Best Cambodian drama movies

The amazing true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand’s most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in prison Muay Thai tournaments.

A Fistful of Pebbles won the 3rd prize in the SEA Tropfest Film Festival 2015. The story is about a mysterious man who finds himself in the muddy monsoon in a village terrorized by a local gangster. When he’s unwittingly drawn into the village’s problem and the beautiful daughter of the village Chief is about to be taken, the hero takes matters into his own hands… with a fistful of pebbles.

Sorn, an ethnic Shan sex worker, tries to build a future in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as a refugee far from home, but he is drawn into a complex relationship with one client, an investigator probing a political activist.

Bngvel is the real-life story of Phally, a Cambodian man struggling against the odds to be a good husband and father. Never being able to provide enough for his card-playing wife, he heads to the big city in search of better employment opportunities, only to find the more he earns, the more he spends. Numbing out with beer and girls, he comes to a point of crisis that shakes him up, and he becomes determined to make amends.

A father's heart is as big as the whole world, it is said. A disabled cycle trishaw driver who has lost a leg is lovingly raising his two children alone as their mother ran away. The little money he earns on the dirty streets of the pulsating city is just enough to survive. When the little son fell ill and had to go to the hospital, the desperate father could not afford the money for medical treatment. He now has to take on other jobs, collect rubbish from the street or donate blood. Meanwhile, a young, committed female doctor is taking care of the little boy, whose father, in turn, cannot understand that she is doing this "man's job". Based on a true story!

Following her mother’s death, manga artist Sorya travels to her ancestral home in Phnom Penh, with hopes of reconnecting with her distant family and using the visit as inspiration for her work. All goes well initially. Renting an apartment in Metta, a rundown Khmer Rouge-era housing complex, her visit to her maternal relatives finds her welcomed with open arms. But Sorya’s waking hours in the apartment and its surroundings are punctuated by terrifying, bloody visions, almost as though she were a conduit for horrors of the past wanting to seep into the present.

Life is like a duet: you need the right half to make a performance beautiful.

Samnang, 20, faces the demolition of his lifelong home in Phnom Penh and the pressures from family, friends, and neighbors which arise and intersect in this moment of sudden change.

Pai, a handsome young man but an orphan, lives with his uncle. Until he had to go to work as a sex worker in a bar, with Bora, his close friend, looking for customers. Until one day, Bora took Pai to see customers in a hotel. Confused about room numbers, Pai then went into the room of Jenny, Bora's younger sister. After that night Jenny and Pai have a chance to get close and begin to have feelings for each other, but Bora has to try to block them out in every possible way.

In this Buddhist sci-fi mystery, a teenage orphan in the slums of Phnom Penh, Cambodia investigates her friend’s past-life visions, uncovering a conspiracy of scientific reincarnation.

Produced by the Luang Prabang Film Festival, "MEKONG 2030" is a collection of short narrative films that envision the future of the Mekong River from five different national and cultural perspectives. Set in the year 2030, they aim to both entertain and inspire audiences to actively protect this critical life source.

Kanitha, a young, free-spirited Cambodian woman in her 20s, lives in modern-day Phnom Penh, working multiple jobs and choosing to live how she pleases. However, her daydreaming creates tension with her traditional mother, who wants a daughter that will settle down to get married, and Kanitha seems ambivalent to her father's deteriorating health. The family's struggle seems immutable, but Kanitha dreams an idea born from memories of her father. TURN LEFT TURN RIGHT is structured as an album, with tracks and sounds influencing the form. The film weaves Cambodian rock songs together with motifs of family, nature, and boundless imagination.

A short film, “I shall never see you again, oh my beloved Kampuchea”, was directed and scripted by the late His Majesty King Sihanouk, filmed in North Korea in 1991, depicts the Vietnamese annexation of Kampuchea Krom through the eyes of a Khmer Princes and classical dancer living in the Vietnamese palace.

Songsa is 15 years old when his family decides to send him to Phnom Penh to sell clothes in a tuk tuk. Phearum borrowed money to buy a taxi in order to support his family. Thy, 20, has a dream: buying a big motorbike. When their paths cross, a new road merges.

The Cambodian government of centuries ago must put an end to attempted secession.

A telefilm that describes the meeting between Cambodian restaurateur Bopha ("flower"), a survivor of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, and a Vietnamese man named Mihn, a "boat people" refugee who drives a taxi at night and works as a deliveryman during the day for his uncle's grocery store.

A Buddhist monk tries to preach non-violence to the Khmum-Chachak rebels and the National Army, who are in the midst of a civil war that can dangerously affect innocent civilians.

A man's story of survival under Lon Nol's dictatorship, and the Khmer Rouge, and beyond

After the death of her mother, Nary decides to live her life independently, dressing and acting as a man in order to work at a taxi company, but Kosal soon finds out.

Before their impending departure for the capital city, two siblings first must bid farewell to the place they called home, each in their own way.

A Japanese artist (Ikebe), who had won the favor of the Cambodian royal family when he rescued their daughter during World War II, returns and falls for the now-grown princess, though neither realizes the other's identity.

The film is a melodramatic love-triangle between Chea and Sou over a woman named Orn.

Inav, prince of Daha, refuses an arranged marriage with Bosba, princess of Aden. Things change when another king asks for Bosba's hand in marriage, threatening war if she refuses.

Musical with many classic songs

Archaelogist prince Indra-putra and Mr. Rithy go in search of a mysterious palace in the heart of the Dangrek Mountains.

After an affair with the fabled Snake King, a woman gives birth to a son she names Veasna. After Veasna finds a wife, a witch curses their daughter to be born with snakes instead of hair.

A fictionalised account of the brutal oppression experienced by a family living in a labour camp headed by malicious cadres.

An ailing Khmer prince falls in love with Maharani Maya of India, his guest. The government of Cambodia sent him a trained nurse named Sopheap, who served him with devotion. But the prince was totally unaware of the rumblings in her heart.

This is a movie from Cambodia and it was actually directed by King Norodom Sihanouk, the king of Cambodia. It depicts the events of 1975 that ended with the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge.

Love triangle

A young author with an incurable illness wishes to return to Angkor Wat to spend his final days, but his wife remains in Phnom Penh, sending a young cousin to go instead. While his wife makes plans to remarry, the young man and cousin fall in love.

A young Cambodian doctor returns home from Paris to volunteer at a clinic in his home village, just outside of the capital city Phnom Penh. Most of his patients are victims of land mines. He falls in love with a young nurse at the clinic, while dealing with the advances of his cousin, who is unhappily married to an amputee war veteran.

A guru and his follower, who have lived in the ruins of Angkor for 150 years, return to the world to save the Cambodian people.

Pheakdey and her mother escape from the war area to live in Phnom Penh. They have no money, no job, no shelter, and no food. Her mother is sick and blinded by the war. Out of pity, a woman suggests that they live with her. She provides them with everything they need. But the woman is actually ill-intentioned and wants to sell Pheakdey to millionaires.

Thavory and her big sister fall in love with the same man. Thavory marries him but falls into a dirty plot set up by her sister to drive her away.

General Mchulpich plots a coup with the CIA and South Vietnam to secede two provinces from Cambodia.

Story of a love triangle with a Cambodian delegation visiting North Korea.

Plot unknown

In the 18th century, a young prince is crowned king of a small kingdom. He tries to rule justly, but is undermined by his cruel aunt.

Based on the "dove hunters" fairy tale

Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) - 1978. Three French journalists are invited by the Khmer Rouge to conduct an exclusive interview of the regime's leader, Pol Pot. The country seems ideal. But behind the Potemkin village, the Khmer Rouge regime is declining and the war with Vietnam threatens to invade the country. The regime is looking for culprits, secretly carrying out a large scale genocide. Under the eyes of the journalists, the beautiful picture cracks, revealing the horror. Their journey progressively turns into a nightmare. Freely inspired by journalist Elizabeth Becker's account in When the war was over.