Hürriyet's The 100 Best Movies of Turkish Cinema

After losing one of his horses in an accident, an illiterate horse cab driver sets out into the desert in a quest for a mythical lost treasure.

A harsh portrait of Turkey, its people and its authorities, shown through the stories of five prisoners given a week's home leave, and the problems they encounter in adjusting to the world outside.

A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes.

An ingenuous countryman Ali Nazik migrates to Istanbul and meets producer Mr. Muhsin to have his first album.

On the Princes’ Islands to the south of Istanbul, the days are rainy and full of longing. Poor but proud painter Halil gets a job in one of the island’s villas, where he encounters the photograph of a beautiful woman and falls in love with her image.

A scheming tobacco farmer sets out to ruin his competition by diverting the local water to his own property.

İlyas, a truck driver from Istanbul, arrives in a remote village to work on a dam construction project and meets a young village woman named Asya. They fall madly in love and get married. However, their life together is fraught with conflict. When İlyas cheats on Asya, the final straw in their relationship, she takes her son and begins wandering...

Because of a local blood feud, a peasant family decides to sell its sheep - a most precious commodity - in far away Ankara. During their long train ride, bribes must be paid to petty officials, sheep are stolen or die in the packed, airless wagons, and the sick wife of one of the family's sons becomes deathly ill.

Halil the greengrocer goes to a nightclub with his friends one day to break the monotony of his life. There he meets Sabiha, one of the women working at the club. They fall in love at first sight and begin living together. While Sabiha is making plans for the future with Halil, she learns a truth about him that she didn't know, and the forbidden...

Yusuf is released from prison after serving a ten year sentence. Because of unexpected problems at his sister’s house, he finds himself in a cheap hotel where he meets a man, a woman, and a child who will change his life in unexpected ways…

Zebercet is an obsessive man living a monotonous life in a hotel with few customers. This monotonous life changes with the arrival of a woman who does not even give her name. She stays only one night in the room she has rented and leaves the hotel to come back a week later.

The struggles of a migrant Anatolian family to adapt to and survive in the very different conditions of urban Istanbul. A young woman moves with her husband and small child to her husband's family in Istanbul. Her son becomes ill and the doctor tells her that he will soon die if he doesn't get an operation. The family refuses to help her because...

A family migrates to Istanbul from the rural parts of Anatolia, and they bring their traditions with them. The men of the family are giving away the girls of the family in return for a hefty bride-price. Zelha, one of the girls, revolts against this attitude and tries to save her sisters.

Hacer recently joined a factory where Hasan works and brings hope to her life. The two get married. Hacer is worried about the working conditions in the factory; she has a relationship with Hasan after she establishes a relationship with the union. Because of their disagreements, they are driven towards disaster.

The film tells the story of a group of bandits captured in the Cudi Mountains 35 years ago. All of them have died, either from illness or vendettas; only Baran (Şener Şen) survives. After serving his 35-year sentence, Baran is released from Viranşehir Prison and learns that his birthplace is now submerged under the waters of a dam. Ceren Ana (Zü...

Aydin, a retired actor, owns a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal and his sister Necla, who is coping with her recent divorce. During the winter, snow covers the ground and boredom brings the return of old memories, pushing Aydin to flee…

Uzak/Distant chronicles the numbing loneliness, longing, and isolation in the lives of two men who are consumed by their own problems. Istanbul photographer Mahmut reluctantly receives his relative Yusuf, but the mingling of their lives does little to alleviate their detachment.

The landowner (Agha) of the Haraptar village marries off his old father with the young and beautiful Kiraz. But on the nuptial night, his father dies and everything starts to go bad for the Agha. Due to the long drought and provocations of Kekec Salman (big brother of Kiraz), the peasants steal the crops and run away to Istanbul. Without the pea...

Bekir loves Uğur, who loves Zagor, who is about to get out of jail. An already tense love triangle is thrown into turmoil on a hot summer night, when Zagor kills someone, and Uğur disappears.

Tahir Agha sells all his assets when his business in Maraş deteriorates. He immigrates to Istanbul with his wife Hatice, sons Selim, Murat, Kemal and daughter Fatoş, where he sets his mind to open a repair shop. But in the metropolis, things don't go as planned.

Mahsun Supertitiz is an unemployed homeless man who steals cars at night so that he can sleep in a heated place during the winter. Mahsun lives in Rumelihisar, an old section of Istanbul, and makes ends meet by getting the local fishermen to help him. Mahsun loves the cars he robs, cleans and polishes them, and drives them through the streets of...

A group of illegal immigrants are brought to Stockholm in a bus by a smuggler who takes all their money and passports, and then runs away.

A group of affluent private school slackers enjoy a prankster lifestyle until a tough new disciplinarian headmaster arrives.

Fatma is kidnapped several times by a wild man because she cannot be persuaded to marry. A third attempt at forced submission ends tragically for both, due to the young girl's fatal rebellion.

The lovely Ayşe moves from her country village to Istanbul in the hope of becoming an actress. One day she meets Haşmet, a grumpy, world-weary street photographer. He takes it upon himself to cure Ayşe of what he sees as her blind optimism, but some of it begins to rub off on the old cynic.

A left-wing journalist whose wife died while giving birth to his son during a military coup returns to his family's farm. Estranged from his father for turning his back on the family and wasting his life with political activism instead, he tries to reconnect with him so that his son will have a place to live as his health is deteriorating due to...

Kosmos is a thief and a miracle-worker. He appears one morning in a tiny, snowbound border village where he is welcomed with open arms – on account of arriving just in time to resuscitate a small boy who would otherwise have drowned.

An urban Turkish teacher is transferred for political reasons to a backward Kurdish village in the mountains near the Iranian border. He is welcomed with distrust, but during that harsh year the mutual cultural misunderstandings fade away.

Produced, written and directed by Yılmaz Güney within his own personal experiences of capital offense, he dedicates Duvar to male teenagers aged 13 to 19 living behind the bars under diabolical treatments. These teenagers get barbaric corporal punishments, injurious harrows, tortures and sexual abuses just for taking the responsibility of their ...

Two poor men try to find a television as a last wish for the terminally ill brother of one of them.

Serap is a successful theater actress. Although she rejects the traditional roles assigned to women in her personal life, she agrees to play the role of a traditional housewife in a shampoo commercial. However, she is unaware that this commercial will turn into her worst nightmare.

A middle class young man rebels against his father’s brutish authority and seeks a rough romance with a woman of ethnic minority. Yuce’s moral tale draws from the example of today’s Turkish youth and the timeless shadow of fathers over sons.

Hayat, her father and bedridden grandfather live in a riverside shack near the dangerously dark but breathtakingly beautiful waters of the Bosphorus. Hayat's father owns a small boat that secures the family's survival through a miscellany of not always lawful ventures. Beyond the motion and romance of the water, Hayat's life is harsh and unrelen...

Sailors want to remain in their small world, which is warm and cozy and full of lies, but their routine life turns upside down when one of them gets mugged and badly beaten.

Three men live in an abandoned building and try to eke out a living by pooling their meagre resources. They come upon a lonely blind girl one night, befriend her, and take her in as their guest, pretending they are rich. They learn that 800 lira will cure her blindness. One of the three decides to get the money by any means necessary, because he...

The tragic story of three farm worker who migrates from their village to the cotton land Çukurova.

Arrested while a student in university, Yusuf is released from prison after ten years. He returns home and is welcomed by his sick and elderly mother. Soon he will meet Eka, a beautiful Georgian girl who is a sex worker, and love becomes a final desperate attempt to grasp life and elude loneliness.

In a small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, the villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living off the earth and a few animals they feed. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, the son of the imam, wishes hopelessly for ...

In the mansion of a rich family living in Istanbul, a very valuable necklace is stolen. Suspecting that the thief is someone from inside the house, the owners start to approach the people working in the house with class differences and prejudices. The thieves realize that the necklace is fake.

In an unnamed small town in Anatolia, whose inhabitants possess various supernatural powers but still have to deal with ordinary problems, Cemal helps out in his father’s barbershop and, in his free time, acts as a football referee.

In this rural revenge drama, Güney plays Seyyit Han, a poor man in love with a woman from his Anatolian village who returns his affection. Seyyit Han postpones their marriage so that he can make his fortune elsewhere and return to the village to claim his "bride of the earth." During his prolonged absence, a rich landowner begins to woo the lone...

Car mechanic Nazım Usta marries the woman he loves, Ayten. Ayten's sister Nezahat also has feelings for Nazım. Nezahat's plans mark the beginning of a crime story that will lead all three of them to ruin.

Humble and introvert Muharrem lives in a solitary and meager existence of a prayer and sexual abstinence adhering strictly to the most severe Islamic doctrines.His extraordinary devotion attracts the attention of the leader of a rich and powerful Istanbul religious group and he offers him an administrative post as a rent collector for their nume...

The film follows the life of a poor, old woman defying the hierarchy in the village. Irazca is an old woman who lives with her son Kara Bayram, her daughter-in-law Hatice, and three grandchildren. The headman of the village sells a lot from the common land of the village to Haceli. The family does not want a house to be built in front of their h...

The story takes place in the small town of Hakkari in Turkey at the beginning of the '70s. The time has come to bring technology to that small town. The first Television (called Visiontele by the citizens) arrives and the chaos begins.

An aspiring filmmaker visits his parents and begins to devise a movie. Amidst creating and casting for the film, he encounters with family & friends who struggle with their own problems, dreams and life.

When the crew of a bankrupt cargo ship gets stuck on board for months, isolation breeds pressures that sink the men into a sea of madness and terror.

Sent to prison along with his mother after her drug conviction, a young boy develops a warm, tender relationship with a political prisoner.

Selamsiz (wich means 'no greeting') is a small town in Anatolia. The town has a lot of problems but noone from governments come and see the town. One day the mayor learns that the prime minister will come to the city. They, now, have a chance to solve their problems. However, they think that they should have a band to greet the prime minister.

Saban, Ramazan and Bayram are sailors in an Ottoman Navy and Hüsamettin is their commander. Hüsamettin's aide Ramazan, Saban who is foster son of Hüsamettin's sister and Bayram who is married to Hüsamettin's niece stays at Hüsamettin's family residence. Hüsamettin's sister thinks Ramazan is her foster son Saban when she realizes her mistake she ...