Best Egyptian documentary movies

Army of the Sun (1973)

This documentary tries to capture the fresh sense of triumph in the eyes of the Egyptian soldiers after the 1973 war with Israel.

Electro Shaabi (2013)

In the slums of Cairo, youth dancing to electro chaabi, new music that blends folk song, electro beats and freestyles chanted in the style of rap. The idea is to merge the sounds and styles so chaotic. One slogan mangling! Victim of corruption and social segregation, youth in neighborhoods exorcise partying. Release of body and a speech repressed transgression religious taboos: more than just a musical phenomenon, Electro Chaabi is a healthy outlet for youth oppressed by the prohibitions imposed.

The Sad Song of Touha (1972)

In many ways the sister film to 'Horse of Mud', Al-Abnoudy’s graduation film at the Film School in Cairo is a portrait of Cairo’s street performers. The artistry of this community of fire-eaters, acrobats, child contortionists, and musicians is captured through the lens of Al-Abnoudy’s unobtrusive camera, accompanied by the spare and haunting narration provided by poet Abdel Rahman Al-Abnoudy. Playing with the poetry that offers image and cinema, she pays tribute to those underground enterteiners, giving back its letters of nobility to a marginalized and downgraded popular art.

Flesh and blood (2022)

A person calls a taxi only to find himself entering a surreal world.

The Square (2013)

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

Jerusalem: Center of the World (2009)

Jerusalem: Center of the World tells the epic story of the world s most incredible city, capturing the rich mosaic of the city s Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. Covering a sweeping history of over 4,000 years, the film explores the founding of the city; the birth and convergence of the world s three major monotheistic religions; and the key events in Jerusalem s history as described in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Talmud, the Hagaddah, the Koran, and the Hadith. Highlights include: Mount Moriah, the site of the First and Second Temples; the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; the Dome of the Rock; and the Western Wall. Directed by Andrew Goldberg, and hosted by Ray Suarez (The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer), the film includes interviews with locals, top scholars and clergy.

Halim (2006)

The Great Egyptians (1997)

Horizons (1972)

Experimental Film. Documentary reflects the cultural life in modern Egypt.

Too Early / Too Late (1982)

Inspired by a letter by Friedrich Engels and a 1974 account of two militant Marxist writers who had been imprisoned by the Nasser regime, Straub-Huillet filmed this film in France and Egypt during 1980. They reflect on Egypt’s history of peasant struggle and liberation from Western colonization, and link it to class tensions in France shortly before the Revolution of 1789, quoting texts by Engels as well as the pioneering nonfiction film Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895).

What Comes Around (2018)

In Rod El Farag, one of the poorest residential areas in Cairo, obtaining meat, fruit and daily bread is a constant struggle. But the sense of community shared by the inhabitants there helps them to some extent overcome their hardships through a social practice known as ‘al Gami’ya’, or ‘the assembly’.

These Girls (2006)

The story of several young women living on the streets of Cairo.

National Geographic: Egyptian Secrets of the Afterlife (2009)

To the ancient Egyptians, life after death was a high-stakes underworld journey fraught with terrifying obstacles: fiery lakes of death, battles with monsters, and ultimately eternal death or resurrection with the sun. It's a journey each Egyptian believed was real, and for the pharaoh the stakes were even higher--the entire cosmos depended on the king's successful journey and resurrection. New excavations are revealing more than we've ever known about what the Egyptians believed they would encounter on their afterlife journey. Now, world-renowned archaeologist Dr. Sahi Hawass is excavating a mysterious tunnel at the very bottom of Seti's tomb--far below the surface of the earth. Join National Geographic on a quest in which Dr. Hawass will put his own life in jeopardy for the sake of discovery.

Kiss Me Not (2018)

Fajr is a famous temptation star, and the heroine of the first feature film of a young director. She rejects the kissing scene in the film, which provokes the director and the producer, and everyone tries to reach common ground to complete the film and get out of this dilemma.

The Sandwich (1977)

Explores the daily life and work of children in Abnoud, a rural village located 600 kilometres to the south of Cairo, where the trains that carry the tourists to the south of Egypt pass through without stopping. A boy outsmarts the meagerness of his circumstances by dripping goat’s milk on a piece of stale bread and turning it into a special sandwich.

As I Want (2021)

Motivated by the public rape of her best friend in the streets of Cairo, the Director uses her camera as her weapon against sexual harassment and embarks on a journey of self-awakening as she confronts her own haunting past.

From Cairo (2021)

Heba and Aya are two young women who are leading a single life in Cairo. We follow these two women as they make difficult choices and face their fears in the tough city of Cairo.

The Virgin, the Copts and Me (2011)

After seeing a grainy video of what is supposed to be an apparition of the Virgin Mary, Abdel Messeh sets out to make a documentary about belief, family and religion, much to the disapproval of his mother.

Chahine's Story (1995)

A documentary series chronicling the life of egyptian director Youssef Chahine.

Jews of Egypt (2013)

A documentary that captures fragments of the lives of the Egyptian Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century until their second grand exodus after the tripartite attack of 1956. An attempt to understand the change in the identity of the Egyptian society that turned from a society full of tolerance and acceptance of one another to a rejection of the minorities. How did the Jews of Egypt turn in the eyes of Egyptians from partners in the same country to enemies?

The Pharaohs' Golden Parade (2021)

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has reported that 22 royal mummies will be transferred in a wonderful parade from their present location in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to their new permanent place in Fustat’s National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which is located near the Babylon Fortress and overlooks Ain Al Sira in the heart of the historic city of Fustat. This event will take place in Cairo on the 3rd of April. The announcement was made in an official statement, which noted that the parade will start at 6 PM on Saturday and will contain 22 mummies that belong to between the seventeenth and twentieth dynasties. Valley of the Kings, the area of southern Egypt hosting their original tombs.

People and the Nile (1972)

The construction of the Aswan dam as seen by those who took part in it: engineers, workers, Egyptians, and Soviets.

Cairo as Told by Youssef Chahine (1991)

This concise masterpiece began as a commission by French TV for the news series Envoyé spécial. By filming Cairo with his unique sense of artistic digression, Chahine transformed this portrait of a city into the self-portrait of a filmmaker.

From Meir, to Meir (2021)

The filmmaker goes to discover Meir the village where her great-grandparents were born, the place her grandparents left, but continued to love. When she goes, she discovers a village that people are trying to leave.

Women Who Loved Cinema (2002)

Six strong-willed women whose adventurous streak changed the face of film industry in early twentieth century Egypt – a time when the country was, despite the liberal ripples, still steeped in conservative tradition. The film shows how these women, different as they were in class and social background, broke taboos and dismissed conventional wisdom to fulfill their overpowering passion for filmmaking. Women Who Loved Cinema takes us to the past and brings us, seamlessly, to the present day. Aziza ... Fatema ... Behidja ... Amina ... Assia … Mary... theirs is a story that will remain indelibly etched in the memory of Egyptian cinema.

Rhythm of the sea (2024)

Rhythm of the sea is a short experimental documentary film directed by youssef askar

Paranormal : What's Behind The Story (2020)

Paranormal : What's Behind The Story documentary

When the Egyptians Sailed on the Red Sea (2009)

Cheryl Ward, American archaeologist and world specialist in ancient navigation, is coordinating the design and construction of the replica of an Egyptian ship from the time of the New Kingdom. Details for building the ship come from a bas-relief from the temple of Deir el-Bahri in Luxor. This inscriptions recounts that a fleet of five ships, supplied by Queen Hatshepsut in the year 1500 BC, succeeded in finding the marvelous and far-off land of Punt, from whence they brought back the most extraordinary riches. Once the reconstruction is completed, the team intends to sail in the wake of Hatshepsut’s fleet aboard their reconstructed vessel to find the mythical land of Punt and prove that the Egyptians were a seafaring people. This film proposes a unique explanation of this historic voyage, following the true adventure of historians, Egyptologists and archaeologists, and sheds new light on the reign of Queen Hatshepsut.

Let's Talk (2019)

A mother and her daughter explore together the trajectory of four generations of women from their family, an Egyptian family from the Levant where life and cinema have been intimately linked and still are. A cross look between family archives where the real and the fiction and the autobiographical films of Youssef Chahine mingle. From Alexandria to Cairo, passing through Paris and Havana, an intimate and visceral narrative where mother and daughter cross space and time to trace destinies and question their emotions

Rhythm of the sea (monochrome version) (2024)

Rhythm of the sea (monochrome version) is the new version of the original Rhythm of the sea released in 2024.