Best Iraqi movies
A curated collection of popular movies from Iraq.
Son of Babylon (2009)
16/03 (2017)
16/03 (2017)
Haunted by the chemical attacks that claimed the lives of his family, a Kurdish sniper flees his homeland in search of a better life in the United Kingdom. However, he is caught up in a terrorist plot.
Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (2016)
Homeland: Iraq Year Zero (2016)
Chronicles of everyday life in Iraq before and after the U.S. invasion.
Before Snowfall (2013)
Before Snowfall (2013)
Before Snowfall starts with a dramatic escape: Eighteen year-old Nermin runs away from her wedding in a village in Iraqi Kurdistan. Being the elder of the family, her younger brother Siyar becomes responsible for finding her and restoring the family reputation. The mission proves a dangerous one for the inexperienced Siyar. First stop is Istanbul, where he meets Elvin, a young girl who becomes his travel companion. On the way from east to west, through Europe and all the way to Norway, Siyar comes to realize his own need for respect, and for love.
Immortals (2024)
Immortals (2024)
Milo, a strong-willed feminist, discovers the long-sought power to wander around freely in Baghdad by dressing in her brother’s clothes. Khalili, a young and ambitious filmmaker, realises that his camera can be the strongest of all weapons.
Baghdad on Fire (2023)
Baghdad on Fire (2023)
After a lifetime of conflict in Iraq, 20-year-old Tiba joins the October 2019 protests. She is amazed to see so many young men and women gathering from across the nation. Regardless of class and religion, the youth stand side by side in a fight to reclaim their country. Tiba forms new friendships, ideas and dreams. When the peaceful protests are met with violence, she becomes a medic tending to the wounded. But she could never have imagined the heartache one fatality brings.
Stories of Destroyed Cities (2016)
Stories of Destroyed Cities (2016)
Kurds call it Rojava, or the West, the place where the sun sets on Kurdish lands: the north of Syria, the stage of the most violent war of our times, painted in blood by the mass-rape and mass-killings of the ISIS terrorist organization. It is here, in Rojava, in three destroyed cities, that three separate stories tell the story of how savage war destroys not only our cities, but our people, too. Sinjar, Kobanî and Jazaa are three towns that display the most destructive impact of modern war. All three are in the process of being rebuilt at the moment. The people who live here have transformed their tragedies into a determination to leave a better Rojava for future generations.
The Exam (2021)
The Exam (2021)
Rojin is a young Kurdish woman about to take the university entrance exam. Rojin's unhappily married older sister Shilan decides to help her pass at any cost, hoping to give her a more emancipated life. Thus, the sisters inevitably become entangled in a huge network of corruption that connects all parts of society.
Bekas (2010)
Bekas (2010)
Two homeless Kurdish brothers see Superman in the town's first movie theatre and decide they are going to live with him in the US. It's a long, dangerous road in the hands of ruthless human smugglers.
Kifn (2024)
Kifn (2024)
In the 2000s, several families in Sulaimani were recording videos and archiving their family memories in various ways. Peri, in her early teens, has just gotten married. Her mother passed away when she was very young, so she spent her entire life living with her aunt and cousin. Her aunt and cousin arranged her marriage to someone outside their family, which later caused significant problems in her and her husband's life. These issues eventually forced Peri to revisit the old family archives to find a way to resolve their troubles.
Landless (2021)
Landless (2021)
Due to the ISIS war, Kani (a pregnant singer) and her husband decide to leave Kurdistan. After meeting with a Turkish smuggler, they have no choice but to make the arduous journey inside an emptied, claustrophobic oil tanker across the Turkish border, stuck with a group of people who are also running for their lives.
Imad's Childhood (2021)
Imad's Childhood (2021)
A five-year-old Yazidi boy is released after nearly three years in ISIS captivity. Profoundly disturbed, brainwashed and weaponized by the abuse he endured, he displays violent hatred towards the world around him, and particular revulsion for his mother, who was held hostage alongside him. Imad considers himself to be an ISIS fighter and lashes out against children and adults alike in this intense horror film about a child possessed by terror. As menacing as his behaviour is, it is a mere imitation of the humiliation and brutality he was moulded by. He did exactly as he was told by ISIS in order to survive, and now, surrounded by other survivors, the love of his family and help from a therapist, will he thrive?
Hiding Saddam Hussein (2024)
Hiding Saddam Hussein (2024)
The footage of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein crawling out of a hole in the ground in 2003 is iconic. Now, 20 years later, the man who dug that hole tells the fantastical story of how he, an ordinary farmer, hid the deposed president beneath a flowerbed in his garden for eight months. On camera, he talks about the day his house was selected as a hideaway for this wanted man, hunted by 150,000 US soldiers. The Iraqi farmer had no choice but to assume the role of presidential hairdresser, physician and bodyguard—and something akin to a friendship seems to have grown between them as they ate together and helped wash each other’s backs.
Record (2014)
Record (2014)
This short tells the story of the life of an elderly mother and father. They want to portray their lives through a video camera in order to send it to their son who lives abroad in solitude. In the 90s, the majority of young Iraqi Kurds migrated because of the civil war and poverty.
Aluda (2023)
Aluda (2023)
Bemo, a 40-year-old married actor, embarks on a difficult journey as his battle with alcohol jeopardizes his thriving career and reputation. His marriage teeters on the brink of divorce as his wife grapples with his relentless addiction.
Transient Happiness (2023)
Transient Happiness (2023)
After years of marriage, a woman longs for the affection of her husband, who remains unaware of the distance growing between them. As she yearns for the intimacy they once shared, she must navigate their cultural norms and societal expectations to express her desire for a deeper connection.
Room 217 (2021)
Room 217 (2021)
A young man checks into room 217 in an old hotel on a rainy night. Soon he begins to experience hallucinations that lead him to believe he is living the same time over and over again. He frantically tries to find a way out of this strange time loop with the help of the hotel manager.
Empty Home (2019)
Empty Home (2019)
A man wants to go to Europe with his family, but his wife doesn't like the idea because of her old father. and is constantly struggling to convince her husband to back off from the trip.
Zero Nine (2021)
Zero Nine (2021)
A detective abandoned his daughter right after his wife's death for a governmental mission. This made her daughter angry. He risks his life to find his daughters missing best friend in order to fix their relationship. Their search leads them to face a deadly organ trafficking band who has blackmailed a doctor for harvesting the organs.
Chaplin of the Mountains (2013)
Chaplin of the Mountains (2013)
A recently orphaned young Kurdish-French woman travels to Iraqi Kurdistan to find her mother's village, likely destroyed during the Anfal genocide. On her journey she meets two American film students who are traveling to remote villages screening Charlie Chaplin films. They decide to help her search, an undertaking that brings them to the war-weary Mount Qandil, dubbed by the locals the Kurdish Bermuda Triangle, along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders.
Memories on Stone (2014)
Memories on Stone (2014)
Kurdish childhood friends Hussein and Alan want to produce a film about the genocide of Kurdish people in Iraq, the Anfal campaign in 1988. They learn that, to achieve veracity by the means of cinema and to face their own identity, it's worth putting everything on the line - even their own life.
In the Sands of Babylon (2013)
In the Sands of Babylon (2013)
An Iraqi soldier escaping from Kuwait as the army retreats in 1991 is captured and cast into Saddam’s infamous prisons, accused of being a traitor. Outside, an Iraqi uprising instills hope for those held captive in the killing fields of Babylon.
Baghdad Messi (2023)
Baghdad Messi (2023)
The talented Hamoudi is an 11-year-old boy with a passion for soccer and an ultimate dream to one day reach the level of his idol Lionel Messi. The day Hamoudi is caught in a horrific suicide attempt, he wakes up severely injured in a hospital. As his parents struggle to keep the family safe, Hamoudi is determined to fight for his shattered dream.
Mirror (2022)
Mirror (2022)
Two brothers go on a hunting trip on a farm. The younger brother disappears, and the older brother enters into a strange state while searching for him
A Flag Without a Country (2015)
A Flag Without a Country (2015)
For Nariman the pilot and Helly Luv, an aspiring singer, being Kurdish is not just an identity; it’s a full-time job. Nariman needs young recruits for his flying school—a goal made darkly comic since he just survived a plane crash—while the illustrious Helly collects Kalashnikov rifles and a sea of Kurdish flags to produce her music video. In the midst of another war against the Kurdish people, Nariman reminisces about a long-lost love, and Helly finds herself connecting with Kurdish children at a refugee camp near the Syrian border, who are in urgent need of inspiration and hope.
Under The Palm Branch (2025)
Under The Palm Branch (2025)
A short showing the palm trees
Kick Off Kirkuk (2009)
Kick Off Kirkuk (2009)
Inside a beat up stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq, live many refugees trying to escape Sadam Hussein's administration. Asu lives with his younger brother who has lost his legs from a landmine. Next door lives Hilin, who has not been able to express her feelings. One of the only sources of happiness for these people who live amid fear of poverty and bombings is soccer. Asu gathers together the Kurdish, Arabs and Turkish in order to hold a soccer match. Although they are of different races, they become close neighbors.