A list of the best Greek films

Greek film industry has a rich history and has produced many remarkable films over the years. Here are some of the best Greek films that have gained critical acclaim and international recognition.

With the new technology that has been been provided in youtube and other portals,I have made a nice collection of good old Greek films that made many of us to laugh in the past.

But even today no matter how many times we see them repeating in the Greek Television or collecting them every weekend from newspapers and magazines those movies will stay the Greek classics of the Greek silver screen.
Read more at the article about the Greek Cinema.

Top ten best Greek films

Z by Costas Gavras 

“Z” (1969) – Directed by Costa-Gavras, this political thriller is based on the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos. It explores the assassination of a prominent leftist politician and the subsequent investigation into the crime.

Story of the film

The investigator looking into the case (Jean-Louis Trentignan) with the help of a photojournalist (Jacques Perrin) discover that the murder was committed by two men and find evidence that incriminates four members of the gendarmerie. However, the government tries to cover up the case, takes the file from the coroner, who seemed determined to call the congressman’s death a murder, and eyewitnesses disappear or are killed under unclear and suspicious circumstances.

The culprits are sentenced to relatively light sentences for their crime. Gendarmerie officers receive mostly administrative punishments, close associates of Grigoris Lambrakis are deported or die, and the photojournalist is imprisoned on the charge of disclosing classified information.

Before the end credits start rolling, Gavras shows a list of what the junta that was imposed in Greece a few years after Lambrakis’ death forbids. Among them are peace movements, strikes, the formation of labor unions, long hair on men, the music of the Beatles, Leo Tolstoy, Ionesco, Jean Paul Sartre, the free press, but also the letter “Zeta” which reminds of Lambrakis.

Thiasos  by Theodoros Angelopoulos

“The Travelling Players” ( O Thiasos 1975) – Directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos, this epic film spans several decades of Greek history and explores the lives of a group of itinerant actors.

Story of the film

Filmed during the dictatorship, the film has been included in the hundred best creations of world cinema
The viewer, in about four hours, watches, on the one hand, the last period of the Metaxas dictatorship, the start of the war, the Italian invasion, the German occupation, the Liberation, the arrival of the allies (English at first and Americans afterwards ), the bloody civil war, until the 1952 elections where the forces of the Right dominate. And not only. Through a solitary narration, frontal to the camera, on the train, the defeat at Sangarios, the destruction of Smyrna, the defining year 1922 is described. The chronological construction of the film, complicated, is built with constant temporal maneuvers and constant changes of eras.

At the same time, the adventures of the troupe’s family unfold, Orestes, his sister, his father, his mother and her lover, who rewrite the Atreides myth. The father is executed by the Germans, after the traitorous denunciation of the mother’s lover, and Orestes, a left-wing rebel, with the cooperation of his sister, will kill his mother and her lover on stage, so that his own execution will come. with the purges that followed the general repression of the guerrilla during the Civil War.

“The functionality of Golfos is multiple”, according to the creator. “The text is permanently violated, never finished, and always interrupted by the intrusion of the historical scene.”

The Troupe, this long-winded historical mural, embodies Brecht and the epic element. “It’s a ballad about people who were killed and who weren’t. Praising the revolution does not mean that you always praise the victory,” notes Angelopoulos.

Stella  by Michael Cacoyannis

“Stella” (1955) – Directed by Michael Cacoyannis, this classic Greek film tells the story of a young woman named Stella who struggles to find independence and happiness in a society bound by tradition.

Story of the film

The protagonist of the film is Stella (Melina Merkouri), a popular singer in the folk shop “O Paradisos”. Explosive character who lives and falls in love, beyond the stereotypes of her time.

When she meets Miltos (Giorgos Fountas), an Olympiacos football player who draws her like a magnet, she breaks off her bond with Alekos (Alekos Alexandrakis), a young scion of a rich family, who was reacting to their relationship.

Miltos wants to make her his wife and she accepts, but regrets it almost immediately. A proud woman who doesn’t care about social conventions, on their wedding day she sets him up in the church and spends the night with Antonis (Kostas Kakkavas), a young man she met on the street.

At dawn, returning home, she confronts Milto and meets death by his knife.

Kakogiannis combines Italian neorealism with elements of ancient tragedy and melodrama. The interpretation of Melina Merkouris is shocking in the role of the woman who wants to live free and independent and was her passport for the international career that followed.

The Beekeeper by Theodoros Angelopoulos,

“The Beekeeper” (1986) – Directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos, this introspective film follows a retired schoolteacher who becomes a beekeeper and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

Story of the film

Spyros (Marcello Mastroianni), a teacher for many years in the countryside, leaves his home on the day of his daughter’s wedding. It begins the descent towards the south with its hives, following the “road of flowers”. Along the way, he meets a new woman (Nadia Mourouzi). Their meetings are sequential, as if they follow each other or simply as if they have to live this journey together.

The opening sequence of the film has the weight and emotional charge of the festive scenes, which the viewer encounters in the entire filmography of Theodoros Angelopoulos. A bitter farewell scene with a grand sense of framing and fearless camera movements capturing the space where the drama takes place. The lonely tree at the edge of the stream and Mastroianni with his imposing presence and mysterious melancholy are placed in the introduction of the film and contain its spirit. From that moment on, Spyros will be a lonely tree, with no access to it. Nor will there be that little bridge which does not protect its passerby at any point.

Spyros’ journey begins. The narrator cites excerpts from the protagonist’s diary, often stepping over the dialogue part of the film. A dark film, as in most of the scenes the plot is located at night, when the light sources that cast their faint flicker on the simple scenery, seem to darken the space more. The Greece of Angelopoulos has darkness, silence, isolation. What an embarrassment dark, rainy, icy Greece must cause to those who have a distant relationship with this country advertised for its sun, calm waters, blue skies and happy faces.

Eternity and a day by Theodoros Angelopoulos

“Eternity and a Day” (1998) – Directed by Theodoros Angelopoulos, this poetic and meditative film follows a terminally ill writer who reflects on his life and experiences as he embarks on a final journey.

Summary

Alexander (Bruno Ganz), is a half-time writer, dealing with Solomon’s unfinished work, Free Besiegers. Words are missing from the poem, and Alexander tries to collect them, to buy them, just as Solomon did for his own words. But they are the words that enter the puzzle of completing the unfinished masterpiece, to haunt Alexander’s life as well.

But his strength is exhausted and he himself is marching towards death. The time he has left belongs to the memories, to the account of a life full of missed opportunities and wrong moves. A chance meeting with a homeless boy, child of the streetlights, (Achilleas Skevis) will give him a new impetus. He clings to this child, postpones his “departure,” and prolongs eternity by one day, in order to impart to his little friend something of his knowledge. So that he leaves his traces on someone, through whose gaze the one who leaves will be saved.

In this particular film, Thodoros Angelopoulos uses two basic tools to present the story to us, poetry and time. Characteristic tools of Angelopoulos’ films. Poetry comes in many forms. Initially, it appears through the person of Dionysios Solomos, which is a point of reference for the work of the film’s central character.

However, it also appears in ordinary speech, mainly to express farewell and memory. The scene where the little boys, who clean the windows of the cars and are constantly being exploited, say goodbye with emotion to their friend who was killed, is typical, the poetry is found through the words of the boys. It is also found in the letters of Anna, Alexander’s wife, who has died and through her letters, travels to the past. Poetry is found, even in the scene where Alexander bids farewell to his mother, parting and memory are concentrated.

Dogtooth by Yorgos Lanthimos

“Dogtooth” (2009) – Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this unconventional and provocative film tells the story of a family living in isolation, where the parents control their adult children’s lives through a series of bizarre rules.

Story of the film

The father, mother and their three children live in a detached house outside the city. There is a high fence around the house. The children have never left home. They are educated, entertained, bored and exercised as their parents think they should, without any external stimulus. The children also think that the planes flying over the house are toys and that the zombies are little yellow flowers. The only person who enters the house is Christina, who works as a security guard at the father’s factory.

The father arranges her visits to the house in order to appease the son’s sexual urges. The whole family, especially the eldest daughter, adores Christina. One day Christina gives the eldest daughter a hair stick as a gift, asking her for something else in return.

If the family is our first introduction to the structure of power, then the “power” in George Lanthimos’ film “Fang” undoubtedly has a strong dose of twisted imagination. In the family that resides behind the high fences of an isolated house, the parents define reality on their own terms, keeping their three children stuck in an era and an emotional age that seems murky and undefined.

Miss Violence by Alexandros Avranas

“Miss Violence” (2013) – Directed by Alexandros Avranas, this disturbing drama delves into the dark secrets of a seemingly ordinary family and explores themes of abuse, control, and manipulation.

Story of the film

Violent but at the same time realistic, the award-winning film by Alexandros Avranas, “Miss Violence”, is a film that haunts the viewer and follows him even after viewing it, as it transports him to a cinematic universe that is cruel, but unfortunately real. It is shown today on ERT and is our television offer.

The plot of the film revolves around an 11-year-old girl, Angeliki, who jumps from the balcony on her birthday. The police are trying to find out the cause of the suicide, while her family insists that it was an accident.

The family tries to “forget” the incident and move on with their lives. While those in charge of social services will be asked to provide answers. When Angeliki’s little brother accidentally reveals some information, the family will be confronted with its dark secrets.

Attenberg  by Athina Rachel

“Attenberg” (2010) – Directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari, this offbeat coming-of-age film follows a young woman as she navigates relationships, sexuality, and her own identity while living in a small Greek town.

Story of the film

Marina grows up with her architect father in a small seaside town. The human species repels her. She observes it from a distance, through the lyrics of Alan Vega, documentaries on the life of Sir David Attenborough’s mammals and the lessons of sex education given to her by her only friend, Bella. A stranger arrives in town and challenges her to a foosball duel, while her father ritually prepares his departure from the 20th century. Marina, between the two men, with the cooperation of Bella, discovers the wonderful mystery of the fauna.

Marina takes sex education lessons from her friend Bella, while obsessively watching the lives of the mammals from said documentaries, observing their habits and behavior. From them she borrows her own attitude towards life, a cold, almost autistic attitude towards people and things.

The father, the main architect of the village and embittered by the turn of his life, confesses in one of his distinctly final conversations that he was absent from Marina’s upbringing – he abandoned her for a vision that did not turn out as he expected

Politiki Kouzina by Tassos Boulmetis

“A Touch of Spice” (Politiki Kouzina) (2003) – Directed by Tassos Boulmetis, this heartwarming film is a nostalgic tale of a Greek-Turkish chef who reminisces about his childhood and his love for cooking.

Story of the film

The story of the film centers on the life of Fanis Iakovidis. From childhood to adolescence and from there to the charming age of the forty-year-old astrophysics professor, whose two childhood loves never faded: The first, the special personality of his grandfather who, with magical stories about spices and stars, bound him forever with the art of cooking.

The second, his childhood friend Sime who seduced him with the oriental motifs she danced, trying to thank him for the secrets of the civil cuisine he was teaching her. The impending visit of his grandfather, who has seen him since he was seven, signals a chain reaction of events that will take him on a journey. With him and us! A journey into the past and the dream with love, laughter and memories as co-passengers. A journey-search for oneself, first love, bittersweet reality. A journey with varied comments and delicious secrets.

Little England by Pantelis Voulgaris,

“Little England” (2013) – Directed by Pantelis Voulgaris, this period drama is set on the island of Andros in the 1930s and follows the lives of two sisters who face love, betrayal, and societal expectations.

Story of the film

A 20-year-old girl is madly in love with a lieutenant. He does not reveal the secret to anyone. Her younger sister, dynamic and full of dreams, wants to leave Andros, to escape the fate of the island’s women who marry sailors who are missing or drown at sea.

For their mother, a captain’s wife who prefers the Atlantic Shore to his home, love is trouble and pain. He marries them for self-interest. Unwittingly, she mines her own household.

Conclusion

These films showcase the diverse themes, styles, and talents present in Greek cinema and offer a glimpse into the rich cultural heritage of Greece.