# Valley of Tears (2020)

> A ten-episode Israeli drama following reserve soldiers and their families as the October 1973 Yom Kippur War tears through the region.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/92719

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 10
- Episode runtime: 45 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: war, drama
- Created by: Gal Zaid, Amit Cohen, Ron Leshem, Yaron Zilberman
- Network: Kan 11
- Cast: Aviv Alush, Lior Ashkenazi, Maor Schwitzer, Joy Rieger, Ofer Hayoun, Lee Biran, Imri Biton, Shahar Taboch
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8190688/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: brutal
- Tone: intense, sombre, emotionally raw, tense, bleak

## What critics say

Audiences broadly rate the series positively, praising its performances and its gripping, emotionally punishing portrait of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

## Synopsis

Valley of Tears (2020) is an Israeli national-television war drama series created by Gal Zaid, Amit Cohen, Ron Leshem and Yaron Zilberman for Kan 11. A single-season limited series of ten roughly 45-minute episodes, it follows a group of soldiers and the people around them as the October 1973 Yom Kippur War erupts across the Middle East. Lior Ashkenazi plays Meni Ben-Dror, a central figure whose judgment is tested alongside Aviv Alush as Yoav, Maor Schwitzer as Malachi and Joy Rieger as Dafna. The engine of the series is the pressure of a conflict that arrives suddenly and keeps escalating, with characters trying to hold together their units, their marriages and their friendships while the front line closes in. Each episode carries the weight of the sequence of events, with hard battlefield sequences set against quieter scenes of family life and fear. The atmosphere is intense, sombre and emotionally raw, with a strong sense of dread and loss. Its shape is that of one continuous historical arc told in a single season, set in 1973 Israel and the surrounding war zones. Fans of Band of Brothers, The Night Manager and Tehran will find resonance in its grounded war storytelling and its focus on people caught inside a national catastrophe.

## Shows like Valley of Tears

- [Des vivants (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/172559)
- [Prisoners of War (2010)](https://ember.film/tv/45851)
- [We Were the Lucky Ones (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/124354)
- [When Heroes Fly (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/68526)
- [Black Space (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/97067)
- [Oxen (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/154213)
- [The Turncoat (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/85037)
- [Mossad 101 (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/59510)
- [Days of Honor (2008)](https://ember.film/tv/38738)
- [War Sailor (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/140090)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt