Iranian Cinema — Against the Wall
Every frame a negotiation with the state.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig — Dane-ye Anjir-e Ma’abed 2024 · Mohammad Rasoulof · Special Jury Prize · Cannes ⭐⭐⭐⭐
An investigating judge in Tehran is on the verge of promotion into the Islamic Revolutionary Court when his service pistol goes missing at home. Paranoia sets in. He begins to suspect his own wife and daughters, who have been watching footage of the Mahsa Amini protests on their phones. Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison, flogging, and confiscation of his property. He fled Iran on foot through the mountains days before the film’s Cannes premiere. The state’s cruelty only proved the film’s argument. One of the most important films of the decade — and the one that cost its director the most to make.
Tatami 2023 · Zar Amir Ebrahimi · Guy Nattiv · Iranian-Israeli Co-production ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Iranian judoka Leila and her coach Maryam arrive at the World Judo Championships with a real chance at gold. Midway through the tournament, a message arrives from the Islamic Republic: fake an injury, withdraw, or be branded a traitor. Shot in black and white with the urgency of a thriller. The first Iranian-Israeli cinematic collaboration, made in secret. Every match Leila wins tightens the noose. Sport as the purest form of political resistance, where your body is the only argument left.
Holy Spider — Ankabut-e Moqaddas 2022 · Ali Abbasi · Best Actress · Cannes · Zar Amir Ebrahimi ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who murdered sixteen women in the holy city of Mashhad between 2000 and 2001 — and was widely celebrated as a vigilante cleansing the streets of sin. Shot in secret in Jordan after being refused permission to film in Iran. Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays the journalist investigating the case and won Best Actress at Cannes. The horror is not the killer. The horror is how many people agreed with him.
No Date, No Signature — Bedoone Tarikh, Bedoone Emza 2017 · Vahid Jalilvand · Best Director · Venice ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Forensic pathologist Dr. Nariman’s car strikes a motorcyclist’s eight-year-old son in a minor accident. He offers help; the father, proud and suspicious, refuses. A few days later the boy dies, and the cause of death lands on Nariman’s desk. A moral thriller built from silence and professional distance — the gap between what a man knows and what he can bring himself to do. Won Best Director at Venice.
A Man of Integrity — Lerd 2017 · Mohammad Rasoulof · Un Certain Regard · Cannes ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Reza runs a small goldfish farm in rural Iran and refuses to bow to a powerful local company that has effectively purchased the police, the courts, and every institution around him. What follows is a portrait of institutional corruption so total it becomes almost abstract — not a conspiracy but a climate, the air everyone breathes. This is a film about what it costs to remain a decent person in a system that has decided decency is a threat. My highest-rated film on this list.
The Salesman — Forushande 2016 · Asghar Farhadi · Oscar · Best International Film · Best Screenplay · Cannes ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Emad and Rana are performing in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in Tehran when their apartment building begins to collapse. In their new flat — previously occupied by a woman the neighbors speak about in low voices — someone enters one night while Rana is alone. Farhadi uses Miller’s play as a mirror: Willy Loman’s delusions echo Emad’s, and the tragedy is the same — a man protecting an image of himself that was never quite true.
A Separation — Jodāyi-e Nāder az Simin 2011 · Asghar Farhadi · Oscar · Best International Film · Golden Bear · Berlin ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and their daughter for a better life abroad. Nader refuses — he won’t abandon his father, who has Alzheimer’s. When Simin moves out, Nader hires a deeply religious woman to care for his father. He doesn’t know she is four months pregnant. What begins as a domestic dispute becomes a collision of class, faith, and moral ambiguity that implicates everyone in the room. Farhadi refuses to assign blame. One of the greatest films of the 21st century.
About Elly — Darbāre-ye Ellī 2009 · Asghar Farhadi · Silver Bear · Berlin ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A group of old college friends reunite for a weekend by the Caspian Sea. Sepideh has brought along Elly, her daughter’s kindergarten teacher, hoping to set her up with recently divorced Ahmad. Then Elly disappears. What follows is a slow, suffocating unraveling — the friendliness fades, the finger-pointing begins, and one small lie triggers a moral collapse that leaves no one clean. Farhadi’s most Hitchcockian film, and arguably his most elegant.