Paradise Now(2005)
dir. Hany Abu-Assad
Two friends, one day, and an argument inside them.
Where to watch: Rent $3.99 / buy $9.99 on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango At Home per JustWatch US (checked Aug 22 2026); no subscription or free option found.Letterboxd ↗
Two childhood friends in Nablus are recruited as suicide bombers and given a day to say goodbye. The film follows them across the checkpoint and through the argument they have with each other, with a woman who objects to the plan, and with themselves. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and drew protests, including a call to withdraw the nomination.
Why it’s here
The film refuses to treat the bombers as monsters or as heroes, and it makes a viewer sit in the argument. What's punk is the willingness to take the most hated subject and still make it human without making it right. What's pedagogical is the question it leaves open about what an occupation does to a person, which is a thing a student can talk about for hours. Ties to the Palestine bundle. Pairs with No Other Land (suggested 10-28), Mornings in Jenin and 5 Broken Cameras. Note: it is contested, some viewers read it as sympathetic to violence and others as an argument against it; both are worth hearing.
Where This Film Lives
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Pax
Sara Pennypacker
A boy, a fox, and a war neither started.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Eleanor Coerr
A girl folds paper cranes after Hiroshima.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Amina's Voice
Hena Khan
A shy girl sings out after her mosque is attacked.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott
Write the terrible first draft. One bird at a time.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
Linda Tuhiwai Smith
Research was a colonial tool. Here is the audit.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Hannah Arendt
The banality of evil, reported from the courtroom.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Hello, Universe
Erin Entrada Kelly
Four kids, one bad day, one rescue.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
Caroline Elkins
Britain's Kenyan detention camps, from the archives.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST