Bringemovies
← Browse Movies
The Empire of Dreams
TITLE DETAILS

The Empire of Dreams

1982-06-05 · 125 min · ★ 10.0

Drama · Comedy

A stubborn director who wants to rediscover the Algiers of his childhood comes up against the “Hollywood” fantasies of his characters, non-professionals all hoping to be able to become “someone else”, at least for the duration of a film… Mise en abyme for a journey into megalomania…

Open detail page

Trailers are previews, not full movies.

No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.

Production details

Directors
Jean-Pierre Lledo
Production companies
Office National pour le Commerce et l'Industrie Cinématographique (ONCIC)
Countries
Algeria
Status
Released

Top Cast

Sid Ali KouiretSid Ali KouiretJamil Charif
Fettouma Ousliha-BouamariFettouma Ousliha-BouamariL'Actrice
Brahim HadjadjBrahim HadjadjLe Voyou
Mustapha El AnkaMustapha El Anka
Salah TeskoukSalah TeskoukZorro
Abdelkrim Baba AissaAbdelkrim Baba AissaLe Monteur
Mohamed BouamariMohamed Bouamari
Aissa IfrahAissa IfrahLe Réalisateur
Mahmoud Aziz

Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.

Where to watch

Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.

Availability not listed for this country.

Recommendations

CQ
★ 5.9
CQ2001Drama · Comedy

A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.

Mr. Morgan's Last Love
★ 6.6
Mr. Morgan's Last Love2013Drama · Comedy

A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.

I Still Hide to Smoke
★ 6.9
I Still Hide to Smoke2017Drama

Α tragi-comedy about 9 women of different ages and various backgrounds that gather in an Algerian hammam to talk about their lives.

All About Nina
★ 5.8
All About Nina2018Drama · Comedy

Nina Geld's passion and talent have made her a rising star in the comedy scene, but she's an emotional mess offstage. When a new professional opportunity coincides with a romantic one, she is forced to confront her own deeply troubled past.

Real Women Have Curves
★ 6.1
Real Women Have Curves2002Drama · Comedy

In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

In the Soup
★ 6.8
In the Soup1992Drama · Comedy

An aspiring young filmmaker gets involved with an eccentric gangster for the financing of his first film.

Beast
★ 7.5
Beast2026Drama

MMA legend Patton James, now a commercial fisherman, is pulled back into the cage when his brother is in danger. Reuniting with his old coach Sammy, he commits to one final fight in one championship against the brutal champion Xavier Grau.

A Dry White Season
★ 6.7
A Dry White Season1989Drama

During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.

The Man Who Sold His Skin
★ 6.6
The Man Who Sold His Skin2021Drama

To be able to travel to Europe and find the love of his life, Sam Ali, a Syrian refugee, accepts to have his back tattooed by one of the most sulfurous contemporary artist; becoming that way a precious work of art.

El Chicano
★ 6.6
El Chicano2019Drama

A pair of twin brothers from East L.A. choose to live their lives differently and end up on opposite sides of the law.

TalhotBlond
★ 6.3
TalhotBlond2012Drama

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

King of the Belgians
★ 6.0
King of the Belgians2016Drama · Comedy

The King of the Belgians is on a state visit in Istanbul when his country falls apart. He must return home at once to save his kingdom. But a solar storm causes airspace and communications to shut down. No planes. No phones. With the help of a British filmmaker and a troupe of Bulgarian folk singers, the King and his entourage manage to escape over the border. Incognito. Thus begins an odyssey across the Balkans during which the King discovers the real world - and himself.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
★ 7.5
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl2024Drama · Comedy

On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family.

Riot in Cell Block 11
★ 7.1
Riot in Cell Block 111954Drama

A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.

The Pretty One
★ 6.1
The Pretty One2014Drama · Comedy

When her idolized twin sister Audrey dies in a car accident, Laurel decides to take her place. But, as she eases into the life she has always wanted, she must decide between continuing the lie or revealing herself.

SubUrbia
★ 6.2
SubUrbia1997Drama · Comedy

A group of suburban teenagers try to support each other through the difficult task of becoming adults.

Barbarians at the Gate
★ 6.9
Barbarians at the Gate1993Drama · Comedy

F. Ross Johnson decides to buyout his own tobacco firm RJR Nabisco after the plans of the launch of his new product, a smokeless cigarette Premier, fail on account of market rumours.

Uncorked
★ 6.1
Uncorked2020Drama · Comedy

Elijah must balance his dream of becoming a master sommelier with his father's expectations that he carry on the family's Memphis BBQ joint.

Where Do We Go Now?
★ 7.4
Where Do We Go Now?2011Drama · Comedy

In a remote, isolated Lebanese village surrounded by land mines, Muslims and Christians live together in peace. As civil strife starts to engulf the country around them, the women in the village try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark by sabotaging the village radio, and then destroying the village TV.

The House of Tomorrow
★ 6.8
The House of Tomorrow2019Drama · Comedy

The film tells futurist, architect, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller's incredible story through two teens hoping to get laid, become punk gods, and survive high school.

Similar titles

Nejma
Not rated
Nejma1984Drama

Directed by Kamal Dehane

Elli Fat Mat
★ 9.0
Elli Fat Mat1989Drama · Comedy

27 years after 1962, Antoine returns to Algiers...

The Price of Freedom
★ 10.0
The Price of Freedom2007Drama

In the midst of the Algerian liberation war, two characters, a meddah (traditional storyteller) and a guerrab (water distributor), having become aware of their subhuman condition in their own country, join the National Liberation Army (ALN) to fight against inhumane colonialism. They will climb the ranks to become political commissioners before falling on the field of honor, the first in a skirmish and the other in Barberousse prison (Serkadji) where he will be guillotined.

Chronicle of the Years of Fire
★ 6.6
Chronicle of the Years of Fire1975Drama

A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.

The Zerda or the Songs of Forgetting
★ 8.1
The Zerda or the Songs of Forgetting1983Drama

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

The Law of My Country
★ 8.5
The Law of My Country2012Drama

Algeria. Benjamin, Kateb and Antoine are three teenagers from three religious backgrounds who never should have met. But they share the same passion for football and the same disregard for the disapproving looks which their unusual friendship draws.

Of Gods and Men
★ 6.7
Of Gods and Men2010Drama

A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmony with the largely Muslim population. When a bloody conflict between Algeria's army and Muslim Jihadi insurgents disrupts the peace, they are forced to consider fleeing the monastery and deserting the villagers they have ministered to. In the face of deadly violence, the monks wrestle with their faith and their convictions.

The Call
★ 8.0
The Call1936Drama

The story of Charles de Foucauld, born September 15, 1858 in Strasbourg (France) and died December 1, 1916 in Tamanrasset in Algeria during the French colonial period, was a cavalry officer of the French army who became an explorer and geographer, then Catholic religious, priest, linguist and hermit in the Hoggar desert in Algeria.

The Harem of Madame Osmane
★ 6.1
The Harem of Madame Osmane2000Drama · Comedy

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.

L'Obstacle
★ 10.0
L'Obstacle1965Comedy

Algerian youth of the 1960s, straddling traditional South Mediterranean and Western culture and the desire for emancipation of younger generations to find true love.

Mémoires du 17 octobre 1961
★ 10.0
Mémoires du 17 octobre 19612002Drama

Three demonstrators from October 17, 1961, and a journalist recount the peaceful success of the demonstration and its brutal repression in the streets of Paris. Five months before the end of the Algerian War, the Gaullist government violently suppressed (40 to 300 deaths in a single evening, according to various sources) a peaceful demonstration by the entire Algerian civilian population of the Paris region, protesting the curfew imposed solely on this population (all participants held French citizenship). The government long denied this state crime; the official version: 3 deaths! In 1962, these events were granted amnesty by a simple decree (later enacted into law) issued by the same Gaullist government.

October 17, 1961: A day that went missing
★ 10.0
October 17, 1961: A day that went missing1992Drama

This documentary bears witness to the events that took place more than thirty years before the filming of this movie, on October 17, 1961, in Paris, during the Algerian War. It is a work not only about historical truth but also about memory. Constructed primarily from interviews conducted with those involved in the events, along with archival footage, photographs, and radio broadcasts from the time, our investigation proves that nearly 200 Algerians were killed (drowned, tortured) that night and in the days that followed by the French police. "A Missing Day" seeks to ask two key questions: how could such events have unfolded in the capital of a Western democracy barely thirty years ago? And why have they been silenced ever since?

The Desert Divers
★ 10.0
The Desert Divers1952Drama

Les Plongeurs Du Désert, directed by Tahar Hannache in 1952, is considered the first entirely Algerian fiction film. It tells the story of the inhabitants of an oasis whose well has dried up. The village elder, Sheikh Messaoud, calls upon the renowned desert divers, artisans specializing in clearing sand- and silt-filled wells, to restore access to the vital water for the community. After their intervention, the water begins to flow again, bringing relief to the oasis and its inhabitants. The film depicts the contrast between the traditional techniques of the divers, embodied by Sheikh Ali and his son Mansour, and the arrival of modernity, represented by the machine that ultimately replaces their craft. This story symbolizes the marginalization of local knowledge in the face of technological progress and the social injustice of the colonial era.

The Battle of Algiers
★ 7.9
The Battle of Algiers1966Drama

Former petty criminal Ali la Pointe becomes a commander of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directing a guerilla insurgency against the colonial French occupation. Paratrooper commander Colonel Phillippe Mathieu, a veteran of World War II and the First Indochina War, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings.

Jamila, the Algerian
★ 7.2
Jamila, the Algerian1958Drama

Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers. Jamila's nationalist spirit will be strengthened when French forces invade her university to arrest her classmate Amina who commits suicide by ingesting poison. Shortly after the prominent Algerian guerrilla leader Youssef takes refuge with her, she realizes that her uncle Mustafa is part of this network of anti-colonial rebel fighters. Her uncle linked her to the National Liberation Front (FLN). A series of events illustrate Jamila's participation in resistance operations against the occupier before she was finally captured and tortured. Finally, despite the efforts of her French lawyer, Jamila is sentenced to death...

Poster unavailable
Not rated
Lakhdar Ben KhloufDrama

Depicts the life of Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khlouf, an eminent symbolic figure who is part of the memory of Algerian poetry and popular fight. Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khelouf became famous thanks to his poems about the Prophet Muhammad (earning him the nickname "praiser of the Prophet") and the epic he dedicates to the Battle of Mazagran on August 26, 1558, against the Spaniards. Counted among the patron saints of the Mostaganem region, his poems are often interpreted by chaâbi singers.

My sister
Not rated
My sister2007Drama

They come from completely different worlds, but over the course of a single day and night, their lives collide. What starts as a clinical relationship slowly turns into something deeper—almost like a shared understanding of the same struggle.

Apatride
Not rated
Apatride2018Drama

Henia will give anything to mend her broken past and find her mother, from whom she has been separated since the conflict between Morocco and Algeria during the Black Demonstration of 1975. After being given an opportunity to assist an elderly blind man, she accepts the offer and eventually finds herself agreeing to marry him. For Henia, this is a chance to get the necessary papers for her return to Algeria. For the old man, it’s a chance to start over. For his son, it is a disgrace.

The Algerian War!
★ 5.0
The Algerian War!2014Drama

In a single static shot a man is threatened with death at another's gunpoint.

Les Sept Remparts De La Citadelle
★ 10.0
Les Sept Remparts De La Citadelle2018Drama

The feature film “The seven ramparts of the citadel”, a fiction recounting the conflict between an Algerian family expropriated from its land and a bloodthirsty settler; by director Ahmed Rachedi. Adapted from the eponymous novel by Mohamed Maarafia, the film, whose plot begins in 1954, tells the story of two characters, Thebti and Lucien, “the fellaga and the colonist”, a story of crossed destinies. “After having engaged in a fight to the death, after having both traveled a long path of embers, (they) finally find themselves face to face and above all each face to themselves”.

Your favorites

Recently viewed

Watch

Choose an authorized server.

Full video from an operator-configured authorized source. Official trailers use a separate player. If a server fails, retry or select another authorized server.

Legal watch options

Official trailer

Trailer preview only. Press Play to start.

Privacy choices

Favorites stay in your browser. Movie images load from TMDb. YouTube trailers contact YouTube only after you allow external media and choose a trailer. Advertising consent, if ads are enabled, is managed separately by the operator’s certified CMP.

Privacy policy

After allowing external media, choose the trailer button to load its player.