By: Habiba El-Sadany
In a time when most people claim that Egyptian TV series will never be good as foreign ones, here are 11 Egyptian thriller TV series you won’t regret watching.
1. 30 Youm (2017) – 30 Days
Dr. Tarek (Asser Yassin) is a happily-married psychiatrist and a father to one-year old Farida. On the first of November, Farida’s first birthday, a Jazz music listener (Bassel Al-Khayyat) shows up at Dr. Tarek’s private practise as a patient, introducing himself as Tawfik El-Masry, but also tells Dr. Tarek he’s free to call him Sameh. Tawfik/Sameh tells Dr. Tarek he’s going to conduct an experiment called “How to Kill Someone and Let Them Live”. He elaborates that a person he chooses and calls El-Mokhtar (The chosen) will have to endure never-ending obstacles concerning their job, family and everyone they care about, planting fear towards everything in their life for 30 days straight. He says that he would turn this chosen person’s life into hell and see how the experiment would change their actions, decisions and behaviour, right before saying that Dr. Tarek is the chosen person, and that that day was the first day of the experiment. When Dr. Tarek tells Tawfik/Sameh to get out, his wife immediately calls him to tell him their daughter has been kidnapped.
2. El Kabous (2015) – The Nightmare.
A day after Nada (Ghada Abd El Razik) has an unsettling nightmare of her son, Faris (Karim Kassem), she receives the news of his murder while he was on vacation with his wife. With the help of the constant dreams she has about the past almost every time she sleeps, she tries to track down her son’s murderer.
3. Estifa (2015)
The main character of this thriller is Abbas (Abbas Abu El Hassan), a detective who investigates crimes with guest stars. Each case – most of them revolve around a murder – lasts for two consecutive episodes, letting you guess who the criminal is until the last few minutes.
4. Man El Gany? (2015) – Who’s The Criminal?
Adham (Eyad Nassar) is a detective that investigates murder cases every episode with other detectives. The episodes were aired weekly, and the special thing about this show is, they never revealed the murderer during the episode. They left subtle hints and clues for us to guess who the murderer is, and the viewers had to submit their guesses. Every week, a lucky winner was chosen to win 100,000 Egyptian pounds.
5. El Khoroug (2016) – The Exit
Two police officers (Sherif Salama and Dhafer Al Abidin) investigate a mysterious murder case in which an upper-body half and a lower-body half which belong to two different people are found in an art exhibition. That crime was just the beginning of a series of murders committed by the same person, meanwhile two sisters kill and hide the body of a man who tried to harass the younger sister and a woman reports her husband missing. Besides the amazing storyline, another convincing reason to watch this TV series is Dhafer Al Abidin’s presence, duh.
6. Ma3 Sabk El Esrar (2012) – Premeditation
Farida El-Tobgy is a lawyer and a mother to two teenagers and a child. The TV series starts off as a drama, discussing Farida’s son’s (Ahmed Malek) drug-addiction and her husband’s relationship with another woman (Rogina), but it slowly shifts into a thriller, shocking the viewers with a mind-blowing plot-twist at the end, proving that it’s one of the best Egyptian productions about revenge.
7. Fo2 Mostawa El Shobohat(2016) – Unsusceptible
Rahma Halim (Youssra) is a college professor who possesses the reputation of an accomplished, successful woman, when in fact; she’s a cold-blooded murderess who’s willing to do anything to keep her secrets shrouded.
8. Vertigo (2012)
Based on the 2007 novel of the same name by the bestselling author, Ahmed Mourad, Vertigo is about a photographer called Farida (Hend Sabry) who goes to a hotel called ‘Vertigo’ with her friends. While taking a few pictures, her camera captures the murders of two powerful business men and their security guards, as well as the murders of her friends and she’s suddenly the sole witness to the murders.
9. Dhel El Ra’ees (2017) – The President’s Shadow
After quitting his job as a guard officer, Yehia (Yasser Galal) started working with his father in his contracting company. On the way to their vacation, Yehia and his family were attacked by gunmen who opened fire on them, killing his wife and son and injuring him and his daughter. As he tries to avenge his wife and son, he discovers that whoever did this, was because of his old job.
10. El Saba3 Wasaya (2014) – The Seven Commandments
Seven estranged siblings reunite at the house of their father, Sayed Nefesa (Ahmed Fouad Selim), who’s been in a coma for six years, and discover that their father has 28,000,000 Egyptian pounds. After the oldest sister, Boussy (Rania Youssef), suggests the idea, they all agree to kill their father in order to inherit the money. After killing him, his body disappears and Boussy goes to prison as the rest of her siblings separate again. It soon turns out that there are seven commandments that each of them has to fulfill in order for their late father’s body to show up and they would be able to inherit the money.
11. Emra’a Fe Warta (2010) – A Woman in a Dilemma
In the 15-episode TV series, Nada (Elham Shahin) is a wealthy widower and a single mother to Hany (Karim Mahmoud Abd El Aziz). She falls in love with Salah, a married business man, so she marries him secretly, hiding their relationship from everyone including Salah’s first wife and Hany, her own son. When he drops dead while they’re in a house together, she runs away, not wanting anyone to discover she was married to him. However, she’s eventually arrested for poisoning and murdering Salah and she struggles to prove her innocence.
