Discover the best of Iranian cinema, film, and television

Discover the definitive list of popular and critically-acclaimed movies and TV shows from Iran. Find your next binge-watch, streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

The cinema of Iran

Iranian cinema is one of the most poetic and celebrated film cultures in the world, a place where small, everyday stories reveal profound universal truths. Its modern renaissance in the 1980s and 90s introduced the world to the minimalist genius of masters like Abbas Kiarostami. His philosophical, beautiful films blurred the lines between fiction and reality and won the highest prize at Cannes. This era also gave us the heartfelt purity of Majid Majidi’s Oscar-nominated Children of Heaven. This incredible legacy has continued with directors like the masterful Asghar Farhadi, who captivated global audiences and won two Academy Awards with his tense, morally complex dramas A Separation and The Salesman. At the same time, filmmakers like Jafar Panahi have become symbols of artistic courage, creating brilliant, defiant films against all odds. What makes Iranian cinema so special is its profound humanism. It is often a cinema of small moments and big questions, frequently seen through the eyes of children, who navigate the world with a startling clarity. It’s a cinema that has become legendary for its poetic intelligence, finding ingenious ways to explore complex social themes through allegory and suggestion. It speaks a universal language of empathy.

Best Iranian series

  • Poster for The Frog

    The Frog 2020

    Ramin plans a robbery on his childhood classmate Noori who has become a mysterious rich man and that's just a beginning of a brutal journey.

    75
  • Poster for Prophet Joseph

    Prophet Joseph 2009

    This story basically follows the most important happenings in Prophet Josephs life, from the view of muslims. The most important happenings are: 1. his travel to egypt 2. his rise and growing up in Egypt 3. his life problems when his "owner" Zuleikha falls in love with him and wants him to return the love to him. 4. his stay in prison, and how he reforms the prisoners. 5. his return by the side of the Pharao. 6. his uprising to the side of the pharao as his advisor. 7. his brothers coming to egypt, and how he decides to make them regret their mistakes so they can receive forgivness, and peace. 8. his reunion with his family after more than 20 years.

    75
  • Poster for Shahrzad

    Shahrzad 2015

    In Iran, Tehran, circa 1953, two lovers Shahrzad and Farhad come together during a fraught political climate.

    76
  • Poster for The Lion Skin

    The Lion Skin 2022

    Naeem, who has endured 15 years in prison for his daughter's love, faces a major crisis after his release to see her.

    77
  • Poster for Shabhaye Barareh

    Shabhaye Barareh 2005

    Set in late 40s in Iran. When a politically exiled man (Ansari) meets strange rural people with weird actions and accents in a village called Barareh.

    67
  • Poster for Bitter Coffee

    Bitter Coffee 2010

    The series begins with history teacher Nima Zande-Karimi (Siamak Ansari) realizing that his extensive research on Persian and world history is of little use to financing his day-to-day life. He is about to leave Tehran for good to go back to his hometown by the name of Darab, when he comes across young university student Roya Atabaki (Sahar Jafari-Jozani) who is researching for her final year dissertation, which is regarding the period 1198–1203, that is said to be a period of turmoil for Iran's ruling elite. Such turmoil that, very few books are available on that period for Roya's research. It is then that Nima receives an anonymous telephone call, which leads him to Niavaran Palace (currently a museum), where he is told to have a coffee and wait. The coffee (which is bitter) is ready and he duly drinks it, his sight becomes hazy, and when he manages to refocus he is in the year 1201 (1822 AD), and the story develops therein.

    64

Best Iranian movies

  • Poster for A Separation

    A Separation 2011

    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.

    80
  • Poster for The Salesman

    The Salesman 2016

    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.

    75
  • Poster for Children of Heaven

    Children of Heaven 1997

    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.

    79
  • Poster for Taste of Cherry

    Taste of Cherry 1997

    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.

    76
  • Poster for About Elly

    About Elly 2009

    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.

    76
  • Poster for Close-Up

    Close-Up 1990

    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.

    80