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Global support for Palestine’s rights is growing, even in the film industry, where thousands of film workers have signed a commitment to boycott Israel’s cinema organizations considered involved in the conflict in Gaza, and high-profile stars are backing films that center the Palestinian people’s experience.

However, Palestinian films continue to face challenges to secure release and achieve exposure – despite a significant Oscars win last year. To highlight Palestine’s vibrant heritage of cinema, we asked prominent Palestinian film-makers and entertainers to discuss their favorite Palestinian films.

‘By the End, I Was Moved to Tears’: Mo Amer on All That’s Left Of You

Cherien Dabis’s movie All That’s Left of You, which debuted this year at the Sundance Film Festival, is a rare film, unflinching and memorable. By telling the story of a one Palestinian family, from its origins in pre-1948 the city of Jaffa through decades of exile, it does not just recount a story – it honors a heritage.

The cinematography are vivid and immersive. Every shot feels purposeful, every frame a memory – the orange groves of Jaffa, the roads of Nablus, the isolation of displacement. The performances are unforgettable, highlighting Dabis’s remarkable versatility alongside three generations of the Bakri family – the family of performers most associated with Palestinian cinema. They are layered, restrained and deeply authentic.

What’s most impressive is how seamlessly the movie shifts between time periods without ever breaking its narrative thread. Every period of the Palestinian people’s story is brought to life with stunning precision, both visually and emotionally. The direction is masterful in that way, leading 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 manners it influences who we are. It’s a movie that lingers – not because of drama, but because of truth.

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

‘A Groundbreaking Masterpiece’: Cherien Dabis on Divine Intervention

A shades-wearing Palestinian woman defiantly struts through a security post. Israel’s troops look on, weapons pointed, confused. Her presence subdues them and causes the watchtower crashing down. It’s an iconic scene from director Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention that has stayed with me ever since I initially watched the movie. I was a second-year graduate cinema student at a university when it opened in the US in the early 2000s. I remember being amazed by its power, its resistance, and its sheer boldness.

At a time when the majority of Palestinian cinema tended to be the serious or sad, Suleiman created a new path. Through satire, deadpan acting, and almost silent observation, he portrayed the bizarre absurdity of life under military control. Playing the movie’s silent protagonist himself, he centered his own perspective at the core of the story. That choice felt revolutionary. His performance was calm and restrained, which only heightened the tension all around him.

Divine Intervention is both deeply personal and politically charged. Its imagery is universal, yet rooted in the divided existence of Palestinian self. Suleiman turns separation, exile and resistance into something approaching art. The result is touching, dreamlike, sometimes funny and always painfully truthful.

There was nothing similar to it in Palestinian film at the time. It remains unique. It continues to be, for me, the most innovative and creative Palestinian-made film ever created.

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

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

In my view, a great movie needs to do two things. It needs to deliver an experience that’s new, emotional and smart. It needs to offer me an element I’ve been missing – a point of view that contradicts my belief system, a method to think about topics beyond my own life, a window to a different era and place. In short, I need to feel enlightened, emotionally and intellectually.

Additionally, it needs to impress me with its skill. A talent that is not focused seeking approval but is used to open my eyes to something more important.

The film To a Land Unknown, which was launched recently, is exactly this kind of film. Created by Mahdi Fleifel, it is a story about a pair of Palestinian friends looking for better lives as refugees in Greece.

To a Land Unknown allowed me to experience what it’s like to be a at-risk refugee, in a foreign land, where everything acts against your attempts to leave the ghetto. It demonstrated me that in certain situations, even when conditions beyond your influence conspire against you, you personally can nonetheless become your own worst enemy. And its dance between story and cinematic style astonished me in its artistry.

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

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

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

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