Watching Greek series can really help you learn the language, or just freshen up your Greek. Especially when talking about some of the best Greek TV shows of all time! GreekPod101.com presents you with ten of the most popular Greek TV series, which can help you learn Greek in a fun and interesting way.
The Island Greek Tv Series With English Subtitles
Based on the awarded book of Victoria Hislop, this story is set on Spinalonga, a small Greek island off the coast of Crete. The story focuses on a leper colony, which was established on the isolated island as a precaution measure. These people learned to live isolated from the whole world, with no doctors, doomed to suffer from this cruel disease. This is obviously a drama, which truly speaks to the soul.
Yusra and Sara and their cousin Nizar (Malek) first travel to Turkey, where they cross the sea to Greece in a dangerously small boat with other refugees. Despite nearly sinking, they eventually land on a Greek island, making their way to the European mainland and across several more borders before catching a bus to Berlin, where they find temporary housing at a local refugee camp.
To Nisi The Island is a Greek television series based on the best-selling English novel The Island by Victoria Hislop, the series takes place on the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, and in the village of Plaka which lies within swimming distance across it. To Nisi tells the story of Alexis Fielding, a woman on the cusp of a life-changing decision. Alexis knows little about her family's past and has always resented her mother for refusing to discuss it. She knows only that her mother, Sofia, grew up in Plaka, a small Cretan village, before moving to London, England.
A series about friendships and that illusive search for love, with the little caveat of navigating the strict world of modern Orthodox Jerusalemites, Srugim (the word for crocheted yarmulkes) follows a group of best friends who also happen to be misfits, each in their own respect, and inadept at finding their match in a world where marriage is the most important thing.
These 3 films by my favorite Greek filmmaker and actor Renos Haralambides offer a look into the mind of the director as well as a view of Athens that makes me nostalgic for people and places every time I watch them. Basically they are about the trials and tribulations of beingan artist and a thinker in modern day Athens. They are also very funny and in my opinion philosophically brilliant. There are characters in hisfilms that should have their own film or TV series. If Hollywood ever saw these they would hire Haralambidis or more likely just steal his ideas. There are links on the front page where you can watch all his films on Youtube including his latest 4 Dark Suits. Watch them in chronological order as listed above and Renos will be your favorite Greek director and you will most likely fall in love with Dimitra Papadima as I did.
This movie by one of my favorite directors, Kostas-Gavras, is about the assassination in Thessaloniki of pacifist minister Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963 and the investigation by a courageous prosecutor, Christos Sartzetakis, (who later became President of Greece) that led all the way to the Inspector of the police and other high-ranking officials in the government being indicted. This movie was banned in Greece during the dictatorship as was the soundtrack by Theodorakis. It is in French with English subtitles and though it looks like Greece, was not filmed there. Still it is a great movie. People who have little understanding of Greek politics and probably have not seen the movie seem to think it is about the Greek Junta of 1967 but it actually takes place four years before the dictatorship during the regime of Constantine Karamanlis. The film came out in 1969 based on the book by Vassilis Vassilikos, (which makes great reading by the way). Z is also one of the few films to be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture.
Directed by Paul Mazursky, this film came out in 1982. John Cassavettes stars as a Greek-American businessman who leaves New York and moves to some island with his daughter played by the unbelievably cute Molly Ringwald. On the way they meet adventurous woman traveler Susan Sarandon in a cafe in Athens, who joins them as they attempt to restore an ancient theater with the help of a goat loving shepherd played by Raul Julia. Of course this was based on the play by Shakespeare. It's a little long but worth seeing for some beautiful scenery of an undisclosed location in Greece and some classic moments like Sarandon and Ringwald's sea-serenade, the goat dance and one of the most inspired attempts by a kamaki to attract a very young woman. For those who want to find that beautiful island whose location is kept so secret, you may be looking in the wrong place. It was filmed near Githeon in the Peloponessos.
Before Shirley Valentine there was Summer Lovers, made in 1982, which was about three beautiful young tourists (one of them Daryl Hannah) in the early seventies who have a three-way affair in one of the cliff houses in Santorini. This movie was pretty much un-watchable for me but it inspired a generation of beautiful young people to come to Santorini like Muslims to Mecca, searching for the house that Darryl Hannah and her co-stars made love in. (The villa that the characters stayed at was purchased by a couple in 1987 and is a gift shop named "Summer Lovers" for those of you who are interested). The film has a lot of nudity in it, especially for that time. Funny even that could not get me to watch it. I guess the truth is I don't want to watch a handsome young guy having sex with beautiful women on a Greek island. It is too unrealistic.
This was a 1970 film by French director Henri Verneuil, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Omar Sharif and Dyan Cannon, about a jewelry heist, features some great car chases through an Athens that had so few cars you actually could have a car chase and not get stuck for hours in traffic. When I lived in Athens in the early seventies this was always playing somewhere though it was in French with Greek subtitles so unless I wanted to watch cars racing around Athens without having a clear idea of why, it seemed best to wait to see it in America with English subtitles or dubbed. (The movie was actually shot twice, once in French and once in English, by the same cast. The French version is Le Casse). Anyway in French or Greek or English or Swahili the chasescenes through the streets (and steps) of Athens in this movie make it worth watching. Check it out
This 1955 Greek film is a retelling of Carmen directed by Michael Cacoyannis and written by Cacoyannis and Iakovos Kambanelis. The music was composed by Manos Hadjidakis and Vassilis Tsitsanis. This is another movie with Melina Mercouri and while this time she is not a prostitute as in Never On Sunday, she is a woman rembetika singer who refuses to settle down with one man. Unlike Never on Sunday it is more of a tragedy than a comedy. It has some amazing views of 1950's Athens. It was originally panned by Greek critics but is now considered a classic which I suppose reflects badly upon Greek film critics. It is in Greek and you can find a copy with English subtitles in the World Classic Cinema series along with The Girl in Black, another early Cacoyannis film..
This film that takes place mostly on the island of Skopelos with a shot or two of Skiathos, came out in 2008 and was based on the West End/Broadway play of the same name. I was prepared to not like it since the idea of it seemed pretty silly to me with award winningserious actress Meryl Streep and a former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, dancing and singing to the music of Abba. But I saw it on a flight back to Athens from Paris and the combination of the scenery and the music actually made me cry and long for Greece, even though I was going to be there in an hour and I had only been gone for 4 days. If you love Greece you will love this movie. If you love Abba you will love this movie. If you hate Abba you will love this movie and end up loving Abba. Andif you love Meryl Streep (who according to the Human Genome Project is my cousin) then you will absolutely love this movie. If you love Pierce Brosnan? Well nobody loves Pierce Brosnan so it doesn't matter. But Colin Firth is in it too.
Arriving in Crete just as a storm hits, the historian is lucky to reach `the big island" before the seas become impassable and the annual Christian Epiphany festivities are hampered. She travels to the ruins of the ancient city of Knossos, synonymous with English archaeologist Arthur Evans who unearthed much of its palace over 100 years ago, beneath which the legendary King Minos is said to have kept a crazed half-man, half-bull - the Minotaur. Bettany meets Professor Stampolidis, whose ground-breaking archaeological discoveries prove links between ancient legend and historical reality.
30 Coins This new eight-episode Spanish-language horror series (presented with English subtitles) premieres with back-to-back episodes. The story follows Father Vergara (Eduard Fernández), an exorcist sent by the church to become a local priest in a remote town in Spain. Megan Montaner, Miguel Silvestre and Macarena Gómez also star. 9 and 10:30 p.m. HBO
Shot on the island of Crete over a two year period, this 26 episode series brought Indigo View's professional and creative expertise to the forefront of Greek television programming. Indigo View Director Theo Papadoulakis worked closely with his team of Crete based Producers to create an original series that regularly earned national viewing figures of over 70%. 2ff7e9595c
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