--- name: "Makram Khoury" canonical: "https://film.one/person/makram-j-khoury" fi1m_id: "makram-j-khoury" imdb_id: "nm0403374" tmdb_id: 52685 wikidata_id: "Q284051" roles: ["Actor"] born: "30 May 1945" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 70 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-10-07T16:43:40.499588+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Makram Khoury ## Identity Makram Khoury - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/makram-j-khoury - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** makram-j-khoury - **IMDb ID:** nm0403374 - **TMDB ID:** 52685 - **Wikidata ID:** Q284051 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makram_Khoury, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q284051, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0403374/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/52685 Actor. Born 30 May 1945 in Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 30 May 1945, Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine - **Active:** 2005–2013 - **Also known as:** Makram J. Khoury - **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as actor, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makram_Khoury, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q284051, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0403374/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/52685 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*House of Saddam*](https://film.one/tv/house-of-saddam.md) (60) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Makram Khoury > Makram Khoury is the man at the head of the table in other people's stories: the father, the minister, the sheikh, played with a stillness learned on stage and a refusal to judge anyone. He is nearly always worth more than the scene gives him. Watch Makram Khoury in *House of Saddam* (2008) during the dinners and the councils, when the camera is on Yigal Naor and the room is waiting to find out what mood he is in. Khoury's Tariq Aziz is the courtier who knows the exact weight of each silence, and the performance is almost entirely in what he does not do: he does not lean in, he does not look away, he lets a pause run a beat longer than anyone else at the table would dare. We found ourselves watching him in scenes that were about somebody else, which is the surest sign a supporting actor is doing his job. That stillness was learned on stage. Khoury spent twenty years with the Haifa Municipal Theater and worked at the Cameri in Tel Aviv, and the screen career that grew out of it from the mid-1990s has the marks of a text actor: measured, unhurried, more interested in what a line means than in how it can be decorated. He has said "I never judge my characters," and you can see it. His officials and patriarchs are men with reasons, not positions in an argument. The parts that made his name abroad came with Eran Riklis, as the Druze father Hammed in *The Syrian Bride* (2004) and as Abu Kamal in *Lemon Tree* (2008), both ensemble pieces about people living on a border, and with Amos Gitai in *Free Zone* (2005). Hiam Abbass has been opposite him six times. Then the English-language work: Wael Zwaiter in *Munich* (2005), Aziz for the BBC and HBO, Samir Khalil in *Homeland* (2015), the blind Sheikh Negm in *Cairo Conspiracy* (2022), and *The Master and Margarita* (2024). Between films he has gone back to the theatre, to Peter Brook's *11 and 12* and to Shylock for the RSC in 2015. The pattern is plain and so is its cost. Khoury is nearly always the elder who speaks for a household or a community, and the films have not always been as good as he is in them. Nobody has had a bad word to say about the performances; the same cannot be said of every title, and *Unlocked* (2017) is not the only one where he is the most interesting thing in a picture few people liked. *Magic Men* (2013), a lead in a domestic Israeli comedy-drama, shows what happens when a script lets him carry it rather than steady it. He works in Hebrew, Arabic and English and has played both sides of the divides those languages mark, and he does it without changing his manner. If you want to see what he can do, start with *The Syrian Bride*. If you want to see how little he needs, watch him listen to Saddam. ## Biography Makram J. Khoury is a Palestinian-Arab actor. He was born on 30 May 1945 in Jerusalem in the British Mandate of Palestine. He studied at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London from 1970 to 1973 and has been a long-standing member of the Haifa Municipal Theater. Khoury won the Israel Prize for theatre in 1987, becoming the youngest recipient and the first Arab to receive the award. His screen credits include *Munich* (2005), *The Body* (2001), *Homeland* (2011) and *House of Saddam* (2008), in which he played Tariq Aziz. He has also appeared in *The West Wing* (2004), *The Physician* (2013), *Unlocked* (2017), *Messiah* (2020) and *Cairo Conspiracy* (2022). His children Clara Khoury and Jameel Khoury are also actors. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *House of Saddam* (2008), Fi1m 60, as Tariq Aziz — [page](https://film.one/tv/house-of-saddam.md) - *Munich* (2005), Fi1m 80, as Wael Zwaiter — [page](https://film.one/film/munich.md) ## Complete filmography (62) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Le Monde* (2025), as Special guest - *The Master and Margarita* (2024), as Kaifa - *Los Farad* (2023), series, as Monzer - *A House in Jerusalem* (2023), as Shlomi - *Cairo Conspiracy* (2022), as Sheikh Negm - *The Taste of Apples Is Red* (2022), as Sheikh Kamel - *Nicht ganz Koscher* (2022), as Gaon - *Jerusalem* (2022), series, Actor - *Laila in Haifa* (2021), as Kamal - *Manayek* (2020), series, as Leon Bachar - *Messiah* (2020), series, as Mullah Umar - *Spider in the Web* (2019), as Nader - *The Tower* (2018), Actor - *A Letter to a Friend in Gaza* (2018), Screenplay - *Voice Over* (2018), Actor - *The Way Out* (2017), as Juan - *Unlocked* (2017), as Yazid Khaleel - *Wounded Land* (2015), Actor - *Abulele* (2015), as Hani - *A Tale of Love and Darkness* (2015), as Halawani, Al Hilwani - *RSC Live: The Merchant of Venice* (2015), as Shylock - *The City* (2015), Actor - *Atlit* (2015), as Mafous - *Der Medicus* (2014), series, as Imam - *The Cut* (2014), as Omar Nasreddin - *Desert Dancer* (2014), as Mehdi - *Write Down, I Am an Arab* (2014), as Narrator (voice) - *Farewell Baghdad* (2014), as Prime Minister - *Magic Men* (2014), as Avraham Kofinas - *The Physician* (2013), as Imam - *Sweets* (2013), Actor - *Complicit* (2013), as Colonel Hazem Ashraf - *Inheritance* (2012), as Abu Majda - *Homeland* (2011), series, as Samir Khalil — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/homeland.md) - *Miral* (2010), as Governor Khatib - *Carmel* (2009), Actor - *Italians* (2009), as Hamed - *House of Saddam* (2008), series, as Tariq Aziz — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/tv/house-of-saddam.md) - *Lemon Tree* (2008), as Abu Kamal - *Shred of Hope* (2007), as Julian - *Djihad!* (2006), as Médecin de l'hôpital - *Forgiveness* (2006), as Dr. Isaac Shemesh - *Munich* (2005), as Wael Zwaiter — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/munich.md) - *Free Zone* (2005), as Samir aka "The American" - *The Syrian Bride* (2004), as Hammed - *The Body* (2001), as Nasir Hamid - *The West Wing* (1999), series, as Palestinian Chairman Nizar Farad — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-west-wing.md) - *The Milky Way* (1997), as Mukhtar - *Tale of the Three Jewels* (1995), as Abu Iman - *The Patriots* (1994), as Barak - *Double Edge* (1992), as Ahmed Shafik - *Torn Apart* (1990), as Mahmoud Malek - *Canticle of Stones* (1990), Actor - *Crossfire* (1989), Actor - *Wedding in Galilee* (1987), as The governor - *The Smile of the Lamb* (1986), as Col. Moshe Katzman - *On a Narrow Bridge* (1985), Actor - *Kasach* (1984), Actor - *Michel Ezra Safra and Sons* (1983), Actor - *Big Shots* (1982), as Ben-Shooshan - *A Town in Nova Scotia*, as Saleh - *The Way of the Wind*, as Jonas ## Gallery - ![Makram Khoury](https://film.one/media/person/436059/gallery-68f4272320b1.jpg) Makram Khoury — Noy Raz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Makram_Khoury_in_the_movie_Petah_Tikva_By_Tom_Shoval_second.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![לאון בכר (מכרם ח'ורי), בעונה השנייה של מָנָאיֶיכּ. (2022)](https://film.one/media/person/436059/gallery-ecca005b8d91.jpg) לאון בכר (מכרם ח'ורי), בעונה השנייה של מָנָאיֶיכּ. (2022) — Roy Roth, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Manayek_11.jpg/1280px-Manayek_11.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![מכרם ח'ורי בסרטו של תום שובל "פתח תקוה", 2005 (2007)](https://film.one/media/person/436059/gallery-7161bab10b15.jpg) מכרם ח'ורי בסרטו של תום שובל "פתח תקוה", 2005 (2007) — Noy Raz, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Makram_Khoury_in_the_movie_Petah_Tikva_by_Tom_Shoval.jpg/1280px-Makram_Khoury_in_the_movie_Petah_Tikva_by_Tom_Shoval.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won - Israel Prize 1987: Israel Prize (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/makram-j-khoury