The year 2025 was one that we had a lot of drama to deal with, and not enough comedy outside of theatres. Each movie screening in Israel this year was preceded by a short film telling us, in oddly cutesy language, what to do should Israel be attacked.
But the show went on, and people did go to the movies, even if at times some releases were put on hold. More than a million tickets were sold – a huge success by local standards – to the comedy sequel, Saving Shuli San, about three schleppy Israelis looking for one of their sons in Tokyo.
There were many other movies, both Israeli and foreign, that drew audiences to the theatres.
This list will look different from most others because release schedules are different around the world. Many of the year-end Hollywood movies of 2025 haven’t opened here yet, and movies that were popular abroad in 2024 only made it to Israel in 2025.
The following lists – which are in no particular order – feature movies that played in theatres in Israel, or that were in several film festivals and then shown on local television.
Best international films
1. A Complete Unknown – The Bob Dylan biopic by James Mangold, starring Timothée Chalamet, was the best surprise of the year. The movie recreated the atmosphere of the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene beautifully. Chalamet’s performance gave real insight into what made Dylan tick, avoiding almost all biopic pitfalls.
2. A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg directed and starred in this low-key, affecting drama about two cousins played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin who bond as they go on a trip to visit Jewish sites in Poland.
3. Sinners – I wouldn’t have thought that I would enjoy a vampire movie this much, but three factors made this film a must-see: Michael B. Jordan’s charisma in his dual role playing twin brothers, the evocation of the deep South in the 1930s, and the blues and folk music score.
4. Eleanor the Great – Scarlett Johansson’s sensitive, quirky story of a woman over 90 taking stock of her life and channelling her best friend’s Holocaust experiences featured an incredible performance by 96-year-old June Squibb in the lead role.
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig – This Iranian movie by Mohammad Rasoulof (who had to flee the country after he made it), about how a revolutionary court judge’s wife and daughters get involved in Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement, works both as a Hitchcockian suspense thriller and an allegory about the oppression of women in the Islamic Republic.
6. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere – Another musical biopic, this film by Scott Cooper took a big risk and paid off, delivering a terrific performance by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as The Boss during the making of the album, Nebraska.
7. Marty Supreme – Chalamet holds the screen again in this fast-paced movie by Josh Safdie, loosely based on the life of a real-life Jewish table-tennis champion, who has to fight and con every step of the way.
8. Freakier Friday – A sequel to a beloved comedy, it widens the story but sticks to the conceit of women and girls switching bodies and seeing the world from different perspectives, and it gave Jamie Lee Curtis a chance to do the goofy comedy she is best at. Nisha Ganatra directed it with a light touch.
9. September 5 – This semi-documentary movie by Tim Fehlbaum about the ABC sports crew covering the massacre of the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics played like Broadcast News meets Operation Thunderbolt, and it was undeniably gripping.
10. The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue –This Canadian documentary by Barry Avrich tells the story of one Israeli family on October 7, 2023. It’s about how Noam Tibon, a retired general, headed south immediately on October 7 to save his son Amir’s family from invading Hamas terrorists. It was accepted to the Toronto International Film Festival, withdrawn, and then re-accepted after an outcry, and went on to win the People’s Choice Award.
Best Israeli movies
Against all odds, it was a terrific year for Israeli movies, and they have their own list. They were as diverse as Israeli life, with stories of Jews and Arabs, and religious and secular Israelis. There were mysteries, comedies, and even a trip to Georgia, as well as documentaries about the hostage crisis, which wasn’t resolved until well into the year.
1. Real Estate – Anat Malz’s movie about a hipster Tel Aviv couple facing the prospect of moving to Haifa to save money took what could have been a simple story of an apartment hunt and turned it into a universal saga of disappointment, love, and growing up.
2. The Sea – Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s drama about a Palestinian boy who wants to visit the seashore, and the worried father who must find him in Tel Aviv, shows that you can’t really understand another person until you spend time walking around in his shoes; it’s a kind of Israeli version of The Bicycle Thief. It won this year’s Ophir Award for Best Picture.
3. Pink Lady – An ultra-Orthodox couple has to deal with the fact that the husband is gay, and along the way, his wife discovers her own sexuality, in an intense film by Nir Bergman, with a script by Mindi Ehrlich, who grew up in the haredi community.
4. Halisa – Sophie Artus’s drama about a pediatric nurse (Noa Koler) in a mixed Arab-Jewish neighbourhood who is undergoing fertility treatments herself was a moving look at finding a community where you don’t expect it, and a well-observed slice of life.
5. The Milky Way – The words “funny” and “dystopian” don’t usually go together, but they did in Maya Kenig’s offbeat look at a Tel Aviv singer who has just become a mother and has to sell her breast milk to a rich family to make ends meet.
6. Letter to David – Director Tom Shoval worked with a non-professional actor named David Cunio on his first film in 2013 and built a connection to the Cunio family. When David was kidnapped into Gaza on October 7 during the Hamas onslaught, along with other family members, Shoval made this film to tell their story; he is adding an ending to celebrate Cunio’s release.
7. Holding Liat – Brandon Kramer’s very different documentary about a hostage family looks at the American-Israeli Atzili-Beinin family, and how they coped when their daughter was held hostage in Gaza. Americans in Israel will identify with many of the dilemmas the family faces.
8. Highway 65 – Sometimes you need a good neo-noir mystery, and Maya Dreifuss’s film is just that, focusing on the disappearance of a woman no one cares about in a small town, and an awkward female detective (Tali Sharon), who will stop at nothing to solve the case. War hero and singer Idan Amedi plays an attractive suspect.
9. Nandauri – Eti Tsicko’s original drama is about a Georgian woman (Neta Riskin) who became a Tel Aviv lawyer but must return to the repressive hometown she hated to help a mother reunite with her son.
10. Matchmaking 2 – Erez Tadmor’s gentle comedy about dating in the ultra-Orthodox world is even better than the first film. It deals with the issue of special needs in this community in a sensitive way and features a diverse, appealing cast.