Now that media attention on Palestine is constant, it’s worth remembering that Palestinian cinema offers intimate, complex, and human stories that go beyond the front-page conflict. The following five films —both documentary and fiction— reveal different perspectives: everyday life under pressure, impossible friendships, moral dilemmas, domestic resistance, and extreme decisions. Watching them helps understand nuances that headlines cannot capture.

The Teacher (Palestine, 2023) – Teaching as an Act of Resistance

Farah Nabulsi sets her film in a school in the West Bank to explore how occupation permeates even the most ordinary actions. The story follows a teacher who, torn between his commitment to the community and his duty toward a student, must navigate the line between protection and political involvement. Nabulsi builds scenes of sustained tension where the everyday turns into high risk. The film combines restrained narrative pacing with moments of emotional intensity —it does not seek to shock but to show the human cost of maintaining normality— and foregrounds the ethics of those who work with children in occupied territories. The performances (with Saleh Bakri leading) and the cinematography make the classroom and its surroundings a political microcosm: every gesture and decision carry public and private weight at once.

No Other Land (Palestine, 2024) – Documenting Dispossession from Within

This collective documentary, filmed over several years in Masafer Yatta and nearby villages, functions as a direct and raw testimony of the expulsion and demolition of communities. The directors —activists and journalists involved in the production— record not only the physical violence but also the small acts of daily resistance: meetings, celebrations, testimonies, and the inevitable tension of living under the constant threat of losing one’s land. The film’s power lies in its closeness: it’s not a distant report but a camera that accompanies, gets wet, and exposes itself alongside those who resist —which has made its authors face reprisals. The film works both as a historical document and as a call for international awareness, combining true material with reflections that force the viewer to see expulsion as a prolonged and systematic process.

Omar (Palestine, 2013) – Love, Betrayal, and the Geography of Distrust

Hany Abu-Assad turns a suspense plot into a moral tale about life under surveillance: Omar, a young baker turned fighter, finds himself trapped between loyalty to his friends, love, and pressure from the authorities. The film, intense and finely constructed, plays with the physical proximity of its characters —walls, checkpoints, cafés— to show how occupation turns intimacy into a psychological battlefield. Abu-Assad avoids simplistic solutions: friendship, love, and betrayal appear as human acts that the system turns into existential decisions, not mere personal choices. With a rhythm that alternates tension and eloquent silences, Omar stood out in the international circuit for its ability to turn the local into a universal dilemma.

Thank You for Banking With Us (Palestine, 2024) – A Witty Rebellion Against the Laws that Govern Both Property and Womanhood

Contrary to the previous description, Laila Abbas’s film is a dramatic comedy centered on two sisters who, after their father’s death, discover a large sum of money in the bank and must outsmart the limitations imposed by inheritance laws (and by family) to claim what they believe is rightfully theirs. What might seem like a light premise turns into a sharp portrayal of how law, tradition, and economy intertwine to constrain female autonomy. Abbas balances tone with skill: she uses dark humor and near heist-comedy situations to expose injustice without losing tenderness toward her characters. The film also works as a reflection on sisterhood and the small subversions necessary to make one’s place. Beyond its plot, the film has been received as a piece that broadens the Palestinian imaginary —not everything there is ruin or war; there are complex lives, irony, and domestic struggles that also deserve to be told.

Paradise Now (Palestine, 2005) – An Intimate Look at the Desperation Behind Extreme Decisions

Hany Abu-Assad once again tackles one of the most sensitive and controversial themes: the decision of two friends preparing for a suicide attack. Far from propagandistic simplicity, Paradise Now delves into the personal motivations, doubts, and intimate contradictions that precede an extreme act. The film explores how social circumstances, personal stories, and a sense of collective responsibility can converge in a tragic choice. Abu-Assad films his protagonists with both compassion and critical distance, allowing the viewer to judge less and observe more: what drives a human being to accept death as a political tool? Beyond its cinematic value —structure, editing, and acting— the film sparked international debates about representation, agency, and the moral limits of storytelling in contexts of occupation. Today, its perspective still resonates because it poses questions that do not expire.

These five films are not meant to be the definition of Palestine: they are, rather, entry points into complex stories that combine the personal and the political. Watching them now may help remind us that behind the news there are everyday lives, small and big decisions, humor and tragedy, memory and resistance.