Jafar Panahi has spent much of the last fifteen years in jail and when he hasn’t been imprisoned he has not been allowed to leave Iran. Even while banned from filmmaking, he has refused to let his government silence him, finding ways to make films secretly and smuggling them out of the country. In 2022 he was arrested again while protesting the arrest of fellow filmmakers, and was sentenced to six years. Thanks to international outcry he was released and allowed again to travel and make films.

“A BEAUTIFUL FILM. I have never seen anything quite like it.”
– Martin Scorsese

“ENDLESSLY FASCINATING AND EXTRAORDINARILY POWERFUL.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture

CRITIC’S PICK. “Searing… A circuitous, moving, and unexpectedly funny story of resistance… A cry from the heart, a comic howl in the dark and one of the year’s essential movies.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“[A] REVENGE ROAD TRIP MASTERPIECE… A bristling, brilliant piece of work: a swift and rollicking comic thriller whose autobiographical subtext lies under the surface, like an engine beneath a chassis, or a body stowed in the trunk.”
– Adam Nayman, The New Republic

“ONE OF THE MOST DECEPTIVELY PROFOUND MOVIES OF THE YEAR… A truly remarkable parable about empathy, mercy, righteousness, regret, and unfulfilled rage.”
– David Fear, Rolling Stone

“Panahi at his most direct, his most engrossing, and his most furiously political… It is, bluntly and unabashedly, rip-roaring entertainment, propelled by flurries of comedy, bursts of emotion, and sidelong jolts of social critique… Panahi summons all the medium’s expressive powers to deliver a fierce, unambiguous denunciation of authoritarian regimes the world over.”
– Justin Chang, The New Yorker

“Cannes’ best movie… [Panahi is] back with a vengeance… It’s a movie of righteous fury and bleak comedy, a howl of anguish that ends in a sputtering laugh.”
– Sam Adams, Slate

★★★★★ “MASTERFUL. Politically charged and darkly hilarious…A journey through a country whose trauma still needs healing before healthy new bonds can begin to form.”
– Phil de Semlyen, Time Out

“A raw and blistering moral thriller.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire