Iranian
see all genres ›One of those cases in which the celluloid art has flourished despite (or even as a partial consequence of) strict, censorious government control, Iran has been considered one of the world's great producers of award-winning cinema since the late-1980s when directors like Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf first made their mark internationally (and, later, Makhmalbaf's filmmaking daughters Samira and Hana). Often austere, naturalistic and political (if you read between the lines), these art-house features are very different from the seldom-exported commercial movies that most Iranian audiences prefer.
Watch Iranian Films
Genres / International / Middle Eastern / Iranian
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The White Meadows
The otherworldly salt islands of Iran’s Lake Urmia provide the fittingly surreal setting for director Mohammad Rasoulof’s mesmerizing fable. "I've come to listen to people’s heartaches and take away tears," says an old boatman as he rows among the gray waters and white salt...Watch Movie
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Fireworks Wednesday
From the two-time Academy Award® winning director of THE SALESMAN and A SEPARATION, Asghar Farhadi's FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY is a gripping, suspenseful drama – a story of marital intrigue and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Persian New Year. Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is...Watch Movie
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Plaisir d'amour en Iran
How can you talk about love when you're looking at a mosque or talk about architecture in bed? This short film is a variation on the amorous outpourings of Pomme and Ali Darius (in ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN'T) but it could also be any couple's dream in such an ideal setting...Watch Movie
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Remembering the Pentagons
REMEMBERING THE PENTAGONS is a slow, rhythmic journey into filmmaker Azadeh Navai's earliest childhood memories. With an old 16mm Bolex and a hand-made pinhole camera, Navai returns to Tehran and Esfahan, Iran, where the perceptions and recollections of places, emotions and...Watch Movie
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Closed Curtain
Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi bravely defies his twenty-year ban on filmmaking yet again, and stunningly, he has created a masterpiece that not only lives up to his earlier, pre-ban work but surpasses it in many ways. In a secluded house by the sea with the curtains shut, a...Watch Movie
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The Yellow Curtain
In the 1970s, Iran seemingly had everything. U.S. President, Jimmy Carter called it "an island of stability" in a visit. Yet, only two years later, in the winter of 1979, a revolution occurred. The Shah of Iran was overthrown and the Islamic Republic was established. It was a...Watch Movie
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Border Cafe
In a village near Iran's border with Turkey, Reyhan, a young woman with two children, faces a difficult choice when her husband dies. Instead of agreeing to marry her brother-in-law, as required by traditional law, she chooses to support her family by re-opening her late husband's restaurant....Watch Movie
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Shirin
A vibrant, daringly original work from Abbas Kiarostami, SHIRIN is the flowering of an experimentalist streak that’s been evident in many of the director’s most well-known features, including CLOSE-UP, TASTE OF CHERRY and others. Ostensibly an adaptation of a 12th century Persian poem about a...Watch Movie
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Bakhtiari Migration
BAKHTIARI MIGRATION documents (in visually splendid detail) the semi-annual journey, taking roughy five weeks and covering two-hundred torturous miles. Half a million people and millions of sheep and goats cross the rugged Zagros mountains in southern Iran twice yearly to move...Watch Movie
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Jews of Iran
The Jewish community in Iran dates back over 2,700 years. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 resulted in the departure of many Jews from the country. JEWS OF IRAN focuses on Jews currently living in Iran and on recent historic developments. The Jews in Tehran, young and old, speak about different...Watch Movie
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The Cow
Influenced by Italian Neorealism, THE COW has the beauty and simplicity associated with the great films of that movement. In a small village in Iran, Hassan cherishes his cow more than anything in the world. While he is away, the cow mysteriously dies, and the villagers protectively try to...Watch Movie
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The Fish Fall in Love
Atieh's singular passion is food, and her small but popular restaurant on the sleepy Caspian coast is her pride and joy. But when Aziz, her former fiancé, appears after a twenty-year absence, the women believe he has intentions of closing the restaurant, so Atieh prepares his...Watch Movie
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Those Three
Just one day from completing their military training, three conscripts desert their camp and escape into the frozen wilderness of Northern Iran. Travel through this mountainous, snowbound region is dangerous, but THOSE THREE opt for the independence it promises and must now forge their way...Watch Movie
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About 111 Girls
A government official, carrying a message from Iran's president, travels across Iranian Kurdistan with his driver and a young guide on a mission to stop 111 young Kurdish women from committing suicide in protest against conditions that have left them spinsters. Racing against the clock, they...Watch Movie
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Women's Prison
This taboo-breaking film is based on Manijeh Hekmat's long fieldwork among women prisoners in Iran. She depicts the lives of Iran's lost generation in the two decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution using the claustrophobic life of women behind bars as a metaphor for the entire society. Her...Watch Movie
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Children of the Prophet
CHILDREN OF THE PROPHET follows four different groups of people in today's Teheran. For non-orthodox youngsters, the Moharram is mainly an opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex. A middle-aged woman and her female friends put their energy into the preparation of an...Watch Movie
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Modest Reception
Leila and Kaveh are a mysterious pair from Tehran, traveling the mountainous countryside in their Lexus coupe to push big bags of money on the locals. This turns out to be not so easy, but fascinating to watch, as the cagey couple invent increasingly brazen stratagems to place...Watch Movie
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Mourning
From a black screen, a man and a woman are heard arguing and hurrying away from a house. Afterward, the screen radiates brilliant green countryside, traversed by a small black car. Subtitles relay a conversation by another man and woman, but now we hear no voices. Kamran and Sharareh, a deaf...Watch Movie
