Best movies like The Aquarium

Cairo, 2011. A police officer investigates the murder of a woman in a luxurious hotel in the days leading up to the Egyptian revolution.

Samir is the head of a small family and a bank employee and stable in his work, but separated after the decision to reduce the employment and then surprise that his bank balance zero and after days find a box with a mobile phone to meet a call changed his life by recruiting him to spy on people through an organization called The Originals.

For Rami, all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, as long as he keeps to himself. But when his longtime lover leaves him to marry a woman and his best friends drift away, he comes face to face with the harsh realities of life as a gay man in Egypt. Against the backdrop of the choreographed crackdown on gay men and the notorious Queen Boat arrests of 2001, he plunges into a world of loveless friendships and spirals downwards to his ultimate downfall.

A biopic depicting the life of the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, following his early life, his political and military achievements, and his assassination during the Cairo annual victory parade.

Qinawi, a physically challenged peddler who makes his living selling newspapers in the central Cairo train station, is obsessed with Hanuma, an attractive young woman who sells drinks. While she jokes with him about a possible relationship, she is actually in love with Abu Siri, a strong and respected porter at the station who is struggling to unionize his fellow workers to combat their boss' exploitative and abusive treatment.

A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student ecomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.

Amid the poverty, death, and suffering caused by World War II, 18-year-old Yehia, retreats into a private world of fantasy and longing. Obsessed with Hollywood, he dreams of one-day studying filmmaking in America, but after falling in love and discovering the lies of European occupation, Yehia profoundly reevaluates his identity and allegiances.

The biblical tale of Joseph is told from an Egyptian perspective in this interesting character study. In this film, Joseph is called Ram. Ram, tired of his family's backward superstitious life, and tired of being picked on by his brothers, wants to go to Egypt to study agriculture. His brothers travel with him across Sinai, but then suddenly sell him to Ozir, an Egyptian who works for a Theban military leader, Amihar. Amihar is impressed by Ram's drive and personal charm and so grants Ram some desolate land outside the capital. Ram soon finds himself a pawn in the political and sexual games between Amihar and his wife Simihit, a high priestess of the Cult of Amun.

Secret agent OSS 117 foils Nazis, beds local beauties, and brings peace to the Middle East.

Upon his return to Alexandria, Khaled becomes intrigued with a graffiti mural opposite his apartment. As he pursues this further, a larger underground arts scene slowly reveals itself, composed of musicians, filmmakers, and graffiti artists. As they struggle to get their voices heard, Khaled is compelled to help them acquire some much deserved visibility.

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.

Magdy, the struggling student at the Faculty of Medicine, meets Souad, the wife of his professor Dr. Fikry, and she admires him and asks her husband to let him work in his clinic. They get involved in a relationship, but events take a tragic turn.

After studying literature at Cairo University, Dunia, 23 years old, wants to become a professional dancer. She attends audition for an oriental dance contest where she recites Arabian poetry without any body movement. She explain to the perplexed jury that a woman can't move her body or evoke act of love when society ask women to hide their femininity. She is selected and meet Beshir, an intellectual and activist who will supervise her thesis on ecstasy in Sufi love poetry. Their attraction is mutual. This could be liberation for Dunia but the constraints on women in Egyptian society goes deeper than she suspects.

An American agent working undercover as a cafe pianist in Cairo sets out to capture a notorious spy and jewel thief known as "The Voice". Director Ray Nazarro's 1951 drama stars Richard Denning, Lisa Ferraday, Norman Lloyd, George Zucco, Nestor Paiva, Donald Randolph and Dick Elliott.

Ever wonder what it was like to be in the middle east during the Gulf War of the early 90s? Sure, many films and TV shows have portrayed what it was like for the UN forces. This film takes you into the melee from the perspective of Egyptians -- who were sharply divided about the war -- and their daily lives, which, as one sees, form the basis of their foundation for understanding/approaching the war. And it really is these "every day" realities that make up the bulk of the film.

After we last see him in "Alexandria, Why?" Egyptian filmmaker Yehia Mourad is in his thirties, and successful in his work, he has grown distant from his wife and children and suffers a symbolic blockage of the heart while shooting the final scenes of his latest film. After being flown to England for evaluation, it's determined that Yehia must undergo emergency surgery. Fact and fiction blend seamlessly—with healthy doses of cleverly absurdist fantasy—as the film explores the various personalities and forces that have made Yehia (and Youssef Chahine) the man he has become.

When a day in the life of a beleaguered Egyptian filmmaker goes sideways, he witnesses anew issues like class and gender relations.

10 Film makers made 10 Separate stories about the "25January " revolution in Egypt and the Egyptian people in the revolution and the protests against the previous President Hosni Mubarak and the departure of President Hosni Mubarak and also displays what happened in Tahrir Square since the start of the sit-in

Booha (Saad), a butcher coming from the countryside to Cairo to find the man whom his late father left his money with, gets tangled in the big city, finds love with kouta (Maie), and gets exploited by Farag (Hosni).

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.

Set in 1987 against the backdrop of a hunger strike by the Egyptian film industry, Chahine himself steps in to play Yehia, the famed Egyptian director whose life is chronicled in "Alexandria, Why?" and "An Egyptian Story". Obsessed with Amr, the handsome actor he discovered and cast as his alter-ego in parts one and two of The Alexandria Trilogy, Yehia pressures Amr to star in various film projects that change even as Yehia's perception of the young actor begins to change. He first casts Amr as Hamlet, which the actor deems too demanding for his talents, then as the lead in a musical biopic of demigod Alexander the Great, who founded the city of Alexandria in 332 B.C.

Yousry Nasrallah's powerful adaptation of Lebanese writer Elias Khoury's epic novel of fifty years of Palestinian dispossession, exile, and resistance. The film follows the flight of Younes, his wife Nahila, and those around them, from their village in northern Palestine to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Some vow to continue the struggle, most simply struggle to survive. Unsparingly detailing the impact of the nakba (disaster) on Palestinian life and society and the refugees' often-contentious relationship with their reluctant Lebanese hosts, Gate of the Sun spans generations, mixing personal stories with historical events.

This big-budget historical epic from acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine features a crazed turn by Patrice Chereau as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film, an Egyptian-French co-production, deals with Napoleon's occupation of Alexandria and its effect on a typical Egyptian family. Michel Piccoli leads the cast as a general in Napoleon's army who tentatively befriends a local poet.

Ali, an aspiring actor, works in a government-aided butchery and takes part in a cheap play. Defying his father's wishes, he moves to Paris to fulfill his dreams and starts living illegally alongside many other Arabs. Ali has a life-changing experience there that he won't fully remember until he returns to Egypt.

In the fading grandeur of downtown Cairo, Khalid, a 35-year-old filmmaker is struggling to make a film that captures the pulse of his city at a moment when all around him dreams as much as buildings are disintegrating. With the help of his friends who send him footage from their lives in Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin, he finds the strength to keep going through the difficulty and beauty of living IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CITY.

With his father crippled, Mahgoub Abdel Dayem finds himself in an urgent need of a job to support his family. When he enlists his friend Salem to help him find a job, Salem not only gets him a job at the ministry but also finds him a bride. The bride in question, however, is the mistress of the powerful Qasem Bek...

Najwa, a music teacher from the city of Minya, Upper Egypt, seizes the opportunity to come to Cairo on a trip with her students to search for Tahany, her first teacher that taught her music and used to live in an apartment in Heliopolis.

Nubi, a wealthy man with Communist ties, sets out to find his half-brother Gamal, who has been disowned for being gay, to let him inherit his father's fortune. In the process, Nubi is supposed to kill Gamal's stepmother Raifa, a suspected drug dealer, before she can kill his half-brother.

Reem is a young political activist who works for an advertisement company. As she tries to uncover the truth behind the incide of the Battle of the Camel, she accompanies her friend Farah to Nazlet Al Seman where she meets and falls for Mahmoud, one of the people involved in the incident.

A prince of the former royal family finds himself without a meaningful role in post-revolutionary Egyptian society. Based on the play by Tawfiq el-Hakim.

Laila is a rich rural girl raised by her aunt who succeeds in marrying her off to her son, a doctor who just returned from England. But the doctor lives a reckless life, and he looks down on Laila who turns into a beautiful modern girl after moving to Cairo.

Esmat Kazem runs a smuggling operation between Egypt and Lebanon, using his cabaret in Cairo as a front. Ibrahim, the smuggling ring's operative in Beirut, is murdered over a dispute with Esmat. The police relay the news of the murder to Ibrahim's sister Lamia, a former singer at Esmat's cabaret and an old flame of Esmat's. When she learns of her brother's death, she decides to avenge her brother's murder by co-operating with the police and bringing down Esmat's smuggling ring.

To cover up a robbery, a plan is devised to set fire to the warehouse. When Youssef confides in Dalia about his concern over the fire, she reports him to Sherif, the mastermind behind the crime. Youssef tries to expose Sherif who plots to have him murdered.

The film puts the lights on the struggle of youngsters to afford a proper life for marriage. Through their small incomes, and the ordeal of finding a house in crowded Cairo, so it follows a young couple's longing for their simpliest dreams - to be together.

A late night radio host is trapped inside the station by a violent storm after being bitten by a rabid bat.