10 Best Movies from Bangladesh to Watch First

10 Essential Films from Bangladesh

Ranked native cinema in Bangladesh’s own creative voice.

1. 

   1. Amra Ekta Cinema Banabo

   2019

   A sprawling tale of love, dreams, politics, and revolution set in the long aftermath of Bangladesh's war for independence, following characters whose lives are shaped by upheaval and idealism.

2. 

   2. The Clay Bird

   মাটির ময়না · 2002

   As political and religious tensions mount in 1960s East Pakistan, a boy is sent away to a strict religious school while his family is pulled apart by faith and change. Tareque Masud's tender, semi-autobiographical drama set on the eve of Bangladesh's birth.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Tareque Masud’s precise coming-of-age film is a defining work of modern Bangladeshi cinema, joining rural childhood and national history without sacrificing intimacy.

3. 

   3. Debi

   দেবী · 2018

   A woman troubled by strange, seemingly supernatural experiences seeks help from a rationalist psychiatrist, drawing him into a mystery that resists easy explanation. A Bangladeshi supernatural thriller adapted from a Humayun Ahmed novel.

4. 

   4. Oggatonama

   অজ্ঞাতনামা · 2016

   When a Bangladeshi migrant worker dies abroad, the effort to identify his body and decide what to do with it sets off a tangle of bureaucracy, deception, and quiet grief. A humane social drama.

5. 

   5. Shyamol Chhaya

   শ্যামল ছায়া · 2004

   During the 1971 Liberation War, a mismatched group of refugees crowds aboard a rickety steamboat to flee advancing Pakistani soldiers. Confined together on the river, strangers become a fragile community. A wartime drama.

6. 

   6. Television

   2013

   A devout village leader bans televisions and other modern devices in the name of piety, but his crackdown provokes his community — and forces him to confront the very technology he fears. A wry, warm-hearted satire about faith and change.

7. 

   7. Rehana Maryam Noor

   রেহানা মরিয়ম নূর · 2021

   An intense, principled assistant professor at a Dhaka medical college juggles her work, her teaching, and single motherhood — until she witnesses a troubling incident involving a student and refuses to let it go, at mounting personal cost. A gripping moral drama.

8. 

   8. Guerrilla

   গেরিলা · 2011

   After losing her husband on the first night of the 1971 war, a young woman throws herself into the urban resistance in occupied Dhaka, running dangerous missions as the crackdown tightens around her. A stirring drama of the Liberation War.

9. 

   9. Amar Bondhu Rashed

   আমার বন্ধু রাশেদ · 2011

   The turmoil of Bangladesh's 1971 Liberation War is seen through the eyes of a schoolboy and his brave, idealistic friend Rashed as the fighting reaches their small town. A coming-of-age war drama.

10. 

    10. 13 Number Feku Ostagar Lane

    ১৩ নম্বর ফেকু ওস্তাগার লেন · 1966

    In a crowded rooming house, daily quarrels erupt between the landlords and their rent-dodging lodgers, escalating comically as each side summons relatives to bolster their cause. A classic domestic comedy.