What is the best Asghar Farhadi film?

Rank the films of Asghar Farhadi — Iran's two-time Academy Award-winning director whose morally complex dramas have made him one of cinema's most celebrated voices.

Dancing in the Dust

Farhadi's 2003 debut feature, a tense rural drama about a young man forced to marry under pressure from his family, establishing his gift for moral ambiguity.

1/10

Beautiful City

A 2004 Iranian drama centered on a teenager on death row and the desperate efforts of his friend and sister to secure his pardon before execution.

2/10

Fireworks Wednesday

Farhadi's 2006 domestic thriller in which a housekeeper becomes entangled in a couple's crumbling marriage amid the noise of Iranian New Year celebrations.

3/10

About Elly

The 2009 mystery about a group trip to the Caspian Sea that turns tragic, brilliantly dissecting how ordinary people construct lies to protect their reputations.

4/10

A Separation

Farhadi's 2011 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, a morally complex divorce drama that became the first Iranian film to win the Oscar.

5/10

The Past

Farhadi's 2013 French-language drama about an Iranian man returning to Paris to finalize his divorce, discovering layered secrets that unravel everyone around him.

6/10

The Salesman

Winner of a second Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this 2016 Tehran-set drama parallels Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman with a harrowing assault storyline.

7/10

Everybody Knows

Farhadi's 2018 Spanish-language thriller starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, about a kidnapping that tears apart a tight-knit community's long-buried secrets.

8/10

A Hero

The 2021 Grand Prix winner at Cannes, a razor-sharp moral tale about an imprisoned man's act of honesty that spirals into an unexpected public relations crisis.

9/10

Parallel Tales

Farhadi's 2026 French-language film premiering at Cannes, assembling an all-star cast including Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve in his most ambitious European work.

10/10