From intimate portraits to sweeping narratives, films about Lebanon reveal a society shaped by resilience, contradiction and memory. Through stories of conflict, identity, and everyday life, these cinematic works offer more than entertainment – they become windows into a nation constantly redefining itself, where beauty and struggle exist side by side.

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Memory Box, a film by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, tells a story from the notebooks and cassette tapes of Joana and her close friend who moved to France during the Lebanese Civil War. From the ages of 13 to 18, they wrote to each other every day, sending along recorded tapes and photos, and every month, each of them received a parcel containing these memories. They lost touch and 25 years later, they found each other back and discovered that they both kept everything. And from this massive archive, this film was born to tell their teenage and war memories in a vibrant and playful way.

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Whispers by Maroun Bagdadi traces the path of Nadia Tueni (1935–1983) as she moves through various regions of a Lebanon fractured by war. The film captures a nation in decline, caught between survival and the search for hope. Along the way, in places steeped in poetry and memories of a vanished past, the poet’s shattered aspirations and idealized image of her homeland mirror those of the director himself.

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West Beirut tells the story of Tarek, a high schooler who makes with his friend Omar Super 8 movies. In April 1975, the civil war breaks out and Beirut is partitioned along a Moslem-Christian line, their school closed and getting from West to East is a game. As his father refuses to leave, Tarek spends time with May, an orphaned Christian living in his building. Discovering the Olive Quarter by accident was where the adventure begins.

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Caramel by Nadine Labaki is a sensitive and funny movie that tells the story of five women in a Beirut beauty salon, their lives and their dreams. While seeking love, marriage and companionship, they find duty, friendship and possibility.

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Costa Brava, Lebanon follows the Badri family as they escape Beirut’s chaos to build a peaceful mountain retreat – only to have their sanctuary disrupted by a landfill rising just outside their home. As garbage piles up, so do tensions between staying and leaving, threatening their fragile unity. In her debut, Mounia Akl offers a darkly comic take on life in modern Lebanon.

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Warsha, a short film by Dania Bdeir, follows a Syrian migrant worker who, upon climbing one of Beirut’s tallest cranes, finds a rare moment of freedom to reveal his true self far from society’s watchful gaze.

Article Written by Mirella Haddad