2. Best Israeli Films

In 1948, four Israeli soldiers recount the events that led them to take up arms while preparing for a final mission in the hours leading up to a truce.

The recreation of the establishment of a nineteenth century settlement in Eretz Yisrael by ten Russian Jews. They had to build the land and also contend with the Arab resentment and the Turkish military.

A new immigrant, Tzelnik, arrives at the port of Jaffa. He goes to live in the Negev desert where he opens a kiosk in the middle of nowhere. Mizrachi comes along and opens a competing business across the way. The two make a living by selling to each other. As there is nothing there, they decide to create a world out of their imagination. They build a cardboard film set, which slowly takes on real dimensions- the buildings turn to concrete, people come to audition for parts in the "film" (cinema 'verite' style, with Zohar mocking viciously the pretensions of the "actresses") and builders come to void apartment buildings (mocking the glorification of concrete and "heroic" settlement). In one sequence, Arab actors come and ask the filmmakers turn positive to negative, and they're given the role of pioneers who plow the land and sing Zionist songs. The imagined world of the filmmakers becomes so real eventually they lose sight of the thin line between fantasy and reality.

A good-natured but incorrigible layabout becomes embroiled in a plot to rob the Israeli lottery, all the while indulging in his boundless zeal for mischief and romance.

Based on a short story by Abraham B. Jehoshua, the movie follows Eli (Oded Kotler) taking care of an old girlfriend's child for three days. He wants him to get hurt, he worries about him. Will the child survive the three days? Will Eli?

Journalist in midlife crisis is having an affair with a young girl.

A slapstick comedy lampooning bureaucracy and the madness of everyday life in Israel centers on an escaped lunatic who digs up the streets of Tel-Aviv with a drill.

Three short stories of life in Tel Aviv; A girl meets a boy in a library and has to decide what to do next; A young husband comes home to meet his wife's boyfriend; A young clerk opens a letter and finds the photograph of an unknown young girl who he then tries to locate.

A story of the influence of modern life on a woman, who meets a man in a sculptor's studio, has an affair, and is found dead.

An ex-SS officer and his gorgeous wife find a refuge living in Eilat. A mysterious stranger appears from their past.

One of Israel's most beloved films, this film centers around the policeman Azulai, who is as kind as he as inept.

A visually beautiful burlesque fantasy about a fountain-of-youth pill and its effects on Getz, a down-and-out Tel Aviv night-club singer. After taking this much sought after pill, Getz becomes the epitome of youthful energy, and therefore a teen idol, a symbol of beauty and youth, up to the cathartic ending of the movie.

Floch, a seventy year old man loses his son, daughter in-law and grandson, who are all killed in a car accident. He goes into deep depression and feels that he can't leave this world without leaving an offspring, a descendant to carry on his name. He divorces his wife Gerda who is too old to bear him a child and sets out to find a younger woman with whom he can fulfill his dream.

Historical documentary made up of footage and stills shot by the Nazis. A compilation of testimony from witnesses who appeared at the Eichmann trial provides a telling narrative.

Sergio Konstanza, in debt to Mr. Hasson, flees to join an Army reserve unit led by a Sergeant interested in one of Hasson's daughters. However, Hasson demands his older daughter marries first before allowing the younger one to wed.

Not everyone is born to be a soldier. Not even in Israel, where universal conscription is the tradition. This movie is about a Sad Sack in the Israeli army, incompetent to complete training and yet incompetent to extricate himself.

In 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.

Ami Sus'etz, an Israeli artist, abandons his wife and daughter in New York, and comes back to his home land after years of absence. Sus'etz wishes to decipher his constant feeling of failure as a human being, as a family man, as an artist. His best friends were killed in war, his paintings were burned not without intent. He has no past and no future. Back home Sus'etz reunites with his dying father, with his mother, who unsuccessfully tries to understand her son, and with a childhood friend, Ansberg, now a philosopher/homeless. Ansberg has adopted unusual methods in order to bring love back to Tel Aviv and expects "conscientious" Sus'etz to assist him in that. Sus'etz cannot be a "conscientious", or anything else for that matter, not before he resolves his own personal fate: who is he, why was he born, why does he live. Ami Sus'etz decides to make a movie, about himself, his parents, his hometown Tel Aviv, and about all that constitutes the puzzle we call human life. His movie fails in resolving the pattern but ironically becomes a commercial blockbuster. At the end of the day, the movie gets burned, just like the paintings, not without intent.

Comedic musical about an army singing group.

The Wooden Gun takes place in Tel Aviv in the early 1950s. In a clear-eyed fashion that would have been impossible in a film made by "outsiders", the plot details the conflict between native-born Israelis and the newly arrived European refugees. The various fears and prejudices of the adults are passed along to their children, upon whom director Hans Moshenson concentrates. Largely comprised of non professionals, the teen-aged protagonists and antagonists are remarkable in their sincerity and conviction. Filmed in Hebrew, The Wooden Gun is available in an English-subtitled version.