Top Actors

Initially I set a minimum hurdle of three films from the list in order to add actors here, not caring about whether they were leading roles or cameos. Eventually it became clear that I would have to review that policy as some performances simply deserve so much recognition. This is of course especially true for the incredibly brave Iranian actors who have taken part in the openly dissenting films made by Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof. There’s no way that I can’t acknowledge some of them here. If I can find decent pictures of them, and decent links to biographical material, I’ll add them. Since the project started out with me watching primarily Israeli and Palestinian films, with some other Arab input, the list was initially dominated by actors from those domains, but of course since I added a ton of Turkish and Iranian films that’s changed substantially.

It’s in the nature of things, as discussed in this early post, that Palestinian actors constitute a relatively small pool, and that is the reason why the top end of the list is dominated by them. The same actors tend to turn up again and again, sometimes as the Arab characters (in major or “token” roles) in Israeli films, as well as in the relatively small number of Palestinian films which manage to get made in the face of all the obvious difficulties. Quite remarkably, one of the Palestinian actors, Yussuf Abu Warda (the father of Layla in Habibi) plays a Haredi rabbi in Amos Gitai’s Kadosh. That’s some kind of range!

For the first year or so, Saleh Bakri had the honour of being classified as the most prolific Arab/Palestinian actor and most prolific overall. That’s him on the left of the picture, appearing in The Band’s Visit, alongside two others on this list, Ronit Elkabetz and Sasson Gabai. Over time, however, Ali Suliman (also Palestinian) crept up on Bakri, and finally overtook Bakri for overall leader of this list, for what little that title is worth. Still, if you add Saleh Bakri to his father Mohammad - also on the list - plus his two brothers, who are also actors and one of whom appears in at least one film on this list, the Bakri family wins the rather meaningless competition hands down.

Lior Ashkenazi is the most prolific Israeli-Jewish actor on the list. I’m clarifying that distinction, because like all the other Palestinian actors on the list (I think), Bakri and Suliman are also Israeli citizens. The last I checked, anyway - times are crazy, and things can change, I suppose.

There are currently 83 actors listed here - 13 Palestinians, 5 actors from elsewhere in the Arab World (mostly Lebanon), 17 Israelis, 19 Iranians, and 27 (!!!) Turks (some of whom, I suppose, might be more Kurdish than Turkish, which is COMPLICATED). At present the number of actors that I've got recorded as unambiguously Kurdish comes to precisely..... 1, but of course there will be many more people who would identify. All those numbers will keep going up. Expect more faces in due course!