A country can be proud of many things, including its military strength, the technological innovations, and inventions that came from it, and maybe more than all – works of art that exposed its culture to the world. The art that does it best is without a doubt the cinematic one, which makes it possible to focus on a small but significant part of the culture of the country and to explore or share it in a fascinating, enriching, and enjoyable way. Today we will review the best Israeli movies of the current century.
So which are the best films that have come out of Israel in the current century, the ones that hundreds of thousands of people have watched, won the appreciation of audience and critics, and also picked up quite a few awards? We have compiled a list of these 10 best Israeli films, and if you have not seen any of them yet, you should do so – and enjoy a fine film made in Israel.
Best Israeli Movies of the 21st Century – Top 10
1. Ajami (2009)
The plot of the film takes place in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, where the crime rate is high, and when all the actors are residents of the neighborhood in reality and have no previous acting experience. The film itself is based on real events, and is one of the most award-winning in Israeli cinema, having won no less than 11 awards at festivals in Israel and around the world, including the Cannes Film Festival. The film also garnered awards in most of the categories in which it was nominated for the 2009 Ophir Award (known as the Israeli Oscars) – 5 out of 9, and was the first Arabic-speaking film sent by Israel to the Oscars since the nostalgic “Avanti Popolo”.
The film contains five storylines, each of which is presented in a non-chronological fashion. Some events are shown multiple times from varying perspectives. The film currently holds a 97% “Certified Fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 68 reviews with an average rating of 7.69/10. The website’s critical consensus states, “This multi-character drama balances intimate portrayals and broad political implications to paint a bracing and moving portrait of the Middle East conflict”.
2. Waltz with Bashir (2008)
In the film “Waltz with Bashir”, which is animated but intended for the adult audience, we follow director Ari Folman, who was a soldier in the early 1980s, in his conversations with friends, psychologists and journalists in an attempt to search of his lost memories of his experience as a soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War. The film also includes some political criticism of the IDF, but this did not prevent it from winning the Ophir Award in the category of best feature film – although some claim that it is not included in this category and is in fact a documentary. It has also won Best Director, Screenwriting, Editing, Design and Artistic Soundtrack Awards, as well as numerous awards at festivals around the world.
Waltz with Bashir premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it entered the competition for the Palme d’Or, and since then has won and been nominated for many additional important awards while receiving wide acclaim from critics and audience alike, which has praised its themes, animation, direction, story, and editing. It has grossed over $11 million, winning numerous awards including the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and NSFC Award for Best Film, a César Award for Best Foreign Film and an IDA Award for Feature Documentary, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and an Annie Award for Best Animated Feature.
3. Beaufort (2007)
For 23 years, since the movie “Behind the Bars”, there was no other Israeli film nominated for an Oscar, until “Beaufort” was released. The film is based on Ron Leshem’s book “If There’s a Paradise”, and although it did not win an Oscar, it did win four Ophir Awards and the Best Director award at the Berlin Film Festival. The plot of the film focuses on IDF soldiers who manned the Beaufort outpost in the last months before the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon and describes their dealings with daily life and the difficult routine at the outpost. Its first screening was watched by over 90,000 viewers, while in the first two months of its release it reached 280,000 viewers.
The film’s director, himself an IDF veteran who was stationed in Lebanon during the first Lebanon war, uses the stone walls of Beaufort castle as a symbol of the futility and endlessness of war. The film was shot during the spring of 2006 at Nimrod Fortress, a similar mountaintop fort in the Golan Heights.
4. Footnote (2011)
This drama, starring Lior Ashkenazi and Shlomo Baraba, deals with a father and his son, professors in the Department of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, each of whom symbolizes a different generation of scholars and intellectuals, and thus a power struggle arises between the two. This is the most successful Israeli film of 2011, with sales totaling a quarter of a million tickets.
In 2012 the film even reached fourth place in the New York Times ranking for the list of the best films of that year, and the Los Angeles Times declared it, along with ten others, as the film that has the best chance of standing the test of time. The film also won the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered, won no less than 9 Ophir Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
5. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (2014)
The plot of this drama takes place entirely in the rabbinical courtroom and its foyer, and unfolds over several years, during which we witness Vivian Amsalem’s exhausting attempts to obtain a divorce from her husband, Elisha. The film is the third in a trilogy focusing on the unhappy marriage of Viviane Amsalem, the first being To Take a Wife and the second Shiva. The film won 2 Ophir Awards and 3 Volgin Awards, and in 2016 the film critic Matt Zoller Seitz chose it as the best film since 2000. If you plan to see it, you should also watch the 2 films that preceded it, which also won awards and reviews positivity in Israel and around the world.
The film was selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards but was not nominated. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.
6. The Band’s Visit (2007)
Eight men of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrive in Israel from Egypt. They have been booked by an Arab cultural center in Petah Tikva, but through a miscommunication (Arabic has no “p” sound, and regularly replaces it with “b”), the band takes a bus to Beit Hatikva, a fictional town in the middle of the Negev Desert. From this opening, it can be understood that this 2007 comedy-drama, starring Sasson Gabay in the leading role, should not be missed.
This film has won 20 awards in Israel and around the world, including 8 Ophir Awards and 3 awards at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as great commercial success in Israel and around the world. Unfortunately, the film’s nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was disqualified, as most of it was in English, but in its place, the film Beaufort (which we also mentioned in this best Israeli movies list, came out the same year) was sent. On the other hand, “The Band’s Visit” is still included among the top ten films of that year by many international media outlets, including the New York Post, the Los Angeles Weekly, and the Hollywood Reporter.
In 2016 the film was adapted to an off-Broadway musical, and due to its success, the production moved after a year to star in the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway.
7. Zero Motivation (2014)
Everyone who has served in the IDF in an office role is familiar with the amusing situations presented in this film, in which we witness three fictional stories of adjutancy unit female soldiers from the Shizafon camp. This black comedy won 8 awards in Israel, 6 of them Ophir Awards, with the film receiving rave reviews in both Israel and the United States. Some have called it “the best military comedy ever made,” and indeed it has been one of the most profitable and watched Israeli films of the last decade, with about half a million people watching it in total. This film was also adapted to a musical, which is on stage at the Beit Lessin Theater since 2019.
8. Walk on Water (2004)
In this film, we witness the complicated relationship between Israelis and Germans following the trauma of the Holocaust, with its plot focusing on a Mossad agent named Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), a Holocaust survivor, who was sent to capture an elderly German criminal. This film got to open the Berlin Film Festival, and today it is considered one of the best Israeli movies in terms of success around the world, with over 3 million dollars sales in the US alone.
9. Broken Wings (2002)
The plot of this drama follows a mother and her four children who live in Haifa and deal, each in his way, with the sudden death of the father of the family. This film, like many on this “best Israeli movies” list, is considered one of the most successful in Israeli cinema, having been screened in more than 20 different countries, and in the year it was released it won numerous awards in Israel and around the world – including 9 Ophir Awards. He also won the Audience Favorite Award at the Berlin Film Festival and the first prize at the Wolgin Competition and the Tokyo Film Festival.
Variety called it “a strongly emotional experience despite its tendency toward cryptic dramatics.”
10. Foxtrot (2017)
Michael and Dafna Feldmann, an affluent Tel Aviv couple, learn that their son, Jonathan, a soldier, has died in the line of duty. The Israel Defense Forces refused to inform the distraught parents where and how Jonathan died, or if his body had been recovered. From here we will not continue to describe the plot to not spoil it, and we will let you see it for yourselves.
This acclaimed film is an Israeli-German-French collaboration that created a major political storm on both the right and left of the Israeli political map, but that did not stop it from winning 10 awards, including 8 Ophir Awards. The American Film Academy has named him one of the 9 best foreign films of 2017, but he did not receive an Oscar nomination, with director Shmulik Maoz claiming that it was because he fell victim to a boycott of Israel.
Best Israeli Movies From Other Decades
We have specified here the best Israeli movies from the last two decades, as it is more relevant to the current culture and the atmosphere is the country and is nicer to watch (in our opinion). If you are a fan of older movies, here are some of the classic Israeli films that every Israeli should watch at least once:
Sallah Shabati (1964) – is an Israeli comedy film about the chaos of Israeli immigration and resettlement, and follows the gaps and tension between the Israeli Ashkenazi Jews and the new Jewish immigrants from Muslim countries. This social satire placed the director Ephraim Kishon and producer Menahem Golan among the first Israeli filmmakers to achieve international success. It also introduced actor Chaim Topol (Fiddler on the Roof) to audiences worldwide.
The Policeman (1971) – A policeman’s incompetence is matched by his softheartedness, and when his superiors ask him to retire, the criminals ask him to stay. Written and directed by satirist Ephraim Kishon. The title character is played by Shaike Ophir, in what is considered one of his finest performances.
Metzitzim (Peeping Toms, 1972) – This comedy has become a cult film, with a script lacking real development, reflecting the meaningless life of two eccentric aging hippies, one operating a lifeguard station at a beach in Tel-Aviv, and the other dreaming of opening a night club. The film was directed by Uri Zohar and starred Arik Einstein and Zohar himself.
Halfon Hill Doesn’t Answer (1976) – Also titled Giv’at Halfon, is a cult Israeli comedy, directed by the son of a general and performed by the top actors and comedians of the time. It is a good-hearted satire of the Israel Defense Forces which tells the story of a reserves company, watching the Egyptian border in Sinai. Characters such as the conman Sergio Constanza, the Egyptian-born Mr. Hasson, and the huge cook Yosifoun became classics in Israeli culture.
Operation Grandma (1999) – A satirical comedy about the military and kibbutz life directed by Dror Shaul, which became a cult short movie. It shows the challenge of three brothers from a small kibbutz in southern Israel to arrange a funeral for their grandma who passed away. Because one of them has a secret military operation set for that same day, they have to work on a tight schedule, but series of mistakes and mishaps complicate things.
Late Marriage (2001) – The film centers on Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi, in his breakthrough role), the 31-year-old child of tradition-minded Georgian Jewish immigrants who is anxiously trying to arrange a marriage for him. Unbeknownst to them, he is secretly dating a 34-year-old divorcée, Judith (Ronit Elkabetz). When his parents discover the relationship and violently intervene, Zaza must choose between his family traditions and his love. Most of the main characters are Georgian-Israeli and the dialogue is partly in the Judaeo-Georgian language and partly in Hebrew.