Best movies like Sword in the Desert

Beirut, 1982: a young Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot form a tentative bond in their attempt to make their way across war-torn Lebanon back to their home.

In the wake of Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, a determined woman finds her way into the country convincing a taxi driver to take a risky journey around the scarred region in search of her sister and her son.

Genua, 3rd October 1985. Together with over 500 other passengers Margot and Pierre Bergeron, a married couple from France, the Serafinis, an Italian family, Anne Higgins, an Englishwoman, Gitta and Helmut Holzer from Germany and an American couple called Marilyn and Leon Klinghoffer board the 'Achille Lauro'. The mood is cheerful and relaxed, everyone is looking forward to twelve days of sun, sea and peace. No one suspects that there are four Palestinian terrorists among the passengers: Al Assadi, Fatayer, Al Ashker and Molqi, their leader. The ship puts to sea in perfect weather. Three marvellous days follow. Everyone appears to be happy and contented. But in the case of some of the passengers appearances are deceiving. Marilyn Klinghoffer, for example, only pretends to her crippled husband that she is well and happy; in reality she is seriously ill with cancer and knows that this will be her last voyage. She does not want to upset her husband, however. A crisis is brewing between ...

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

A Mexico/United States border patrol officer is aided by his police dog, Rinty.

Leni takes Rafi to meet her family in Madrid. Leni's family is Jewish - mother, father, older sister and daughter, brother, and grandfather. Rafi is Palestinian, in Spain since age 12. Before her father returns from work, Leni reveals Rafi's origins. He accidentally drops a block of frozen soup out the flat window, probably killing a passerby. Leni initiates a cover-up and Rafi figures out the body is probably Leni's father. The body disappears and without telling the rest of the family what they know, Leni and Rafi organize a search for dad. Mom is sure he's having an affair. Leni's belly-dancing sister kisses Rafi. Her brother grabs a rifle to shoot the Arab. Can anything be put right?

Drama about the life Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer responsible for the deaths of countless Jewish people during World War II.

Documentary of three gay men living in the Palestine-Israel region trade reflections on their situation and that of the region they live.

A group of Israelis and Palestinians come together in Oslo for an unsanctioned peace talks during the 1990s in order to bring peace to the Middle East.

In a bold coup a Palestinian terrorist group captures the yacht Rosebud and kidnaps the millionaires five daughters on it. At first they demand film clips to be shown on major European TV stations. Undercover agent Martin is hired to hunt the terrorists down.

A Jewish woman is recruited to help track down a German commander who was her former husband.

A Holocaust survivor moves to Israel and experiences difficulty adjusting to life.

An American ambassador to Israel tries to bring peace to the Middle East conflict through unconventional methods, but his efforts are hampered at every turn and his personal life threatened.

Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi, divorcée Muna Farah leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda, and brother-in-law, Nabeel.

In 1980s Beirut, Mason Skiles is a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from the group that is possibly responsible for his own family's death. Meanwhile, a CIA field agent who is working under cover at the American embassy is tasked with keeping Mason alive and ensuring that the mission is a success.

An American Army officer is recruited by the yet to exist Israel to help them form an army. He is disturbed by this sudden appeal to his Jewish heritage. Each of Israel's Arab neighbors has vowed to invade the poorly prepared country as soon as partition is granted. He is made commander of the Israeli forces just before the war begins.

Chronicle of a Disappearance unfolds in a series of seemingly unconnected cinematic tableaux, each of them focused on incidents or characters which seldom reappear later in the film. Among the many unrelated scenes, there is a Palestinian actress struggling to find an apartment in West Jerusalem, the owner of the Holy Land souvenir shop preparing merchandise for incoming Japanese tourists, a group of old women gossiping about their relatives, and an Israeli police van which screeches to a halt so several heavily armed soldiers can get off the car and urinate.

A Chinese-American woman tries to expose an illegal alien smuggling ring.

A spy navigates the precarious terrain of love and survival during an undercover mission in Syria.

Julian Albans, the bully who left Beecher Prep, is visited by his Grandmère from Paris and is transformed by her remarkable story of compassion and courage. As a girl in Nazi-occupied France, the young Grandmère goes into hiding with the help of a schoolmate, a young man who risks everything to give her the chance to survive. Together, they find beauty and love in the secret world of their own creation.

A falsely accused nobleman survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him.

Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.

Gilda Bessé shares her Paris apartment with an Irish schoolteacher, Guy Malyon, and Mia, a refugee from Spain. As the world drifts toward war, Gilda defiantly pursues her hedonistic lifestyle and her burgeoning career as a photographer. But Guy and Mia feel impelled to join the fight against fascism, and the three friends are separated.

GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.

A "slice-of-life" documentary set in Gaza City, following the inner and outer lives of a 13-year-old boy, a self-styled revolutionary, as he struggles to find meaning in his life while his friends are killed around him, one by one.

A man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.

A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.

David Osit’s thought-provoking documentary is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office.

A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.

The foreman of a cattle-ranch located on the Texas-Mexico border is the leader of a gang of alien-smugglers bringing Chinese immigrants illegally into the United States. An under-cover Texas Ranger is sent to investigate.

Palestinian director Bassam Jarbawi's debut feature film tackles the physical and emotional toll of one man's return home after 15 years in an Israeli jail.

This film sheds light on the role of the Catholic Church and the people of Assisi in rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943.

The story of the post World War II Jewish refugee situation from liberation to the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

A Palestinian boy becomes entranced with a beautiful Gypsy girl and a fairy tale world she weaves amidst conflict in Gaza. The children explore nature, mysticism and what their future holds, while learning to live with the surrounding brutality c. 1990. Yusef's family scrapes by in a seaside camp while his father's in prison and his heavily-armed brother's on the run, parrying with Israeli troops. Salah, Yusef's schoolmate from a well-off Arab family strives faithfully to assist them, while Yusef helps an elderly, blind neighbor escape from his lonely abandonment into the North American dreamworld he's waited so long for.

World War II. Darkness has fallen over Europe, and the boots of the Third Reich echo through the streets. But on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, some choose to resist. Corrie Ten Boom and her family risk everything to hide Jewish refugees by the hundreds, and they ultimately face the consequences when they are discovered.

The true life-story of Sara Góralnik, a 13 year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend’s identity and finds refuge in a small village, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers’ marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.

After Tom Hurndall is shot in the head in Gaza, his parents Anthony and Jocelyn arrive in Israel wanting to know how it could have happened. They expect sympathy and cooperation from the Israeli authorities, but are instead met with an official explanation that fails to tally with any eye-witness accounts, and a wall of silence. When an Israeli army report attempts to whitewash the incident, the Hurndalls decide the only way to establish the truth is to launch their own investigation into the shooting, a process which brings them face to face with both the Open-Fire regulations of the Israeli army in Gaza, and the soldier who pulled the trigger.

Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible. Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement - finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling.

A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.

A "What if?" alternative history sees Nazi Germany prevailing in the second World War. First the occupiers establish their power bases, before they find themselves under attack from the underground resistance.

A 66-minute TV documentary from 1977. It was produced by and starred Vanessa Redgrave, and directed by Roy Battersby.

The true story of negotiations between implacable enemies — the secret back-channel talks, unlikely friendships and quiet heroics of a small but committed group of Israelis, Palestinians and one Norwegian couple that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.

The story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere.

A tale of friendship between two men, one Jewish and the other Arab, as the state of Israel is being created.

An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day. A semi-biographic film, in four chapters, about a family spanning from 1948 until recent times. Combined with intimate memories of each member, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labelled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.

The crew of a bankrupt Scottish trawler turn to smuggling illegal immigrants over the stormy waters of the North Sea.

The story is set in Palestine in 1947, during the British mandate period. The Zionists are fighting for the establishment of a Jewish state, and four comrades in arms pressure the young Elisha to overcome his moral qualms and fully commit to the armed struggle.

On April 9, 1948, a Jewish militia entered the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin and killed over 100 villagers. Soon after, a mental hospital was built on the ruins. The first patients to be committed were Holocaust survivors. A legend says that to this day, the survivors have been communicating with the ghosts of the village. Forgiveness tells the story of David Adler, a 20-year old American-Israeli who decides to move back to Israel, only to find himself committed to a mental institution that sits on the ruins of a Palestinian village called Deir Yassin. Flashbacks and flashforwards reveal the events that led up to his hospitalization.

Drones begins in the Nevada desert, where new girl Sue Lawson joins airman Jack in a hot, windowless bunker from which they manoeuvre unmanned drones across the plains of Afghanistan. Their first day at work is awkward but polite, with Jack all too aware of Sue’s privileged status as daughter of a well-respected general. This, however, will be no ordinary mission: as they train their sights on an unarmed terrorist suspect, a power struggle erupts between the smart, sophisticated Sue and the dogged, blue-collar Jack.