Adam is the son of a wealthy Egyptian-American family who is studying at UCLA and returns home for a brief vacation. Upon his arrival he meets beautiful reporter Hanane, with whom he begins an intense love affair, and eventually they marry. Trouble arises when Hanane' s journalistic interests lead her to the corrupt business affairs of Adam's parents, who are interested in building an American tourist compound that would allow Americans further control of Egypt's tourist industry, and make them a whole lot richer.

Hatem is a corrupt police officer, who loves his neighbor Nour, who in turn loves the prosecutor, Sherif. Hatem tries to win Nour’s attention even if by force.

Freed after spending years in prison, an activist's homecoming turns into a dark affair as his disillusion clashes with his family's expectations. Demonstrating Chahine’s eclecticism, this is an elegant melodrama, exuberant musical, layered allegory, and profound portrait of personal and political disillusionment.

One of his most controversial films, THE SPARROW was written by Chahine in collaboration with avant-gardist Lofti el-Kholi. Set during the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and the United Arab Republic this story of familial and national divisions has become one of Chahine's most popular films in festivals and retrospectives. A young policeman's adoptive father occupies a high post in the force, while his biological father is reputed to have been a left-wing activist. Raouf begins to search for those who might have known his real father, while his half-brother, stationed on the Sinai front, prepares for battle.
The Sparrow (El ‘Osfour) was banned in May 1973, then received in December of the same year the country’s highest cultural award. More importantly, however, is that starting from The Sparrow (El ‘Osfour), Chahine departed from the conventional mainstream cinema of his time and developed his own individual style, hence emerging as a pioneer in this respect; instead of using a linear plot, he displayed a new liking for fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming collages of disparate material such as flashbacks, actual events, associations and documentary sequences. The overall result of these shifts was the inception of a new phase in his films which was dedicated to experimentation and innovation.

After we last see him in "Alexandria, Why?" Egyptian filmmaker Yehia Mourad is in his thirties, and successful in his work, he has grown distant from his wife and children and suffers a symbolic blockage of the heart while shooting the final scenes of his latest film. After being flown to England for evaluation, it's determined that Yehia must undergo emergency surgery. Fact and fiction blend seamlessly—with healthy doses of cleverly absurdist fantasy—as the film explores the various personalities and forces that have made Yehia (and Youssef Chahine) the man he has become.