Watermarks (2004), Divan (2003), Demon (2015), Five Days Without Nora (2008), Late Marriage (2001), Off and Running (2009), Lies My Father Told Me (1975), Mahler (1975) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Jewish Culture movies.
Storyline: Crackerjack lawyer George Simon is a workaholic, and a successful one, at that. Having just gotten a woman acquited of a murder charge, he is juggling cases ranging from breaking a will to quashing the disorderly conduct charges against the son of a woman he knew in the old neighborhood, before he became a hot shot counsellor. He adores his wife Cora, who feels she married a bit below her station. His step-children think so, too. His secretary Rexy adores him, although he is oblivious to the fact. Threatened with losing his practice due to a discretion in a case seven years earlier, his wife leaves for Europe until the scandal blows over, and he comes to realize (just in time) who his true friends are.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>
Plot Keywords: legal, drama, courtroom, lawyer, new york, 1930s, social class ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Jewish-American writer Jonathan Safran Foer is a collector of his family's memorabilia, although most of the items, some which he takes without asking, would not be considered keepsakes by the average person. He places most of those items in individual Ziploc bags, and hangs them on his keepsake wall under the photograph of the person to who it is most associated. He has this compulsion in an effort to remember. He is able to tie a photograph that he receives from his grandmother, Sabine Foer, on her deathbed - it of his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the war in the Ukraine, and a young woman he will learn is named Augustine - back to a pendant he stole from his grandfather on his deathbed in 1989, the pendant of a glass encased grasshopper. Learning that Augustine somehow saved his grandfather's life leads to Jonathan going on a quest to find out the story at its source where the photograph was taken, in a now non-existent and probably largely forgotten town called Trachimbrod that...
Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, adventure, historical, war, family, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Harry Block is a well-regarded novelist whose tendency to thinly-veil his own experiences in his work, as well as his un-apologetic attitude and his proclivity for pills and whores, has left him with three ex-wives that hate him. As he is about to be honored for his writing by the college that expelled him, he faces writer's block and the impending marriage of his latest flame to a writer friend. As scenes from his stories and novels pass and interact with him, Harry faces the people whose lives he has affected - wives, lovers, his son, his sister.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, psychological analysis, moral dilemma, self-destruction, interpersonal relationships, satirical humor, reality vs fantasy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The origin story behind one of Broadway's most beloved musicals, Fiddler on The Roof, and its creative roots in early 1960s New York, when "tradition" was on the wane as gender roles, sexuality, race relations and religion were evolving.
Plot Keywords: documentary, music, jewish culture, broadway, musical theater, history, tradition ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The subversive masterpieces of Russian-Ukrainian writer Isaac Babel challenged the reality of life under rising totalitarianism, and led to his arrest and execution in 1940. In Finding Babel, Andrei Malaev-Babel confronts complex traces of a turbulent history that echo in his grandfather's writing and in the conflicts of today's Ukraine and Russia. Babel's fiction is woven into Andrei's search with ethereal animation that puts the viewer, like Babel's readers, between fantasy and reality.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, writer, jewish, historical, soviet union, 20th century ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Mussolini's Italy, late 1930s: the Finzi-Contini are one of the leading wealthy Jewish families. Their adult children gather friends for tennis and parties at their lovely grounds, with the rest of the world at bay, while politics close in.—OJT
Plot Keywords: world war ii, italian cinema, historical drama, fascism, love story, tragedy, jewish culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Paul Boray comes from a working class background. He has been interested in the violin since he was a child, which his father disliked since he felt it a waste of money, but which his mother supported. Into his adult life, Paul wants to become a concert violinist, and although he shows talent, he does not have the right connections to make it into the concert performance world, much like his longtime friend, virtuoso pianist Sid Jeffers, and cellist Gina, both who, like Paul, train with the National Institute Orchestra. Gina and Paul have a connection with each other, Gina who confesses her love for him. While performing at a party with Sid, Paul meets Helen and Victor Wright, their hosts. Victor is a perceptive but self-admittedly weak man, while his wife Helen is strong minded but insecure which manifests itself as neurosis. She constantly tries to forget about her unhappy life by excessive alcohol consumption. Helen becomes Paul's benefactress, which ultimately results in a successful concert career for Paul. But the two also fall in love, a destructive love against the wishes of Paul's mother and Gina. That love may not only destroy Paul's concert career, but their lives as well.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: drama, romance, music, classical music, artist, new york, jewish culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Thomas, a young and talented German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who dies in a car crash. Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers. Keeping his secret for himself, he starts working for Anat, his lover's widow, who owns a small café. Although not fully kosher and despised by the religious, his delicious cakes turn the place into a city attraction. Finding himself involved in Anat's life in a way far beyond his anticipation, Thomas will stretch his lie to a point of no return.—Film Base Berlin
Plot Keywords: drama, lgbt, romance, germany, jewish culture, family, grief ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The documentary made in 1976 by the Canadian TV is already a piece of art history by itself, a precious documentary having caught on screen Marc Chagall at almost 90 years, yet looking in full power and at the pick of his wit, remembering and commenting of key aspects of his life and art. He is helped by his second wife Vava who translates from French to English for the interview, and some of the inexactitudes and short cuts she is taking are also not only amusing but documentary significant. Almost seven decades of the history and history of art of the20th century are reviewed by one of its greatest artist. Chagall remembers events and people, he reflects on the role that his family and his Jewish background played in his art, but overall he talks to us about his love for life and people and the way he tried and wonderfully succeeded to turn it into art. The commentary is sometimes too apologetic, but after all the name of the film is 'Homage to Chagall'. The filming of the paintings is quite good quality taking into account that the film was made before the era of the digital capture. Overall the documentary will stay for many years as the best or one of the best made about the painter, and the inclusion of the interview is priceless.
Plot Keywords: documentary, art, painter, biography, love, color, jewish culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The story of a great rivalry between a father and son, both eccentric professors in the Talmud department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The son has an addictive dependency on the embrace and accolades that the establishment provides, while his father is a stubborn purist with a fear and profound revulsion for what the establishment stands for, yet beneath his contempt lies a desperate thirst for some kind of recognition. The Israel Prize, Israel's most prestigious national award, is the jewel that brings these two to a final, bitter confrontation.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: drama, father-son relationship, jewish culture, satire, literature, honor, misunderstanding ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Some stories get lost in the turmoil of their times. It is often only in retrospect that we can discover the true shapers of history. One such man is the prodigious Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman. Orchestra of Exiles explores this great man's 4-year odyssey, which culminates in the founding of the orchestra that would become the Israel Philharmonic. His fascinating story touches many of the major themes of the 20th century and the unfolding drama of his life is riveting. During the darkest days of a Europe being torn apart by anti- Semitism and Nazi aggression, Huberman's extraordinary efforts saved hundreds of Jewish families from the approaching holocaust and his achievements changed the landscape of cultural history. Before the Nazis came to power Huberman was focused only on building his own monumental career but witnessing Hitler's agenda was a call to action that Huberman could not ignore. Huberman's personal transformation and subsequent heroic struggle to get Jewish musicians out of Europe to found this orchestra will be at the heart of this film.—Josh Aronson
Plot Keywords: documentary, history, music, jewish culture, world war ii, exile, art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Bloomington, Minnesota, 1967: Jewish physics lecturer Larry Gopnik is a serious and a very put-upon man. His daughter is stealing from him to save up for a nose job, his pot-head son, who gets stoned at his own bar-mitzvah, only wants him round to fix the TV aerial and his useless brother Arthur is an unwelcome house guest. But both Arthur and Larry get turfed out into a motel when Larry's wife Judy, who wants a divorce, moves her lover, Sy, into the house and even after Sy's death in a car crash they are still there. With lawyers' bills mounting for his divorce, Arthur's criminal court appearances and a land feud with a neighbour Larry is tempted to take the bribe offered by a student to give him an illegal exam pass mark. And the rabbis he visits for advice only dole out platitudes. Still God moves in mysterious - and not always pleasant - ways, as Larry and his family will find out.
Plot Keywords: black comedy, jewish culture, moral dilemma, existentialism, fate, religion, midlife crisis ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Three days into his Miami honeymoon, New York Jewish Lenny meets tall, blonde Kelly. This confirms him in his opinion that he has made a serious mistake and he decides he wants Kelly instead. Her rich father is less than keen and lets everyone - including Lenny - know that he hates everything about him and the way he is going on.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: comedy, romance, marriage, betrayal, satire, relationships, american ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Isabelle's life revolves around the New York bookshop she works in and the intellectual friends of both sexes she meets there. Her grandmother remains less than impressed and decides to hire a good old-fashioned Jewish matchmaker to help Isabelle's love-life along. Enter pickle-maker Sam who immediately takes to Isabelle. She however is irritated by the whole business, at least to start with.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: romance, comedy, romantic, new york, jewish culture, independent film, 1980s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's 1896. Yankel Bogovnik, a Russian Jew, emigrated to the United States three years earlier and has settled where many of his background have, namely on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has assimilated to American life, having learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, the money earned to be able to bring his wife Gitl and his son Yossele to America from Russia. Regardless, he has fallen in love with another woman, a dancer named Mamie Fein. Nonetheless, he is excited when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are indeed coming to America. His happiness at their arrival is dampened when he sees that Gitl is not "American" looking like Mamie and has troubles assimilating as quickly as he would like. Except to Mamie, he tries to show a public façade that everything is fine at home with Gitl. But can their marriage survive these differences, and if not, will Gitl be able to manage in this new land where she has few supports?—Huggo
Plot Keywords: immigration, jewish culture, tradition, marriage, identity, new york, 19th century ...
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