Best movies like Youth

Three parallel stories of immigrants in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War and about coming together while sealed in a room during the Scud attacks.

Or shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.

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

Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.

Life in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, an urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces. Gabi, a bobbed haired sexpot, and her lover Hezi—who's older, balding and married—rent a room to have an affair, while Ezra, a pot bellied divorcee, supervises an illegal construction site next door. All this racket drives Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, to a mental breakdown. Other characters include illegal Chinese immigrants, a teenage boy who's afraid to serve in the army, and a corrupt police detective.

A small Egyptian police band travels to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong town.

Charles Hodgson is a British aristocrat who decides to become a thief as a way of getting at his twin brother, Earl, a security expert who has built a supposedly impregnable vault in Tel Aviv, which holds a cache of diamonds. For the caper, Charles enlists Archie, a heist expert, and Sally. He also becomes acquainted with an American woman, Zelda Shapiro, who is in Israel looking for a new husband.

The flat on the third floor of a Bauhaus building in Tel Aviv was where my grandparents lived since they immigrated to Palestine in the 1930s. Were it not for the view from the windows, one might have thought that the flat was in Berlin. When my grandmother passed away at the age of 98 we were called to the flat to clear out what was left. Objects, pictures, letters and documents awaited us, revealing traces of a troubled and unknown past. The film begins with the emptying out of a flat and develops into a riveting adventure, involving unexpected national interests, a friendship that crosses enemy lines, and deeply repressed family emotions. And even reveals some secrets that should have probably remained untold...

Set in mid-70's, 12-year old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his undermined mother, whom the Kibbutz members will to denounce.

Menahem Lang, an actor with an extraordinary singing voice, returns to Bnei Brak, the city in Israel where he grew up and a center of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Now in his 30s, Lang left the city at 20, following years of rape and sexual abuse by elder, devout family men in the community. Yet, Lang was far from being an isolated case: his conversations with other abused young men document a cycle of sexual predators and tormented lives.

It articulates the essence of one's internal exile through the portrait of a Jewish-German refugee who arrived in Israel on the eve of World War II, started a family – but has nevertheless, yet to feel at home in his new country. He remains connected to Berlin with every fiber of his being; the city’s culture, its essence, and as far as he’s concerned, Israel is no more than a pit stop. He gradually pulls away from his wife, his son who does not get him, his sisters who are haunted by the past, and the rental flat where he’s lived all these years. He sets up shop in a budget hotel by the Tel Aviv seaside, hangs out with a group of fringe misfits, and dreams of moving back to Berlin.

Tel Aviv, Summer 1989. Boaz, a beautiful and alluring linguistics student, receives anonymous, male written love letters, that undermine his sexual identity and interfere on his peaceful life with his beloved girlfriend.

In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.

The unbelievable story of 22 year old Or, who secretly finances his sex change operation in Thailand by lying to his conservative parents and then returns home as a woman to face her new life, her family and the cost of living her dream

Movie follows two young gay hustlers through interwoven stories during a night in Tel Aviv.

Shlomo who discovers in his son's Assaf room, women's clothing and accessories, decides to 'teach the boy a lesson'. When Assaf returns to his parents' home on a rainy night from a party, his attempts to enter home fail. His father, with the silent consent of his mother, locked the door. At present, 4 years later, Gallia turns to an investigation agency to help her find her son Assaf and bring him to Shlomo, his father who is dying of cancer. One night, at a night club in Tel Aviv, Assaf is seen performing as a beautiful transgender lady singer who goes by the name of Anna. After a few days a private nurse turns up at Shlomo's room at the hospital, sent as she claims by the insurance agency to assist Shlomo. The nurse is Anna (his son Assaf) and she manages to conquer Shlomo's heart by her charming personality and her special attitude toward life.

Yoav's demons start haunting him after his best friend becomes pregnant, without telling him, and after his boyfriend of 15 years starts talking about children, too. His life unravels, and self-destruction seems inevitable.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

Three stories about three women: one is trying to find the right guy; one is trying to get a divorce from her runaway husband so she takes hostages; one turns Tel Aviv upside down in order to save a kitten trapped in a storm drain.

Mivtza Savta ("Operation Grandma") is a satirical Israeli comedy about three very different brothers trying to get around many obstacles to bury their grandmother on her kibbutz. The story takes place in Israel, in the fictional kibbutz "Asisim".

When Yoel hears about an imminent Iranian military attack on Tel Aviv, he knows what to do - escape with his family to a safe haven in Jerusalem. His son Assaf, who is a filmmaker and about to become a father himself, wants to give Yoel one last lead role in his movie by melting the fictional world into bittersweet reality.

Two girls from nuclear towns in Israel and Iran spill their countries most valuable secrets on Facebook while trying to prevent a nuclear crisis.

Nony Geffen, a 30 year old student living in Tel Aviv with his roommate Rotem, is a musician and is secretly in love with Hadas. He is called up for a military operation in Gaza . The APC, in which he and his unit are riding, is hit by a Hamas rocket. Nony is the sole survivor. He comes back from Gaza a different person and is cared for by his parents and a military psychiatrist. After lengthy psychiatric treatment Nony starts to communicate again – only now he is convinced that he is ‘Amnon’, the deceased uncle for whom he was named. Amnon had been an unrecognized singer. Nony is not a singer and now he doesn’t even remember how to play. At first, when Nony performs, people laugh at this strange guy but then he becomes a phenomenon. When he is at the height of his success on the one hand, but also at the height of his mental disorder, Nony meets Hadas again.

The story of Salomonico who works in the Tel Aviv Port and tries to defend his house and his life.

A young girl and her brother come of age at their great grandmother's house in Virginia during the 1940s. After a family tragedy, a young girl moves from New York with your younger brother to live with their great grandmother on a Virginia farm and comes closer to understanding the land and roots that inspired her father's writings while discovering herself, the love of family, and the power of truly believing.

Set in Tel Aviv, focuses on an interconnected group of friends and their various relationships. At the center is the adorably bookish Omer, about to turn 30, who still hasn't found himself, and his free-spirited best friend Miki, who both end up inadvertently dating the same handsome journalist, Ronen.

The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.

Aviva, a hard-working hotel cook in the small northern Israeli town of Tiberias, is on the brink of finally fulfilling her lifelong dream. For years she kept her remarkable writing abilities under wraps, until her sister, Anita, introduces her to Oded, an accomplished novelist. Immediately recognizing Aviva's talent, Oded takes her under his wing, promising to help her achieve greatness. But the journey to greatness effects her life and the lives of her family - her unemployed husband, her trouble children, her unstable mother, and primarily her sister, a funny and sensitive woman who have her own dreams. When Aviva discovered that Oded has other plans for her work, her world collapses.

The Wooden Gun takes place in Tel Aviv in the early 1950s and details the conflict between native-born Israelis and the newly arrived European refugees.

Michale is a thirty year old woman. She works with her father in a Tel Aviv accounting office providing services to important religious institutions. She divides her time between her child, her husband, her work and the man with whom she is having an affair. When Michale learns of the tragic death of her lover, her life is shattered.

Sima Vaknin is a widow who wants to build a small residantial unit in her backyard but meets a strong resistance from her neighbor Wasserman. Sima angry curses him and curse becomes true. The rumor spread quickly and suddenly mass pilgrims are at Sima's door to receive a blessing or order a curse.

The story of a little town, Givat Zurim, and its lowest-ranked soccer team. The lot for the quarterfinal of the national championship set Beitar Givat Zurim to host no less than Maccabi Tel Aviv, one of the best teams around. Those ten days until the game, and the historical arrival of Maccabi's players, will not be easily forgotten.

Vicky (Angelica Vale) travels to Israel dressed as a nun to find her estranged husband, who is an illegal salsa dancing teacher in Tel Aviv. On her way there she meets Yoni (Angel Bonanni), a shy University professor who helps her go through Israeli customs.

In a bustling Tel Aviv, a man suffering from insomnia tries to remember if someone actually shot him in one the city's underground parking garages. He no longer knows what is real or a dream while the city increasingly reflects the human condition. A young woman wakes up in a hotel room in Shanghai from that dream by a mysterious phone call. A fragmented conversation with a stranger who seems to also be a lover, rolls into a dazed odyssey in what seems like another dream amidst nocturnal Shanghai.