• Mami Wata: dir CJ Obasi (2023)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Much-awarded black-and-white fantasy thriller, based on Nigerian folklore. Said the LA Times: "That balance between light and dark is how Obasi most potently underscores all his themes: faith and proof, tradition versus modernity, the otherworldly alongside the human, and of [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Une affaire d’honneur | The Edge of the Blade: dir Vincent Perez (2023)

    Alliance Française Dubai Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    The fourth film from veteran actor Vincent Perez is set in 1887 Paris, when illegal duals were common practice. The drama follows the blood feud that slowly develops between fencing master Clément Lacaze (Roschdy Zem), desperate to dissuade his nephew [ ... ]

    AED 35
  • This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection: dir Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (2019)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Much-awarded poetic and emotional feature from Lesotho, a vivid, beautifully crafted reflection on identity, community and the tension between respecting age-old traditions and accepting the seemingly unstoppable march of progress. When her village is threatened with forced resettlement due to [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Flow: dir Gints Zilbalodis (2024)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    An absolutely stunning low-budget (and largely handmade) antidote to Disneyification – a wordless animated fable about a cat reluctantly making friends with a dog, a ring-tailed lemur, a capybara and a secretary bird in a post-apocalyptic world. There's a message, [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Mountain Boy: dir Zainab Sheheen (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Feel-good family feature film based on Michele Ziolkowski's award-winning children’s book The Boy Who Knew the Mountains. Suhail, a lad with autism, flees to the mountains when his father shuns him. With his new friend Barakah, an Arabian Saluki, Suhail makes [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Dangerous Gentlemen: dir Maciej Kawalski (2022)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Crime comedy featuring four distinguished figures from Polish culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – novelist Joseph Conrad, translator Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski and painter and writer Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. Their hangovers headaches are killing [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Bigman: dir Camiel Schouwenaar (2022)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Much-awarded family movie that follows friends Dylan and Youssef, who are connected by their passion for football. But then Dylan is paralysed following an accident: his dad and former coach wants him to accept his disability, but though Dylan has [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Carmen: dir Valerie Buhagiar (2021)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Inspired in part by the real experiences of the director's own aunt, this drama stars Natascha McElhone as Carmen, a Maltese spinster who has spent her adult life serving as a caretaker for her brother, a Catholic priest; as she [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Two to One: dir Natja Brunckhorst (2024)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    A heist comedy set in East Germany and based in part on a true story. It's the final hot summer before reunification in 1990; free-spirited Maren, her partner Robert and friend Volker happen upon millions of soon-to-be-worthless East German banknotes [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Living Large: dir Kristina Dufková (2024)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Family-friendly animation about a 12-year-old boy who faces bullying because of his weight. He decides to take charge of his life by adopting a healthier lifestyle and wining the heart of the girl he admires. Through his journey, he learns [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Mond: dir Kurdwin Ayub (2024)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    A former martial artist hired to train three wealthy Jordanian sisters finds her dream job become something else, something unsettling: the isolated young women are under constant surveillance and show no interest in the sport. Why was she really hired? [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • The Musicians: dir Grégory Magne (2024)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Comedy-drama about a unique concert – Astrid (Valérie Donzelli) attempts to realise a family dream by bringing together four violin virtuosos. Rehearsals quickly turn into a disaster because of the conflict of egos, so Astrid calls on a retired composer [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Io Sto Bene: dir Donato Rotunno (2020)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Writer-director Rotunno blends past and present in this understated melodrama. Antonio is an Italian who emigrated ti Luxembourg to find work. Now widowed, he is preparing to move out of his comfortable apartment to a care home. A chance encounter [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • The Trap: dir Nadejda Koseva (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Bojeka is an eccentric man with a strong sense of his own dignity, who lives in solitude on the banks of the Danube in harmony with nature and a collection of animals. Then the local bigwigs want to create a [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Touki Bouki: dir Djibril Diop Mambéty (1973)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Mory, a sometime cattle herder, and his grilfriend Anta, a university student, yearn to leave their boring, circumscribed world and find prosperity and stability in France. The late Djibril Diop Mambéty was a true Senegalese auteur, an actor, orator, composer [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Remember to Blink: dir Austėja Urbaitė (2021)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    A French couple have adopted two children from Lithuania; they enlist the help of Gabriele, a young Lithuanian student, to serve as an interpreter and nanny. When the children arrive, the idyllic façade of the new family arrangement buckles under [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Tarrac: dir Declan Recks (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Arriving back in Kerry after her father has had a heart attack, Aoife (Kelly Gough) initially has some trouble shaking off her urban pretensions and reconnecting with old pals. But she finds herself recruited into the local sea-rowing team; they [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Four Souls of Coyote: dir Áron Gauder (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Animated adventure drama about Native American protesters confronting the crew of an oil pipeline project that is located near their ancestral lands. The grandfather shares an ancient tale of their Creation myth, a story filled with adventures featuring animals, magic, [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • UFO Sweden: dir Victor Danell (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Stranger Things meets X-Files – young Swedish teen rebel Denise is placed in foster care after her dad goes missing. She believes her father was kidnapped by UFOs, and she gets in touch with the quirky local skywatchers association, UFO [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Ramona: dir Andrea Bagney (2022)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Andrea Bagney’s debut feature, largely shot in black and white in a stylistic nod to the French New Wave of the 1960s, is a romantic comedy with a difference. After living abroad for several years, Ramona and her boyfriend Nico [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Horia: dir Ana Maria Comanescu (2023)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Restless teen Horia takes off on his father’s old motorbike on a cross-country journey to reunite with his girlfriend. On the road, he is joined by Stela, a sassy 13-year-old, and an unlikely friendship blooms. The film’s atmosphere is colourful, [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Riders: dir Dominik Mencej (2022)

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    Two friends from a small village rework their mopeds into choppers and embark on a journey – travelling through dreams of the past and visions of the future, looking for freedom and love. On the road through Slovenia and Croatia, [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Al Mahatta: dir Eltayeb Mahdi (1989)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Sudan, late 1980s. People cross the desert on foot or cover long distances by car and truck. In Al Mahatta, Eltayeb Mahdi shows encounters at one of the large crossroads between Khartoum in the centre of the country and Bur [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Summer Cinema: In Memory of David Lynch

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Jameel’s Summer Cinema, organised in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club and curated by Hind Mezaina, ia a season of free-to-attend films about cities, archives, and the ways we live and remember together – plus this special evening celebrating the [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Shades of Yellow: dir Sergio Pontier (2024)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Sergio Pontier reshapes the portrayal of black childhood, reflecting on the innocence of his youth and how it defined him; voyaging into mundane moments from his childhood, made nostalgic and meaningful on reflection, the Afro-Dominican-Spanish photographer and filmmaker has created [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Summer Cinema: Rematerialising the Archive

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Jameel’s Summer Cinema, organised in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club and curated by Hind Mezaina, is a season of free-to-attend films about cities, archives, and the ways we live and remember together. Audiences are encouraged to engage in "collective [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • I Am Cuba: dir Mikhail Kalatozov (1964)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    A landmark in radical political cinema and one of the most visually ravishing films ever made, this legendary hymn to revolution was the product of an ambitious collaboration between the Soviet and Cuban film industries, I Am Cuba unfolds in [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Summer Cinema: Home, Longing and Solitude

    Jameel Arts Centre Al Jaddaf, Dubai

    Jameel’s Summer Cinema, organised in collaboration with The Culturist Film Club and curated by Hind Mezaina, ia a season of free-to-attend films about cities, archives, and the ways we live and remember together. The four short films this evening explore ideas [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Hester Street: dir Joan Micklin Silver (1975)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Carol Kane is extraordinary as a Jewish immigrant arriving in late 19th-century New York with her young son Yossele (Paul Freedman) to join a husband (Steven Keach) who she hasn’t seen in three years. He's embraced the new world and [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: dir Richard Fleischer (1954)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Another of Cinema Space’s free-to-view classics, this one a restored version of the Oscar-winning Jules Verne story: Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre are shipwrecked, taken captive by the mysterious Captain Nemo (James Mason) on his submarine Nautilus. Wavering [ ... ]

    Free
  • Sorry We Missed You: dir Ken Loach (2019)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Characteristically powerful social drama of the British working class from Ken Loach. This wrenching, intimate family drama exposes the dark side of the so-called 'gig economy; an unrelenting work schedule, a ruthless supervisor and the needs of their two teenage [ ... ]

    Free
  • Sharjah International Film Festival for Children & Youth (SIFF)

    Vox Cinema, City Center Al Zahia University Road, Al Zahia, Sharjah

    The 12th Edition of SIFF takes place 6 to 11 October at VOX Cinemas in City Centre Al Zahia with what looks like a strong lineup – 76 films (chosen from 1,740 submissions!) representing 26 countries. South Korea is participating [ ... ]

    tbc
  • La Llorona: dir Jayro Bustamante (2019)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Guatemalan auteur Jayro Bustamante’s transfixing fusion of folklore, magical realism and searing political commentary was inspired by the real-life indictment of the authoritarian Efraín Ríos Montt for crimes against humanity. A notorious, indignant, ageing former military dictator, Enrique stands trial [ ... ]

    Free
  • Psycho: dir Alfred Hitchcock (1960)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    It doesn't get much better than the original if you want a psychological thriller dripping with suspense. Janet Leigh stars as Phoenix secretary Marion Crane, absconding with a small fortune of her employer’s money; she takes a wrong turn in [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Les Choristes: dir Christophe Barratier (2004)

    Germaine Tillion Garden, SUAD Campus Abu Dhabi

    This French-language musical drama has a famed French conductor performing in the United States returning to his home in France for his mother's funeral. An old friend calls round with a diary that belonged to their old teacher; reading it [ ... ]

    Free
  • Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: dir Charles Barton (1948)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Gratifyingly, this does exactly what it says on the tin (or rather, in the title): the world of railroad baggage handlers Chick Young (Bud Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Lou Costello) is turned upside down when they receive a strange shipment [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Mummy: dir Stephen Sommers (1999)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Action-packed tongue-firmly-in-cheek adventure. Deep in the Egyptian desert, a band of explorers searching for long-lost treasure have accidentally unearthed and resurrected a 3,000-year-old Egyptian priest. Adventurer Rick O' Connell (Brendan Fraser) pairs up with librarian (?) Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • The Teachers’ Lounge: dir İlker Çatak (2023)

    Manarat al Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is an idealistic new high-school teacher. She seems to have connected with her Year 8 students, who are engaged and eager to learn in her maths class. But something is bubbling underneath the surface, and she’s [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • Happy Holidays: dir Scandar Copti (2024)

    The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Studying away from home has given Fifi (Manar Shehab) a new sense of autonomy, but waking up in a hospital room after minor car accident in Jerusalem and surrounded by her family she will have to decide how much of her [ ... ]

    AED 30
  • The Wanted 18: dir Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan (2014)

    Maraya Art Centre Al Qasba, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    As part of its current SILA: All That Is Left To You exhibition, Maraya Art Centre is hosting two film screenings that extend the exhibition's exploration of Palestinian memory, resistance, and cultural legacy. The Wanted 18 is a film about [ ... ]

    Free
  • SCHLiNGEL Abu Dhabi: day one

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    After a successful debut in 2024, SCHLiNGEL returns to Abu Dhabi. It's an international film festival for children that has been running since 1996 in Chemnitz, Germany, showcasing the most exciting new productions for young people. The Abu Dhabi edition [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • SCHLiNGEL Abu Dhabi: day two

    Cultural Foundation Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Street, Abu Dhabi

    SCHLiNGEL Abu Dhabi's return continues with a full day of films for the young, taken from the international film festival for children that has been running since 1996 in Germany. All films with dialogue have English subtitles. There are three [ ... ]

    AED 25
  • Stitching Palestine: dir Carol Mansour (2017)

    Maraya Art Centre Al Qasba, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    As part of its current SILA: All That Is Left To You exhibition, Maraya Art Centre is hosting two film screenings that extend the exhibition's exploration of Palestinian memory, resistance, and cultural legacy. Carol Mansour's documentary features 12 Palestinian women [ ... ]

    Free
  • Bedouins of the Wind: dir Danish Farhan (2024)

    Etihad Museum 1 Jumeirah St, Dubai

    This 49-minute documentary, shot on location in Al Dhaid, provides an intimate portrait of the world of Bedouin culture – camel racing, falconry, the unseen life rooted in the desert. The protagonist Abdulaziz Al Tunaiji trains camels for the nation’s [ ... ]

    Free
  • Cineolio’s Cinenights

    The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Founded by filmmaker and curator Nawaf Al Janahi in 2020, Cineolio‘s mission is focused on promoting short films and expanding their audience reach internationally. Its Cinenights screening series presents a diverse selection of short films on the big screen, celebrating [ ... ]

    AED 30
  • Le royaume | The Kingdom: dir Julien Colonna (2024)

    Alliance Française Dubai Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Colonna's debut features brings an interesting angle to the mafia movie: Le royaume shows the Corsican underworld through the eyes of the 15-year-old daughter of a clan head. Caught up in a war between rival factions and on the run, [ ... ]

    AED 35
  • The Wind Will Carry Us: dir Abbas Kiarostami (1999)

    Efiɛ Gallery 2 Al Khayat Art Avenue, First Al Khail Street, Dubai

    Kiarostami wrote and directed this deceptively simple but highly affecting film about a journalist posing as a city engineer who arrives in a Kurdish village to document the locals' mourning rituals in anticipation of the death of an old woman. [ ... ]

    Free, but pre-register
  • My Driver and I: dir Ahd Kamel (2024)

    The Arts Center @ NYUAD NYUAD Campus, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    The last in NYUAD Arts Center's fall film season, a series which explores history, identity, and belonging through Arab and international cinema, while offering audiences the chance to engage directly with filmmakers is inspired by the childhood of Saudi writer-director-producer [ ... ]

    AED 30
  • Sharjah Film Platform 8

    [various Sharjah locations]

    Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual celebration of indie/experimental cinema returns for its eighth edition from 14 to 23 November 2025 with an expanded lineup of films, talks and artist development programmes. Screenings and events will take place at Mirage City Cinema, [ ... ]

    Per screening: AED 15