[15] Two years after the Lumière Brothers publicly projected their first film in December 1895 (Paris, France), they began sending traveling representatives to tour different countries to show their movies.
[21] His first film, The Adventures of Elias Mabruk tells the story of a Lebanese emigrant who returns to Lebanon after a long absence in America in search of his family.
[31] During the post-independence period, Lebanon witnessed an economic boom that made its capital, Beirut, the financial center of the eastern Mediterranean.
[32] Lebanon's economic success, along with the presence of 38 banks and its open, multi-cultural and liberal society, made the country an alternative production choice to Egypt, which was at the time the center of filmmaking in the Arabic-speaking world.
[40] George Nasser's work has been more appreciated in recent years, and the filmmaker, who taught at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts has been showered with accolades, including at the Tripoli Film Festival, which was held in his honor in 2017.
After Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the film industry in Egypt in 1963, many private producers, distributors and directors, including Youssef Chahine, moved to Lebanon.
[58] Lebanon was producing "a string of sexually indulgent films" such as Cats of Hamra Street[59] and The Guitar of Love in 1973,[60] starring Georgina Rizk, the Lebanese beauty queen who won Miss Universe in 1971.
[66] Some of the filmmakers who emerged during this period were "Maroun Baghdadi, Jocelyne Saab, Borhane Alaouié, Heiny Srour, Randa Chahal Sabag" and Jean Chamoun.
[7] Many filmmakers from this era, such as Jocelyne Saab, Jean Chamoun, Randa Chahal Sabbag, and Maroun Baghdadi settled in France due to the prolonged conflict in Lebanon.
[78] Films such as The Last Passage (1981), The Decision (1981), and The Leap of Death (1982) were popular because they depicted a society free of war where law and order actually existed.
While filmmaking schools are a rarity in the region, by the mid-1990s, six of Beirut's universities were offering degrees in cinema and television and that attracted an influx of students from Arab countries who chose to receive some or all of their media training in Lebanon.
Funding of films remained reliant on European organizations, such as Fonds Sud Cinéma in France and Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
[98] Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige's The Perfect Day (2005) examined the social implications of political kidnappings that happened during the war.
[85] Ghassan Salhab's The Last Man (2006) represented the cultural memory of the war from the eyes of a vampire protagonist caught in limbo between life and death.
[104] According to research conducted by Fondation Liban Cinema, "The film industry in Lebanon has seen a significant growth over the last four years, with 31 movies produced in 2014, compared to just four a decade ago.
[105] Muriel Abourouss won the best director of photography award for Georges Hachem's Stray Bullet at the Festival international du film Francophone de Namur in Belgium.
[110] Carlos, which screened out of competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival won the 2010 Golden Globe award for the Best Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television.
[129] Thirteen feature and short films were premiered at DIFF in 2011, including Danielle Arbid's Beirut Hotel, Youcef Joe Bou Eid's Tannoura Maxi, Daniel Joseph's Taxi Ballad, Simon El Habre's Gate #5, Hady Zaccak's Marcedes, Rami Nihawi's Yamo, Christina Foerch Saab's Che Guevara Died in Lebanon, Tamara Stepanyan's 19 February, Wajdi Elian's A Place to Go, Rodrigue Sleiman and Tarek El Bacha's Nice to Meet You, Aseel Mansour's Uncle Nashaat, and Nadim Mishlawi's Sector Zero.
[132] 74, La reconstitution d'une lutte, a docu-fiction by Raed and Rania Rafei, recreates the student occupation of the American University in Beirut 1974.
[137] Ghassan Salhab reunited with actors Carlos Chahine and Carole Abboud in The Valley, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
[152] The documentary, Taste of Cement (2017) by Syrian filmmaker Ziad Kalthoum was filmed in Lebanon with Lebanese director of photography Talal Khoury.
[158] Nadine Labaki's Capernaum, which was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or, earned a 15-minute standing ovation following its premiere on 17 May 2018 at the Cannes Film Festival.
[161] Other films made were Michel Kammoun's Beirut Hold'em, Nadim Tabet's One of These Days, Rana Eid's documentary Panoptic and Joanna and Khalil Joreige's The Notebooks a co-production of Abbout Productions and France's Haut et Court.
[171] Lebanon entered the new decade grappling with a severe financial and banking crisis, and despite its media industry being a hub for regional production over the past 80 years, the collapse nearly wiped out the revenues sustaining much of the sector, prompting a new wave of Lebanese talent to seek opportunities abroad, particularly in Saudi Arabia where new initiatives were launched.
[179] Memory Box, written and directed by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, which had its worldwide premiere at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival in March 2021, competed for the Golden Bear and Eliane Raheb's Miguel's War screened in the Berlinale Panorama section where it was up for the audience award[180] and took second prize.
[183] Daizy Gedeon's documentary, Enough — Lebanon's Darkest Hour, screened at the Cannes Market and received the "Movie That Matters Award" sponsored by Film festivals and in association with Better World Fund.
[191] Elie Khalifé's State of Agitation premiered at the Mostra de Valencia, cinema del mediterrani, and screened at the Malmö Arab Film Festival.
[197] Wissam Charaf's Dirty Difficult Dangerous screened at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinemas Label and at Palm Springs International Film Festival where it won the Bridging the Borders Award[198] 1982 by Oualid Mouaness was released theatrically in Mexico, Brazil, Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, and lastly, the United States [199] in June 2022 to critical acclaim.
[203] Karim Kassem's Thiiird world premiered in the Tiger Competition at IFFR 2023, and won best international feature film at Beldocs IDFF in the same year.
[215] Dead Dog, written and directed by Sarah Francis, produced by Lara Abou Saifan, edited by Zeina Bou Hosn, with music by Victor Bresse, had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam[216]