10 Best Egyptian Movies to Watch First

10 Essential Egyptian Films

Ranked native cinema in Egypt’s own creative voice.

1. 

   1. Cairo Station

   باب الحديد · 1958

   In the teeming heart of Cairo's central train station, a lame, lonely newspaper vendor nurses a hopeless obsession with a vivacious drinks seller who is promised to another man. Youssef Chahine's electrifying, tragic drama of desire and desperation.

2. 

   2. The Night of Counting the Years

   المومياء · 1969

   In 1881 Upper Egypt, a young man torn between loyalty and conscience must decide whether to expose his clan's secret trade in plundered ancient mummies. A slow, majestic, visually stunning drama of tradition and change.

3. 

   3. The Land

   الأرض · 1969

   In 1930s rural Egypt, peasant farmers band together to resist a powerful landowner and a government that would strip them of their water and land, their solidarity tested by hardship and betrayal. Youssef Chahine's sweeping, passionate drama of collective struggle.

4. 

   4. The Nightingale's Prayer

   دعاء الكروان‎ · 1959

   In the Upper Egyptian countryside, a young woman whose family was destroyed by an engineer's seduction of her sister takes a post in his household, plotting her revenge — only to find her resolve complicated by her own heart. A classic melodrama of honor and love.

5. 

   5. Chased by the Dogs

   اللص والكلاب · 1962

   Released from prison, a thief bent on revenge finds that the friends and lover who betrayed him have moved on, and his hunt for justice slowly turns him into the hunted. Adapted from Naguib Mahfouz, a taut existential thriller.

6. 

   6. Alexandria... Why?

   إسكندرية ليه؟ · 1979

   In Alexandria during World War II, a stagestruck young man obsessed with Hollywood dreams of escaping to study filmmaking in America, against a backdrop of war, poverty, and a city of many faiths and desires. Youssef Chahine's autobiographical epic.

7. 

   7. Empire M

   امبراطورية ميم · 1972

   A widowed working mother juggling six children of every age finds her household thrown into turmoil when she considers bringing a new husband home. A warm Egyptian family comedy-drama.

8. 

   8. I Want a Solution

   أريد حلاً · 1975

   Trapped in a miserable marriage to a husband who refuses to grant her a divorce, an Egyptian woman is forced into a demeaning labyrinth of the courts to win her freedom. A landmark drama that helped spur reform of the country's divorce laws.

9. 

   9. Yomeddine

   يوم الدين · 2018

   A Coptic man cured of leprosy but still marked by it leaves the only home he has known — a leper colony — and, with an orphaned boy at his side, sets off across Egypt on a battered donkey cart to find the family that abandoned him. A tender road movie.

10. T

    10. The Beginning and the End

    بداية ونهاية · 1960

    Adapted from Naguib Mahfouz, this drama follows a struggling Cairo family after the father's death, as the mother and children make painful sacrifices and moral compromises to keep up appearances. A powerful social tragedy.