Top-rated Bhutan movies

1 Sijou (2021)

Sijou is a small boy who lives in the village of Saikhonguri, a village in Baksa near the Indo-Bhutan border. He lives with his father. One day, his life takes a drastic shift when he becomes a victim of the Feudal Land Tenure System which was in practice in Bhutan till 1958. Gradually, his life takes drastic turns which eventually turn him into a monk.

2 Honeygiver Among the Dogs (2018)

In the remote Bhutan, an undercover detective investigates the case of a missing Buddhist nun and falls into a risky alliance with his only suspect, an alluring young woman known as the village "demoness".

3 The Red Phallus (2019)

Sangai, a teenage girl living with her father in a village of inland Bhutan, is not happy with her father, who makes wooden phalluses, believed to have mysterious power, and playing a festival clown with a red mask at a local festival. She reluctantly delivers the phalluses to neighbors but she is followed by dozens of men with red masks and costumes when walking through the hill. Conflict and tension grows between the father, who has concerns about his successor, and Sangai, who has a clandestine relationship with a married man.

4 Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)

A teacher, in search of inspiration, travels to the most remote school in the world, where he ends up realizing how important his job is and appreciating the value of yak dung.

5 The Next Guardian (2018)

Two Bhutanese teenagers must choose between their dreams and caring for a Buddhist temple that has been in their family for generations.

6 The Cup (1999)

While the World Cup is being played in France, two young Tibetan refugees arrive at a monastery in India. The atmosphere of serene contemplation is soon disrupted by soccer fever, as the two students desperately seek a TV to watch the final.

7 Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait (2016)

The dazzling new film from Bhutanese lama and filmmaker Khyentse Norbu (The Cup, Travellers and Magicians) chronicles a sacred jungle ritual whose masked, anonymous participants seek after complete self-knowledge — or descend into thievery, violation, and murder.

8 Lo Sum Choe Sum (2015)

The traditional ‘3 Year 3 Month Retreat’ or ‘Lo Sum Choe Sum’ is practiced by Buddhist monks, nuns and other devout practitioners. 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days is calculated as the time needed to achieve a higher state of clarity and motivation. By cutting oneself off from the world, and delving into the inner mind, the retreat is supposed to transform the practitioner. Can Lhamo, a young, wounded girl facing the harsh gaze of the world, find her own form of retreat and redemption? Lo Sum Choe Sum was Bhutan’s first entry into the Berlinale Shorts Competition. It was made in 2015 by filmmaker Dechen Roder, who later produced and wrote and directed the well-acclaimed Honeygiver Among the Dogs.

9 Price of Knowledge (2000)

Made by Bhutan's first filmmaker (Ugyen Wangdi), Price of Knowledge (1999) is also Bhutan's first documentary. Day by day, 11 year old Sherab Dorji walks three hours to school. In the early morning he meets the other children of his village at a chorten, a Buddhist shrine. From there, they walk to school together singing. The road leads across a mountain and through the woods. The parents are constantly afraid of their children meeting up with wild animals along the path. When Sherab walks the last part by himself in the evening, he prays aloud to fight his fear. They walk so much, his father says, that their socks tear within a week. Sherab’s family depends on subsistence farming. Sherab and his family’s life are presented in a touching realistic portrait of rural Bhutan in 1999.

10 The Vested Astrologer (2019)