The Best Iranian Films to Stream
If you ask me where the best cinema on Earth is being made, Iran is always somewhere near the top of my answer. For decades now, often working under censorship, travel bans and the constant threat of arrest, Iranian film-makers have produced some of the most humane, morally searching and quietly devastating films anywhere, and they have done it with a fraction of the resources Hollywood takes for granted. If you have never dipped into it, you are in for one of the great discoveries in world cinema.
This is my pick of the Iranian films I have reviewed, best first, drawn from an archive where I have set out to watch a film from every country on Earth. Every title below links to my full review, where you will find more on the film and where to watch it. Think of this as a door in: start at the top, or pick whichever premise grabs you, and work your way down.
A Separation (2011)
Asghar Farhadi's masterpiece, and the film I would hand anyone who has never seen an Iranian picture in their life. A marriage falls apart, a lie spirals out of control, and a whole society's fault lines (class, gender, faith, truth itself) open up beneath an ordinary domestic dispute. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and deserved every ounce of it. Four stars, and the perfect place to start.
Salaam Cinema (1995)
Mohsen Makhmalbaf puts out a casting call, thousands turn up, and what unfolds is a wild, funny, sometimes cruel meditation on cinema, power and the hunger to be seen. It blurs documentary and fiction until you stop being able to tell them apart, which is exactly the point. One of the most fascinating things I have watched from Iran, and four stars.
A Moment of Innocence (1996)
Makhmalbaf again, restaging a real moment from his own youth, when as a young revolutionary he stabbed a policeman, by casting and directing the now-older policeman alongside him. It is tender, playful and quietly profound about memory, forgiveness and the stories we tell to survive our own pasts. A genuine four-star gem that deserves far more eyes.
Turtles Can Fly (2004)
Bahman Ghobadi's film, set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi border on the eve of the American invasion, is one of the most heartbreaking things on this list. Children clear landmines for scrap, a boy nicknamed Satellite rigs up a dish so the camp can watch the news, and innocence is ground down in real time. Devastating, essential, and four stars.
The Salesman (2016)
A second Oscar winner from Farhadi, and a slow, coiling drama about a couple whose marriage and sense of justice are tested after a violent intrusion into their home. It builds with the patience of a stage play (the pair are rehearsing Death of a Salesman throughout) towards a morally knotty climax that refuses to let anyone off easily. Three and a half stars.
It Was Just an Accident (2025)
The newest film here, and proof the tradition is very much alive: Jafar Panahi's latest, made in defiance of everything the authorities have thrown at him. A chance encounter forces a group of former prisoners to confront a man they believe tortured them, and a darkly comic premise curdles into something genuinely unsettling about vengeance and certainty. Three and a half stars, and a vital watch.
This Is Not a Film (2011)
Under house arrest and banned from making films, Panahi made this anyway, on an iPhone and a camcorder, and had it smuggled out of the country on a USB stick hidden in a cake. It is part diary, part act of defiance, part aching portrait of an artist forbidden from doing the one thing he was born to do. As a document of creativity under repression, nothing else is quite like it. Three and a half stars.
The House Is Black (1963)
The oldest and the shortest, but a cornerstone. Forugh Farrokhzad, one of Iran's great poets, spent twelve days in a leper colony and came out with a twenty-minute film of extraordinary tenderness and beauty that effectively lit the fuse for the entire Iranian New Wave. Three stars from me, but its importance is immeasurable, and it is unlike anything else you will see.
That is my starting eight. There is more Iranian cinema in the archive beyond this list, including work from Abbas Kiarostami, and I add to it all the time, so you can always browse the full every-country map to see what else is there. If even one of these films sends you down the rabbit hole, this guide has done its job. Iranian cinema rewards the curious like almost nothing else, so pick one, press play, and let me know what you make of it.
