Best Israeli documentary movies
A curated collection of popular documentary movies from Israel.
The Gatekeepers (2012)
The Gatekeepers (2012)
In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet — Israel's intelligence and security agency — speak about their role in Israel's decades-long counterterrorism campaign, discussing their controversial methods and whether the ends ultimately justify the means.
Berenshtein (2021)
Berenshtein (2021)
The unbelievable story of Leonid Bernshtein, a young Jewish soldier who rose to become the leader and led the operation to destroy the secret facility of the notorious Nazi V2 ballistic missiles.
Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10 (2019)
Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10 (2019)
Around 80 years ago, the gynecologist Carl Clauberg conducted medical experimentation on Jewish girls and women in Auschwitz. The results of those sadistic experiments were used in medicine across the globe. It is possible that German companies played a part in those experiments. Most of the survivors became infertile, and very few of them were later capable to give birth. The Untold Story of Block 10 introduces the audience to those who have survived.
Stalags (2008)
Stalags (2008)
Stalags were pocket books whose plots revealed lusty female SS officers sexually abusing camp prisoners. During the 1960s, parallel to the trial held against Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, sales of this pornographic literature broke all records in Israel and hundreds of thousands of copies were sold at kiosks. The popularity of the Stalags only declined after a much-reported trial, in which their authors were accused of distributing anti-Semitic pornography. This film examines the notorious phenomenon, exposing the creators of this genre for the first time. It posits that the combination of pornography and the Holocaust also appears in canonic Holocaust literature and continues to be a widespread part of the representation of the Holocaust in Israel today.
Flipping Out - Israel's Drug Generation (2008)
Flipping Out - Israel's Drug Generation (2008)
Military service in Israel is compulsive for all able-bodied Jewish men and women. Once their years of service is up they are granted a bonus which many use to travel to India to wind down and recover from their experiences. About 90% of them will use drugs during their travels and every year about two thousand of them will require professional help to recover from this drug use. The extreme psychotic break these people experience is commonly referred to as "flipping out".
Seeds of Summer (2008)
Seeds of Summer (2008)
Seven years after completing an Israeli Defense Course for female combat soldiers, director Hen Lasker returns to take a deeper look at the place where she first fell in love with a woman. Over the course of 66 days and nights, Lasker shoots a fly-on-the-wall documentary that allows unprecedented intimacy into the lives of the trainees and commanders of the Israeli army. The dichotomy of the innocence of these baby-faced trainees with the heavy burden of military service is a central theme of the film, illustrated in a scene where they discuss losing their virginity while waiting their turn to fire a machine gun. But it is the director’s relationship with Smadar, a breathtaking commander struggling to mask her gentle soul with a strict military persona, which makes the film truly enchanting. The intersection of love, duty, and personal growth thrive through to the film’s surprisingly moving finish.
East Jerusalem / West Jerusalem (2014)
East Jerusalem / West Jerusalem (2014)
In Palestinian East Jerusalem, Singer-Songwriter David Broza records a new album with American, Palestinian and Israeli musicians in defiance of the Middle East's dark realities.
Karahana (1997)
Karahana (1997)
The first documentary film ever made about psytrance. It tells the story of “Drugless Festival”, better remembered in Israel as “Huga Festival” that took place in Ganey Huga, a water park in the North of Israel, for 3 days, back in the summer of 1997.
Kaveret in the Park (1998)
Kaveret in the Park (1998)
The film documents Kaveret's 1998 reunion called 'Kaveret In The Park' (Kaveret BaPark), including interviews with the band members and the rehearsals.
Tantura (2022)
Tantura (2022)
The tape-recorded words “erase it” take on new weight in the context of history and war. When the state of Israel was established in 1948, war broke out and hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in its aftermath. Israelis know this as the War of Independence. Palestinians call it “Nakba” (the Catastrophe). In the late 1990s, graduate student Teddy Katz conducted research into a large-scale massacre that had allegedly occurred in the village of Tantura in 1948. His work later came under attack and his reputation was ruined, but 140 hours of audio testimonies remain.
A Film Unfinished (2010)
A Film Unfinished (2010)
Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
The Human Factor (2021)
The Human Factor (2021)
How US politicians and diplomats, over the past 25 years, have come close to achieving something almost impossible: securing peace between the State of Israel and its Arab and like-minded neighbors, mired in a struggle both dialectical and violent since the early 20th century, due to historical and religious reasons, entrenched offenses and prejudices, and the invisible and tyrannical hand of third countries' geopolitical interests in the area.
The Law in These Parts (2011)
The Law in These Parts (2011)
Can justice truly be served in the occupied territories given the current system of law administered by Israel for Palestinians? This documentary explores the history of Israel's military legal system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Before the Revolution (2013)
Before the Revolution (2013)
A documentary thriller describing the last days of the Israeli community in Tehran, on the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The director, whose family was in Tehran at the time, uses rare archive materials to illustrate how thousands of Israelis, who enjoyed unusual affinity with the Shah's regime, wake up one morning to find their paradise vanished.
Murder At Cinema North (2020)
Murder At Cinema North (2020)
A young Holocaust survivor who descends into crime; an Italian-Jewish engineer who wants to see a movie; a German Christian who forgives her husband’s murderer because of her Buddhist faith; and a Jewish woman who carries on an affair with a Nazi and exposes members of the resistance so that she and her children may survive: their fates intersect when two bullets are fired into a queue of people waiting to see “A Man Escaped” at Tel Aviv’s Cinema North in 1957.
Honorable Men: The Rise and Fall of Ehud Olmert (2020)
Honorable Men: The Rise and Fall of Ehud Olmert (2020)
How former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unexpectedly rose to power and how he dramatically fell from grace: from the most powerful position in the country to prison.
Precious Life (2011)
Precious Life (2011)
With the help of a prominent Israeli journalist, Precious Life chronicles the struggle of an Israeli pediatrician and a Palestinian mother to get treatment for her baby, who suffers from an incurable genetic disease. Each must face their most profound biases as they inch towards a possible friendship in an impossible reality.
I Shot My Love (2009)
I Shot My Love (2009)
Seventy years after his grandfather escapes from Nazi Germany to Palestine, Israeli documentary director Tomer Heymann returns to the country of his ancestors to present his film "Paper Dolls" at the Berlin International Film Festival, and there meets a man who will change his life. This 48-hour love affair, originating in Berghain Panorama Bar, develops into a significant relationship between Tomer and Andreas Merk, a German dancer.
Back to Chernobyl (2020)
Back to Chernobyl (2020)
The film tells the story of the Chernobyl accident through a mosaic of unique personal testimonies of its participants. The experiences of the difficult past and the sad results of the present recreate the full picture of the accident 30 years later.
Savoy (2022)
Savoy (2022)
Kochava Levi, a 31-year-old housewife of Yemeni descent, was taken hostage during an attack on the Savoy hotel in Tel Aviv (March 1975). Over the course of one night, she transformed herself into a fearless heroine. However, by dawn, she was left with nothing but shame.
The Real Fauda (2018)
The Real Fauda (2018)
Set in the cloak-and-dagger world of the IDF’s undercover special forces - the Mista'arvim - Fauda is an Israeli-produced TV drama which has garnered praise for its realistic depiction of military tactics alongside its empathetic portrayal of Palestinians, militant or otherwise. BBC Arabic joins the production of the hotly anticipated second season, and tries to understand how it might one day pave the way for a dialogue between the two sides built on mutual understanding and compassion.
Dirty Tricks (2021)
Dirty Tricks (2021)
At the elite level, bridge - the world's most popular card game - has become a million-dollar cut-throat business. When the best competitive player is accused of cheating, the ensuing scandal confounds experts, criminal science, celebrities and basic belief in this hilarious true-crime thriller.
Numbered (2012)
Numbered (2012)
An estimated 400,000 people were tattooed with serial numbers at Auschwitz, of whom only a few thousand survive today. This intimate and visually rapturous documentary details the current lives of some of these survivors, their memories of the camps, and their relationships with the numbers. Numbered is an emotionally affecting portrait of memory and history, and their enduring presence in individual lives.
Macheads (2009)
Macheads (2009)
A exploration of the fanaticism that surrounds the Apple brand, featuring interviews with Mac evangelists and members of the Mac community.
#NOVA (2023)
#NOVA (2023)
This documentary consists solely of footage taken by people who were at the Nova Music Festival when the massacre started on October 7th.
Haturnir (2020)
Haturnir (2020)
"Haturnir" is a documentary film, following Liam Ronen "The CEO" - a high school student who arranged the soccer tournament that eventually succeeded in becoming an outrageous empire. The film captures the fights, conflicts, COVID-19 influences, and competitions in this event.
Comfortably Numb (1991)
Comfortably Numb (1991)
Sudent film by Folman where he documents his close friends taking cover on the verge of anxiety attacks during the first Gulf war while Iraqi missiles lands all over Tel Aviv.
King Bibi (2018)
King Bibi (2018)
Twenty years before the spectacle of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu already understood the political benefits of a toxic relationship with the media, and direct communication with the public. King Bibi explores Netanyahu's rise to power, relying solely on archival footage of his media performances over the years: from his days as a popular guest expert on American TV, through his public confession of adultery, and his mastery of the art of social media. From one studio to another, "Bibi" evolved from Israel's great political hope, to a controversial figure whom some perceive as Israel's savior, and others - as a cynical politician who will stop at nothing to retain his power.