in spirit and intellectually.

Additionally, it needs to move me with its skill. A talent that is not busy trying to impress but is used to reveal to an idea more important.

The film To a Land Unknown, which was released recently, is exactly this type of movie. Made by director Mahdi Fleifel, it is a tale about a pair of Palestinian friends looking for better lives as displaced persons in Greece.

To a Land Unknown allowed me to experience what it’s like to be a at-risk migrant, in a strange country, where everything works against your attempts to leave the ghetto. It showed me that in certain situations, even when conditions outside your influence conspire against you, you personally can nonetheless become your own biggest obstacle. And its dance between story and visual form astonished me in its craft.

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

• Hany Abu-Assad is a Palestinian Dutch director, writer and twice Oscar nominee for his acclaimed works.

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

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