Israeli submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
List activity
2.8K views
• 1 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
- 43 titles
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsTopolGeula NuniGila AlmagorThe sharp, often hilarious satire that became the most successful film in Israeli history (until that time) is about new immigrants Sallah and his family, who are left in a shack near their promised apartment and are abandoned for months. A Yemenite Jewish family that was flown to Israel during "Operation Magic Carpet" - a clandestine operation that flew 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel the year after the state was formed - is forced to move to a government settlement camp. The patriarch of the family, portrayed by Chaim Topol, tries to make money and get better housing, in a country that can barely provide for its own and is in the midst absorbing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
- DirectorPhilippe ArthuysJean-Louis Levi-AlvarèsStarsGeorges RivièreJean NégroniFrançoise PrévostA study of conscience set against the trial of Eichmann in Israel.
- DirectorIsrael BeckerStarsMike BurstynRaphael KlatchkinGermaine UnikovskyReb Kalman, the matchmaker comes home on Shabbat to find out that Reb Pinchas has been there. He learns that RebPinchas wants him to find a husband from a good family for his daughter Carolina. Carolina, however, is in love with Max, her French teacher. Pinchas finds them making out and is furious and even more adamant that she marry soon. Reb Kalman finds Kuni Lemel as a possible match. It turns out that Max and Kuni are cousins and are identical, except that Kuni is blind in one eye, limps, and stutters. Max plans to act like Kuni so that Reb Pinchas will have his daughter marry Max by mistake. The real Kuni Lemel shows up and has everyone confused.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsYehoram GaonOded KotlerPier AngeliDuring the Six-Day War, an Israeli pilot, hoping to bring peace to his country, fly his plane towards Egypt to hopefully commiserate with Abdel Nasser. Shot down en route, he finds himself halfway between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.
- DirectorGilberto TofanoStarsEran AgmonGila AlmagorYael AvivStory of a war-widow pressured by her friends to behave in the role of the heroic widow, and the journey she takes in a country of people under siege.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsShaike OphirZaharira HarifaiAvner HizkiyahuOne of Israel's most beloved films, this film centers around the policeman Azulai, who is as kind as he as inept.
- DirectorMoshé MizrahiStarsMichal Bat-AdamGabi OttermanMoshe TalThe love of Nissim for his widowed sister-in-law, Rosa, in the Old City of Jerusalem at the turn of the century. Under a (very old) Jewish religious law, Nissim has the duty to marry his childless sister-in-law on the death of his brother.
- DirectorMoshé MizrahiStarsGila AlmagorShaike OphirYosef ShiloachA fatherless family immigrates to Israel from Egypt during the British Mandate period. The film traces the hardships the family suffers in the politically unstable country.
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsIrit AlterRuth FarhiOded KotlerBased on a novel by Amos Oz. A couple in Jerusalem before the six day war in 1967, fall in love, get married, have a child and drift apart. With Michael away at war, his wife starts fantasizing about twin Arabs she used to play with as a child.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsYehoram GaonGila AlmagorAssi DayanIn July 1976, an Air France flight from Tel-Aviv to Paris via Athens was hijacked and forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda. The Jewish passengers were separated and held hostage in demand to release many terrorists held in Israeli prisons. After much debate, the Israeli government sent an elite commando unit to raid the airfield and release the hostages. This movie is based on the true facts and follows the events since the flight's take-off and until the hostages' return to Israel.
- DirectorBoaz DavidsonStarsYftach KatzurAnat AtzmonJonathan SagallThree friends live their lives in 1950s Israel, each looking for someone to love.
- DirectorMichal Bat-AdamStarsMichal Bat-AdamBrigitte CatillonAssi DayanAnne, a Parisian, visits her friend Yola in Tel Aviv, where Yola lives with her husband Avi and their son. There's tension in the air and the attraction between the two women is palpable. Flash back five years to their meeting, on a train to Jerusalem. Yola invites Anne to stay at her hotel, and over the next five days, their friendship builds from talk about their lives to an explosive menage a trois when Avi joins them on fourth day. Back in the present, can Yola have both Avi and Anne, or are the women futilely chasing rainbows?
- DirectorMichal Bat-AdamStarsGila AlmagorAlexander PelegLiat PanskyExplores the relationship between an eleven-year-old girl and her ailing mother, who is losing a grasp of reality in the surrounding environment of insensitivity and cruelty.
- DirectorMira RecanatiStarsDina DoronRivka NeumanGad RollIn contemporary Tel Aviv, a mother and daughter confront each other after the death of the father/husband and the discovery of the dead man's secret affair. The daughter is drawn irresistibly to the "other" woman's son and torn between feelings of loyalty to her mother and distaste of the father's passionate past. The mother is tormented by the past betrayal and current jealousy. Each struggles to settle old debts as they both experience passion and pain, but grow to learn independence.
- DirectorDaniel WachsmannStarsShlomo TarshishYasein ShawafRuth GellerNamed after the hot desert wind that periodically blows through the Middle East sending temperatures and tempers soaring to potentially explosive heights. Set in an old farming village in the Galilee, the story revolves around inherited land ownership of Israelis and Arabs, of disappointed dreams, political tensions, and torn emotions as the clash between love and nationalism.
- DirectorIsaac Zepel YeshurunStarsYaron LondonMiri FabianRuth HarlapA Married Couple is a 1983 Israeli drama film directed by Yitzhak Yeshurun. The film was selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 56th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
- DirectorUri BarbashStarsArnon ZadokMohammad BakriHillel Ne'emanIn Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri's daughter and Issan's wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.
- DirectorEitan GreenStarsAssi DayanYosef MilloOrna PoratA common crisis changes the complicated relationship between a father and his middle-aged son, both trapped in unhappy marriages.
- DirectorRafi BukaiStarsSalim DawSuhel HaddadTuvia GelberOn June 11, 1967, the Six-Day War ended and ceasefire began. Egyptian soldiers Gassan and Haled journey through the Sinai desert to reach the Suez Canal, encountering Israeli soldiers and a news reporter.
- DirectorShmuel ImbermanStarsIka ZoharAnat WaxmanShmuel VilozniA traumatized, young Israeii soldier, wounded in battle and paralyzed from the waist down, tries to adjust, psychologically, sexually and socially.
- DirectorEli CohenStarsGila AlmagorKaipu CohenEli CohenA ten year old girl spends her summer with her overly protective mother, a mentally scarred holocaust survivor, while hopefully trying to find her real father in the newly established state of Israel.
- DirectorUri BarbashStarsAlon AboutboulSharon AlexanderYoel Ben-SimhonA few Palestinian guerilla's break into an Israeli camp in the occupied territories. They kill a few Israeli soldiers before they are killed, apart from one who dies in the camp after being captured alive. The Israeli military despatch an investigator to the camp to see if there was cold blooded murder (people at the camp had claimed he was shot while trying to escape). It turns out that the investigator despatched is a friend of the camp commander - the rest of the plot is basically about the position of both of these characters as regards being honest or faithful to ones friends. There is unbearable tension, increased by the fact that they are both very strongly attracted to one of the female soldiers on the camp.
- DirectorSavi GabizonStarsMoshe IvgySharon HacohenSinai PeterComedy about life among Tel Aviv's 30-something bourgeoisie is nothing if not proof that self-absorbed, would-be hipsters are the same the world over. The central character is Asher, an unbecoming depressive and all-round schlemiel who publishes a book on 'How to Be an Idiot', and finds himself becoming the guru of a self-help circle. A liberal sprinkling of sight gags and non-sequiturs - and even a slight flavour of Almodóvar in the sexual absurdities - keeps things lively.
- DirectorJacob GoldwasserStarsUri AlterAryeh MoskonaDafna Rechter
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsGila AlmagorAkram TillawiSmadar KilchinskyThe film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.