Best Iranian movies

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Zohre's shoes are gone; her older brother Ali lost them. They are poor, there are no shoes for Zohre until they come up with an idea: they will share one pair of shoes. School awaits.

A middle-aged Tehranian man, Mr. Badii is intent on killing himself and seeks someone to bury him after his demise. Driving around the city, the seemingly well-to-do Badii meets with numerous people, including a Muslim student, asking them to take on the job, but initially he has little luck. Eventually, Badii finds a man who is up for the task because he needs the money, but his new associate soon tries to talk him out of committing suicide.

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event—the arrest of a young man on charges that he fraudulently impersonated the well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf—as the basis for a stunning, multilayered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and existence, in which the real people from the case play themselves.

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

Turtles Can Fly tells the story of a group of young children near the Turkey-Iraq border. They clean up mines and wait for the Saddam regime to fall.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

A chaotic family is on a road trip across a rugged landscape. In the back seat, Dad has a broken leg, Mom tries to laugh when she's not holding back tears, and the youngest keeps exploding into car karaoke. Only the older brother is quiet.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

Mohammad joyfully returns to his tiny village on summer vacation from the Institute for the Blind, unaware of his widowed father's intentions to disown him in order to win the hand—and dowry—of a local woman. With the wedding swiftly approaching, Mohammad's future hangs precariously in the balance as his father struggles against his destiny, unable to see the wonder of life and love that's so clear to his son.

Set in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness," of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

An Iranian couple living in the US become trapped inside a hotel when insidious events force them to face the secrets that have come between them, in a night that never ends.

The satirical commentary on clergymen in post-revolutionary Iran. While in prison, petty criminal Reza (Parviz Parastui) comes across a clergyman, sparking a plan for escape. Reza dons his new acquaintance's clerical robes and makes a bid for freedom. He soon learns that being a clergyman brings little respect from the public. Reza travels to the outlying villages, from where he plots to escape the country. However, his plans must be put on hold when the villagers accept him into their community and expect him to perform religious duties. Will Reza's prison break transform him into an unlikely pillar of the community?

Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.

Renowned Iranian director Jafar Panahi received a 6-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from filmmaking and conducting interviews with foreign press due to his open support for the opposition party in Iran's 2009 election. In this film, which was shot secretly by Panahi's close friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and smuggled into France on a USB stick concealed inside a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes, Panahi documents his daily life under house arrest as he awaits a decision on his appeal.

Several people try to take advantage of a little girl's innocence to hustle money her mom gave to her to buy a goldfish with.

After their father dies, a family of five children are forced to survive on their own in a Kurdish village on the border of Iran and Iraq.

A former captain, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, lives with his daughter in a humble house located by the sea. Together, they live an isolated life and have to confront the challenges of a harsh life. Despite the captain’s deep desire to be a devoted and caring father, he finds himself unable to fulfill his role and connect with his daughter in the way that he longs to. One morning, their lives change forever when an unforeseen event occurs. Whether this event proves to be a newfound source of hope or an additional burden remains to be seen.

Muhammad: The Messenger of God is an 2015 Iranian film directed by Majid Majidi. The story revolves around the childhood of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The film marks Iran's biggest-budget production to date and is the first part of the planned trilogy on the life of the Prophet. Barring a few scenes filmed in South Africa, the majority of the filming was done at a colossal set created in the city of Qom near Tehran. The film was officially announced in October 2011 and its filming was completed by 2013. The cinematography is done by Vittorio Storaro and film score is composed by A. R. Rahman. The film was selected for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Oscar ceremony in 2016, but was excluded from the short list.

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

The story of young Afghan girls learning to read, write and skateboard in Kabul.

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter's hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

A collection of 24 short four-and-a-half minutes films inspired by still images, including paintings and photographs. An experimental project made by filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami in the last three years of his life.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

The story of 12-year-old Ali and his three friends. Together they work hard to survive and support their families, doing small jobs in a garage and committing petty crimes to make fast money. In a turn of events that seems miraculous, Ali is entrusted to find hidden treasure underground. He recruits his gang, but first, to gain access to the tunnel, the children must enroll at the Sun School, a charitable institution that tries to educate street kids and child laborers, close to where the treasure is located.

Kaveh Nariman is a Doctor in the medical examiner's office. One day at his work he meets a corpse which is very familiar to him.

In 1967, an old prisoner in southern Iran is being evacuated because of the proximity to the city's new airport. The head of the prison, Major Nemat Jahed, and his agents are busy transferring prisoners to the new prison, until ...

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.

An old villager deeply in love with his cow goes to the capital for a while. While he's there, the cow dies and now the villagers are afraid of his possible reaction to it when he returns.

Iranian musicians Negar and Ashkan look for band members to play at a London concert ... and the visa that allows them to leave Tehran to do so.

Pizza man Hussein is a daily witnesses to the unjust distribution of wealth in his native Iran. One day, he finds a purse filled with shockingly expensive receipts from an upscale jewelry store. He attempts to bring the purse back to the store, but because of his working-class attire, he's not allowed inside. Then, during a delivery, a rich man invites Hussein into his extravagant mansion – an event that spurs Hussein to make a desperate bid for wealth.

When a young girl's mother doesn't meet her after school, she tries to navigate the streets of Tehran by herself.

An Iranian girl unfolds her school memories through the wrinkles and fabrics of her old uniform. She admits that she's nothing but a "female" and explores the roots of this idea in her school years.

After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.

An elderly couple go about their routine of cleaning their gabbeh, while bickering gently with each other. Magically, a young woman appears, helping the two clean the rug. This young woman belongs to the clan whose history is depicted in the design of the gabbeh, and the rug recounts the story of the courtship of the young woman by a stranger from the clan.

Mina's life is turned upside down when she learns that her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, so she starts a silent battle against a cynical system for her own and her daughter's sake.

Akbar, 18, has been held in a rehabilitation centre for committing murder at the age of sixteen. Now, Akbar is transferred to prison to await the day of his execution. A’la, a friend of Akbar, tries desperately to gain the consent of Akbar’s plaintiff so as to stop the execution.

Reza, residing in the wilderness with his wife and son, lives a retired life and devotes himself to freshwater fish farming. A private company that has targets on his land is ready to do anything to force him to sell.

The story is about a family of three brothers and a sister in the suburbs of the city's poverty. Their elder brother owns a drug-producing kitchen and presides over the group, like a shepherd for sheep.

Shakib is a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago. Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set of a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

The first lady of a noble house has died and now there is conflict between the remainders for taking over her heritage.

Ali is son of a well-off family who plays the santoor (an Iranian instrument) and has earned some reputation through his concerts and teaching music but is rejected by his family because of this profession, which they despise. He falls for one of his music students but after a short blissful period, life doesn't treat him as well as before and also his addiction agonizes him in his numbered days before redemption.

Kurdish-Iranian poet Sahel has just been released from a thirty-year prison sentence in Iran. Now the one thing keeping him going is the thought of finding his wife, who thinks he's been dead for over twenty years.

This film tells the story of a semi modern Iranian couple, who are trying to fight the old beliefs and old generation. This is a failing battle because the man is not strong enough.

A group of students travel to a remote region to participate in a kite-flying event. Next to their camp by the lakeside, they find a restaurant with cooks that treat the students with suspicion. Bizarre events lead to a complicated situation, from which the students cannot escape.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

After leaking of a video of her class in a women only swimming pool, Parvaneh is brutally murdered by her husband, Hashem, who seeks a way to redeem his reputation and dignity as the godfather in the neighborhood. Hashem’s brother, Hojat, embarks a journey into the labyrinths of underground in Tehran to find out who is responsible for this dirty game. Once wrongfully accused for smuggling drugs, he returns to the world of crime to trace his brother’s rivals…

Rahman is the custodian of a company and the doctor has told him that he will die soon. He decides to with the help of his friend Anush make a plan and inherit some money for his family.

A government bodyguard protects a politician from a suicide bomber, and then begins to question his dedication to his job.

Maryam (Negar Javaherian) and Reza (Shahab Hosseini) are different from other people, it's not just a simple difference, but a very big difference. They must try to prove to others they have solved the big difference with the miracle of love ...

The thief accidentally notices the secret of a girl and tries to exploit this position ....

Hours before her scheduled marriage, young bride-to-be Shirin murders a man. The crime is completely unexpected and goes against everything we know of her. We learn that Shirin has had two unsuccessful marriage attempts, and is deeply psychologically troubled. But as the dark secrets in her past are slowly revealed, exposing a childhood of neglect, abuse, and the tragic history of two previous failed marriages, the characters must face their own battles with justice, retribution, and morality.

Khorshid, a blind child growing up in Tajikistan, is constantly distracted by music and sounds. This frequently causes him to be late to his job as an instrument tuner even though he runs the risk of being fired at a time when his family is in danger of being evicted from their house.