A list of the best Iranian films that watching them will make a pleasant and unique memory for a foreign audience.
This list includes the best Iranian films made by young and tasteful directors. Most of the films on this list belong to independent Iranian cinema, and a number of them were not shown in public inside Iran and were confiscated. Also, some of the directors of these films were arrested and imprisoned by the Iranian government, although their films had won many awards and positive reviews at international festivals.
Some of these films also faced a lot of censorship in various fields of production because they dealt with issues that the government was not interested in. At the time of its release, these films were shown in the worst possible time and in the lowest cinemas, or they were not allowed to be shown at all.
Some of these films also faced a lot of censorship in various fields of production because they dealt with issues that the government was not interested in. At the time of its release, these films were shown in the worst possible time and in the lowest cinemas, or they were not allowed to be shown at all.
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- DirectorEhsan AbdipurStarsMeysam FarhoumandHossein GhofliArmen HovanesianThe story of a boy who goes to UN to deliver the message of friendship and peace of Iranians to the world and defend their rights. This happens when a boy from a village around the nuclear plan of Bushehr becomes friend with the son of one of the Russian engineers who work there which leads him to new adventures.
- DirectorEhsan AbdipurStarsHadis Chehreh-PardazTumaj PoormoradGholamreza FarajzadehIt is a 3 episodic film about youth, immigration and the social problems of nowadays Iran.
- DirectorEhsan AbdipurStarsMostafa ZamaniPegah AhangaraniReza YazdaniFour youngsters Fayez and his sister Atena with Hamzeh and Masih have a boring ordinary life. But when Shirzad is back after 5 years from a trip over seas with a french ship everything is changing for them.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsHassan PourshiraziYounes GhazaliMohammad RabbaniRahmat has been asked to meet the inhabitants of these islands to collect their tears. Although for years people have been giving their tears to Rahmat, no one knows exactly what he has been doing with them.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsLeila ZareFereshteh Sadre OrafaiyShahab HosseiniStory of a young lawyer in Tehran in search of a visa to leave the country, which is what Mohammad Rasoulof did during the winter of 2010/11.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsReza AkhlaghiradSoudabeh BeizaeeNasim AdabiA drama about corruption and injustice in Iranian society. You are the oppressed, or you have to join the oppressor to survive.
- DirectorDariush MehrjuiStarsKhosro ShakibaiEzzatolah EntezamiHossein SarsharHamoon's wife is leaving him. He is also unsuccessfully trying to finish his Ph. D. thesis. He is forced to reexamine his life. In a series of flashbacks and dreams, Hamoon tries to figure out what he did wrong.
- DirectorDariush MehrjuiStarsEzzatolah EntezamiMahin ShahabiAli NasirianAn 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.
- DirectorBahram BeyzaieStarsMozhdeh ShamsaiMajid MozaffariReza KianianWhile the post-revolution frenzy is at its peak in Iran, a woman attempts to help her secretive husband out of jail by settling his debts for him on her own.
- DirectorBahram BeyzaieStarsSusan TaslimiParviz PoorhosseiniAdnan AfravianAn Iranian boy is lost after fleeing home for his life; his family has been killed during the Iran-Iraq war. He's saved and trained by a middle-aged woman.
- DirectorAli HatamiStarsRogheyeh Chehreh-AzadMohamad Ali KeshavarzFarimah FarjamiHow a mother acts in the hardest parts of her, and her children's lives.
- DirectorJafar PanahiStarsBehnaz JafariJafar PanahiMarziyeh RezaeiThree actresses at different stages of their career. One from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one popular star of today known throughout the country, and a young girl longing to attend a drama conservatory.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsAnonymousAnonymousM. Ali NazarianKhosrow and Morteza set out on a mission to kill someone. The assassination ought to be arranged as a suicide. At the last minute however, they are obliged to change their initial plans...
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsFatemeh BijanZalkla BijanAli Reza MahdaviyanAlireza Shalikaran is serving time in prison for theft. He is a troublesome figure, trying as he does to escape from the prison and committing acts of violence. A handful he may be, but he finds a caring figure in the prison warden. The warden puts forward the case that Alireza might settle down when he finds a wife. Yet how is Alireza to find a wife when he is enclosed within the prison walls? The task of finding a marriage partner falls to Alireza's mother, who is also in prison. She comes across a young woman, who, though incarcerated for drug-related offences, is respectable. Will the match work? An interesting look at the limits of prison life.
- DirectorMohammad RasoulofStarsBaran RasoulofZhila ShahiMahtab ServatiThe four stories that are variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty that ask to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats.
- DirectorAshkan NajafiStarsRastin HajbabaeeMajid PotkiFariba TalebiAli lives in southern Tehran with his son. In order to please his sons love for cars, he borrows money. Just as he has gathered enough, massive inflation crosses his plans. Ali is Deeply saddened, and struggles to keep the promise.
- DirectorJafar PanahiStarsSima Mobarak-ShahiShayesteh IraniAyda SadeqiThe struggle of women in a country that excludes them from entering stadiums.
- DirectorAmir NaderiStarsMadjid NiroumandAbbas NazeriMusa TorkizadehAfter enrolling in a school, an impoverished boy finds conflict with his classmates and decides to compete to earn their respect.
- DirectorVahid VakilifarStarsAbdolrassoul DaryapeymaHossein FarzizadeGhobad RahmaninassabGhobad, Jahan and Nezam, three men in pursuit of a better life, leave home and head for Oslouyeh, one of the richest gas producing regions in the south of Iran. However, the difficult living conditions together with the low salaries oblige them and others to find shelter along the disused sections of the pipeline. The group of workers manage to create an atmosphere of camaraderie despite the difficult conditions with which they are faced.
- DirectorMahnaz MohammadiStarsRaha KhodayariMahan NasiriReza BehbudiA widow who works tirelessly at a failing factory in sanctions-gripped Iran receives a marriage proposal that could mean financial security, but could also tear her family apart.
- DirectorVahid VakilifarJonas is a single man cut off from the disintegrating world around him. His world is that of hangman in a system where governing non-entities forfeit people's lives. He goes forth in a world of myths, like Jonas the prophet in the guts of a whale, seeking a safe haven within which he may overcome the suffering created in the real world by his own personal penumbra.
- DirectorVahid VakilifarStarsMohammad RabbanipourAs darkness falls a solitary motorcyclist rides through the far flung streets of Tehran. Purportedly on a mission of pest control, he is tormented by the ever present electromagnetic fields that daily raise his body temperature. In order to protect his hypersensitive body from the pervasive waves, he has concocted an aluminum jumpsuit unseen beneath abundant clothing.
- DirectorKaweh ModiriStarsJasmin TabatabaiMohsen NamjooShabnam Toloui37 years after her daughter was executed in Iran, Haleh finds the woman who betrayed her. The traitor, now a loving mother herself and just arrived in the Netherlands, does not recognize Haleh and trusts her as an older and wiser countryman. While Haleh is plotting her revenge, she gets to know the perpetrator better than she would like to.
- DirectorKaweh ModiriStarsSohrab BayatLily SzramkoEddie PatonThe people in Forres don't work. Between 9 and 5, they dissolve into the pubs, where the light shines as a warm glow in their midst. Then the stranger Bodkin arrives into town. He has come to this remote corner of Europe to hide and lie low. The film blends fiction, documentary and a literary essay of a man looking for a fresh start, aiming for a fair chance. In his pure and existential aim to belong somewhere, he is a hazard to himself and his surrounding.
- DirectorKaveh TehraniStarsReza BrojerdiNarges RashidiSarina AshkpourMina and Saeed live a stressful life in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Being a woman in Iran is not particularly easy and Mina sees a future for the family elsewhere. She wants to move abroad, but Saeed then invents a device that places the responsibility for the hijab where it belongs - with the men whose gaze women need protection from.
- DirectorBani KhoshnoudiStarsArash MarandiEdwarda GurrolaLuis AlbertiRamin flees from persecution in Iran and ends up living in the limbo of exile, far from everything he knows, in the tropical port town of Veracruz, Mexico.
- DirectorBabak JalaliStarsLars UlrichBella WardaLarry LavertyA brilliant and misunderstood Iranian writer struggles to pursue his ambitious goal of bringing together Metallica and Kabul Dreams, Afghanistan's first rock band.
- DirectorBabak JalaliStarsRod RondeauxFlorence C.M. KleinWilma PellyA Native American family struggles with violence and alcohol, when news reaches the Reservation that one of them has died during military service in Afghanistan.
- DirectorBabak JalaliStarsKhajeh Araz DordiMahmoud KaltehAbolfazl KarimiIn this debut feature written and directed by Iranian born Babak Jalali, Frontier Blues features 4 intertwined stories all set in Irans northern frontier with Turkmenistan, a region that has long been neglected in Iranian cinema, interesting not only for its magnificent, forlorn landscape but also for its multi-ethnic population of Persians, Turkmens and Kazakhs. Featuring non-professional actors from the northern region of Iran, Jalalis film looks at fragments of the everyday existence of a varied collection of characters from the region.