Library Guides: Israel-Palestine Library Resources: Film

About This Section

Below we highlight feature-length, award-winning films recommended by Tulane faculty, staff, and students. The selection is geared at deepening understanding and sparking critical dialogue. From intimate character studies to sweeping historical narratives, these cinematic resources offer rich insights into the multifaceted dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and beyond.

Award-Winning Films

The Band's Visit (Streaming)
This 2007 comedy-drama film, directed by Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin and later adapted into a Broadway musical, is a mesmerizing and witty story of strangers in a strange land. A fading Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to play at the Arab Cultural Center. When they take the wrong bus, the band members find themselves in a desolate Israeli village. With no other option than to spend the night with the local townspeople, the two distinctly different cultures realize the universal bonds of love, music and life.
Five Broken Cameras (Streaming and DVD)
Winner at the Sundance Film Festival, Five Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost.
The Gatekeepers (Streaming)
Charged with overseeing Israel's war on terror—both Palestinian and Jewish—the head of the Shin Bet, Israel's Secret Service, is present at the crossroads of every decision made. For the first time ever, six former heads of the agency agreed to share their insights and reflect publicly on their actions and decisions. The Gatekeepers (2013), directed by Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, offers an exclusive account of the sum of their successes and failures. It validates the reasons that each man individually and the six as a group came to reconsider their hard-line positions and advocate a conciliatory approach toward their enemies based on a two-state solution.
Impact of Terror (Streaming)
Directed by Canadian filmmaker Tim Wolochatiuk, this 2004 documentary explores the struggles of Israeli victims of terror in the aftermath of the Aug. 9, 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem. It maps out the victims’ scars–physical and emotional–and humanizes the personal struggles of individuals who are often unnamed in news reports and relegated to casualty counts.
Jaffa: The Orange’s Clockwork (Streaming)
The orange may not seem like the most obvious point of departure for an examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but during the last century, the disputed border area between Israel and the Palestinian territories was one of the world's biggest exporters of this "orange gold." Israeli director Eyal Sivan reconstructs how Jaffa started out as a Palestinian place name before becoming an Israeli brand name, and how the orange harvest shifted from a joint undertaking into a symbol used by both parties in the escalating conflict.
Junction 48 (Streaming)
Junction 48 is a 2016 Israeli drama directed by Udi Aloni, co-written by and starring Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian rapper, actor, screenwriter and social activist of Israeli citizenship. Karim, a young Arab from Lod, works for the Execution Office's Customer Service and lives among drug dealers in the Middle East drug capital, but dreams of being a musician. The character of Karim is based on Nafar, who also composed the music for the film with Balkan Beat Box's Itamar Ziegler.
The Law in These Parts (DVD)
In this 2013 documentary, Jerusalem-born director Ra'anan Alexandrowicz asks: what is legal and what is just? The Law in These Parts is a gripping and revelatory investigation into the military legal system put in place in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the four decades since the 1967 War.
Lemon Tree (DVD)
The Lemon Tree is a 2008 Israeli-Palestinian drama film based on the true story of a Palestinian widow who must defend her lemon tree field when a new Israeli Defense Minister moves next door and threatens to tear the grove down. At the same time, she develops a bond with the minister's wife.
Omar (DVD)
Omar is accustomed to dodging surveillance bullets to cross the West Bank separation wall to visit his secret love, Nadia. But occupied Palestine knows neither simple love nor clear-cut war. When Omar is captured after a deadly act of resistance, he falls into a cat-and-mouse game with the military police. Suspicion and betrayal jeopardize his longtime trust with his childhood friends, but it's soon evident that everything he does is for his love of Nadia. This 2013 Palestinian drama was directed by Hany Abu-Assad.
Paradise Now (Streaming)
This 2005 psychological drama, directed by Palestinian-Dutch filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, follows the story of two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. The film lays bare both the horror and humanity of the conflict. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and received an Academy Award nomination in the same category.
Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel (Streaming)
Route 181 takes its name from United Nations Resolution 181, which in 1947 proposed the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. This 2003 documentary follows the journey of two filmmakers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, as they travel along the route outlined in Resolution 181, from the north to the south of Israel-Palestine. Along the way, they capture the multifaceted and complex realities, perspectives, and experiences of people living in the region, exploring themes of identity, history, displacement, and the ongoing conflict.
Tantura (Streaming)
When Israeli graduate student Teddy Katz meticulously documented a massacre of Palestinian civilians surrounding Israel's independence, he was initially celebrated for his groundbreaking work. But soon, he was stripped of his degrees and was publicly shamed as a fraudulent traitor. Decades later, new evidence emerged to corroborate Teddy's initial findings. This 2022 documentary, directed by Israeli filmmaker Alon Schwarz, raises profound questions about how not just Israelis, but all of us, deal with the darker chapters of history.
Waltz with Bashir (Streaming)
Inspired by actual events, Waltz with Bashir chronicles one man's descent into his own half-forgotten past. Filmmaker Ari Folman, an Israeli veteran of the First Lebanon War, encounters an old friend suffering from nightmares of the conflict. Ari begins to wonder why his own memories are full of gaps. In an effort to uncover the truth, he reconnects with old friends and dares to confront the horrors of war. Hailed as "innovative" and "devastating," Waltz with Bashir fuses animation and documentary to create an experience unlike anything you've ever witnessed.
Yerusalem: The Incredible Story of Ethiopian Jewry (Streaming)
This documentary deftly weaves together stories from first and second-generation immigrants, rabbis, activists, Mossad personnel, ship commanders, pilots, and other key decision-makers who risked their lives to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Having endured a hostile Christian environment for centuries, the faithful Jewish Ethiopian community, otherwise known as “Beta-Israel,” have passed down their ancient Jewish traditions from generation to generation. Yet even after surviving their tumultuous exodus from Ethiopia and making aliyah in Israel, the Beta-Israel can’t shake their outsider status. Having to prove their Jewishness to earn a legitimate place in Israeli society, the powerfully devout group continues to fight for their livelihood in the homeland.

How to Use Library DVDs

To borrow DVDs, go to the Media Services desk on the 6th floor of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. Don't forget to bring your Tulane ID ("Splash Card") for check-out.

If you don't have a DVD player at home, you can also check-out a portable disc reader that connects to computers with a USB port, or a Blu-ray/DVD machine that connects by HDMI. Contact mediaservices@tulane.edu with questions.

Find More Films

How to Search the Library Catalog for Film & Video

Most film and video available through Tulane University Libraries are discoverable in Library Search. Use the Advanced Search button:

Then limit your search to Library Catalog and Resource Type - Video/Film

This will show video and film we have Available Online (streaming) and on DVD:

How to Search Streaming Platforms

If you want to search streaming platforms directly, two of your best bets for finding video and film about Israel-Palestine are:

Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Academic Video Online is the most comprehensive video subscription available to libraries. It delivers more than 66,000 titles spanning the widest range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. More than 14,000 titles are exclusive to Alexander Street.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window
A platform for accessing and viewing a variety of streaming film collections. Currently includes the Media Education Foundation (MEF) collection focusing on gender, race, media, culture, and identity, as well as selected titles from the Criterion Collection. New titles added periodically.

For more information on the variety of film and video databases at your disposal through Tulane Libraries, see Film & Audio Resources @ Tulane Libraries.