Jafar Panahi's Cinema

Notes and Ranking of all 11 features of Jafar Panahi to date:

The White Balloon (1995)

The Mirror (1997)

The Circle (2000)

Crimson Gold (2003)

Offside (2006)

This Is Not a Film (2011)

Closed Curtain (2013)

Taxi (2015)

3 Faces (2018)

No Bears (2022)

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

Jafar Panahi’s 2025 Palme d’Or win at Cannes for It Was Just an Accident means he is only one of four directors (Robert Altman, Michelangelo Antonioni and Henri-Georges Clouzot being the other 3) to have won top awards at Berlin, Cannes and Venice. Panahi won the Golden Bear at Berlin with Taxi in 2015 and the Golden Lion at Venice in 2000 with The Circle. The fact that two of have these awards have come in the last decade is incredible especially after Panahi’s 2010 sentence in Iran which raised fears that he may never direct a film again. However, he and his entire film crew and cast have shown incredible courage and creativity to not only get films made but also getting them released out of Iran.

Jafar Panahi started running into problems with authorities from his earlier films two decades ago. The reason for that stems from Panahi depicting social topics and plight of characters (especially women) who don’t have a voice. In this brilliant interview with Doug Saunders (from back in 2007) Panahi mentions reveals the following:

Doug Saunders: Has censorship been a constant through your filmmaking career, or is it more intense today?

Jafar Panahi: I started my career making children’s films, and while doing that I had no problems with censors. As soon as I started making feature films, it all started and I had problems.

Really, making children’s films was a way of saying what we wanted to say in adult films. But because of the circumstances, we chose that format because it was less prone to censorship at the time.

It just got worse and worse as time went on, and one could say that the past year or year and a half have been the darkest age for filmmaking in Iran.

Since I make a film once every 3 years, I haven’t had a chance to present the current administration with a project. But everyone around me, my friends, has had experiences that are quite awful.

Panahi goes on to mention:

In 2003 I was arrested by the information ministry; they kept me and interrogated me for four hours. In the end their question was: ‘Why don’t you just leave this country and work outside of Iran, given that the core of your supporters live there?’

Panahi’s stand back then and even now is staying in Iran and making films. His films are some of the finest made in the history of cinema despite working with barriers and restrictions other filmmakers may never encounter.

Ranking his films feels inappropriate. All 11 of his features are remarkable works of art. Each of them present fascinating ideas to ponder upon and highlight perspective that one may not think of. So this ranking is a personal preference, one that has shifted over the years and will likely still change.

Ranking all 11 of Jafar Panahi’s films:

1. Crimson Gold (2003, Director Jafar Panahi, Writer Abbas Kiarostami)

This brilliant film about class difference is also one of the most incredible cinematic collaborations in history with Panahi directing a story written by maestro Abbas Kiarostami.

Ali and Hussein are average men who go about making an honest living by working as pizza delivery men. When Ali finds an expensive purse, he comes across a receipt for an Italian necklace which costs 75 million Tomans. The two are shocked that someone could spend so much on a necklace and decide to visit the jewellery store and look at what such an expensive necklace looks like. But the jeweler refuses to let the two in because of how they are dressed. Therefore, a few days later, Hussein dresses smartly and returns to the store with his fiancée and Ali. But even then, the same jeweler manages to find a way to get the message across that store is not for people like them. This insult eats at Hussein and results in him going over the edge.

Besides this class difference, the film manages to cover other aspects of Iranian society such as how police perceive younger people in enforcing law. The film also alludes to a time when women didn't have to cover up in Iran while also depicting attitude difference of Iranians who live abroad and return to Iran.

2. The Circle (2000)

After his first two children themed films, Panahi changed gears completely with this insightful powerful film which depicts the treatment of women in Iranian society. This ranges from the inability of women to travel without the permission (or presence) of a male figure to women not being able to speak freely or live on their own terms. Any infringements against the patriarchal society means that women find themselves thrown into prison. This film completes a circle with Panahi’s recent film It Was Just an Accident which discusses the harsh treatment that both women and men get in prison.  It is safe to assume that after The Circle, Panahi put himself on the Iranian authorities list.

3. This Is Not a Film (2011, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb/Jafar Panahi)

The first film that Panahi made after his filmmaking ban is the next evolution in his cinema as this film shows that in the hands of a talented filmmaker even a tiny, confined space can be a liberating cinematic experience. The final moments capture those magical moments that Werner Herzog has claimed happen only when the camera is left recording just a little bit longer.

4. Taxi (2015)

Taxi is the third film Jafar Panahi crafted after he was banned from making films by the Iranian Government in 2010. Like This Is Not a film, the first film Panahi made under the ban, Taxi does not appear to be a scripted film and hence, not a film also.

Taxi features Jafar Panahi driving a taxi around the streets of Tehran, picking up passengers and dropping them off at different locations. All the interactions with passengers are recorded from a camera on his dashboard, so technically, Panahi is not directing anything. However, the inclusion of smart dialogues, shift in camera angles and the presence of a few memorable passengers reveals Panahi’s brilliance. Pushed into a corner by the government, Panahi has tapped into the same creative energy as The White Balloon and Crimson Gold; films he directed before the ban. He uses a taxi as a medium to bring forth relevant discussions about society, freedom, censorship, public vs private space and even film distribution while also paying a tribute towards Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten (2002), which featured a female driver.

5. The White Balloon (1995, co-written by Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi and Parviz Shahbazi)

6. The Mirror (1997)

Jafar Panahi’s first two features The White Balloon and The Mirror are the purest examples of the exciting Iranian New Wave cinema that started making waves in the 1990s.

Both films are presented from a little child’s perspective, much like Abbas Kiarostami’s earlier films. In fact, The White Balloon is co-written by Kiarostami. In many aspects, The White Balloon and The Mirror are similar but diverge when the 4^th wall is shattered half-way through The Mirror. After that point onwards, The Mirror becomes a meta film about filmmaking echoing some aspects of Kiarostami’s Close Up.

7. It Was Just an Accident (2025)

The topic of justice and retribution feels more like that of a Mohammad Rasoulof’s film, especially The Seed of the Sacred Fig and There Is No Evil, but Panahi has mentioned in interviews the story came from the experience he heard of other prisoners and also from his own experience in prison. The film sheds a light on trauma and suffering that individuals face under an oppressive system that feels like a living breathing example of The Stanford Prison Experiment, an experiment that many Latin, Asian and African countries started facing from the 1970s onward. Panahi’s film shows that the experiment isn’t over yet and even if it were over tomorrow, it would take decades (or generations) for citizens to heal.

8. No Bears (2022)

Panahi travels to the Iranian border and shows how a film can be potentially directed remotely, an appropriate nod to our times where remote work has become a lot more commonplace across the globe.

9. 3 Faces (2018)

3 Faces is the fourth film Panahi made since his filmmaking ban and was the first since that ban where he left Tehran for the countryside. This travel allows some cultural and political conversations to enter the frame and the end result is one of Panahi’s strongest works, one that even has a nod to the late master Abbas Kiarostami’s films.

10. Offside (2006)

This film is an extension of The Circle in depicting the restrictions women face in Iranian society. In Offside, Panahi shows how female soccer fans are not allowed to watch games in the stadium alongside men. The film contains plenty of magical moments such as the nervous expression on one of the girl's face as she tries to sneak into the stadium, the passion with which the guard narrates a running commentary for the girls who are held in custody and the mesmerizing moment when we finally see the beautiful green soccer field. The best part of the film unfold in the last 15-20 minutes where the camera highlights the emotions and expressions of fans who are delighted at Iran's qualification for the 2006 World Cup -- there is very little dialogue, and we can see unscripted human emotion on display.

11. Closed Curtain (2013)

Following This Is Not a Film, Panahi shows another creative way to make a film despite his ban. As per the title, the film takes place in a house with the curtains shut. What at first appears to be a tranquil setting turns out to be anything but that.

YRF Spy Universe

Here are the six films so far part of the YRF Spy Universe:

Ek Tha Tiger (2012, Kabir Khan)

Tiger Zinda Hai (2017, Ali Abbas Zafar)

War (2019, Siddharth Anand)

Pathaan (2023, Siddharth Anand)

Tiger 3 (2023, Maneesh Sharma)

War 2 (2025, Ayan Mukerji)

Blame it on the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Once MCU showed everyone the financial benefits of having a multi-film, multi-year plan, others naturally followed with their own cinematic universe tie-ins. The thinking was multiple films with crossover characters/storylines, bigger stars, bigger budgets would lead to larger revenues. Ultimately, revenue is the long-term goal of these cinematic universes, which ensure a longer duration for characters thereby building or maintaining fanbase loyalty in turn leading to long-term financial growth. Of course, not all these cinematic universes have faired as well as Marvel. DCU (DC Universe) hasn’t worked out and is now in the process of a reboot. Indian Cinema alone has multiple such cinematic universes on the go, with Rohit Shetty Cop Universe, Lokesh Cinematic Universe, Maddock Horror Comedy Universe, Astraverse (unsure of its future status) and YRF Spy Universe.

YRF Spy Universe, like majority of the Indian Cinematic Universes, was conceived only after the first initial films were released. YRF Spy Universe only started with the 4^th of the 6 films thus far. The first three films, Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai, War, were standalone films. The idea to create this YRF Spy Universe was likely conceived after the huge success of War. Pathaan then was the first out of these 6 films to reap the benefits of the Cinematic Universe framework.

Action, Dance and Romance

All the six films involve Indian agents part of the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agency trying to save the nation and/or its citizens from both internal-external threats, which not surprisingly involves Pakistani ISI agents. The main RAW agents are: Tiger (Salman Khan, all 3 Tiger films), Kabir (Hrithik Roshan, War, War 2), Khalid (Tiger Shroff, War), Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan), Vikram (N.T. Rama Rao Jr. , War 2), Kavya (Kiara Advani, War 2). The main ISI female agents are Zoya (Katrina Kaif, Tiger films), Rubai (Deepika Padukone, Pathaan).

The films are set in global locations. Even though India is under threat, the Indian agents hop across countries faster than it would take to be beamed via Star Trek’s teleportation device.  Tiger Zinda Hai is one exception in that the film is set exclusively outside of India (in Iraq) and involves Tiger saving Indian nurses from a terrorist organization (plot based on a real-life 2014 incident).

In order to ensure the films have a global appeal and don’t alienate Muslim viewers, ISI isn’t the main villain anymore but has provided a bit of romance in the form of double agents. A hilarious line from Pathaan has a character musing if ISI is running a dating service with Tiger, Pathaan falling for ISI agents Zoya, Rubai respectively. With ISI no longer the main villain, the last few films have featured rogue ex-RAW agents or mercenaries for hire working for a global crime syndicate as the main foes. The stakes for saving the nation have grown with each film with the nation on the verge of destruction with each passing minute. However, it doesn’t matter how dire the situation is, all the agents find time to dance for a few songs, show off their six-pack abs and even have a romantic fling with female agents that look like swimsuit models (casting criteria for female actors clearly requires looking good in a bikini).

Ranking the films in order of preference:

It feels unfair to rank or even rate these films. That is because half the films can be disregarded as having any cinematic merit because the three Tiger films feature Salman Khan who cannot act, despite being one of the largest box-office stars in the country.

1. War (2019)

Easily the best film in the franchise. The action scenes are nicely done with good acting, direction and story.

2. Pathaan (2023)

The film marked the long return of Shah Rukh Khan and was a huge box-office success. SRK is good in his role but the film is bloated with needless plot twists and action sequences. The film was also the first in the franchise to feature a crossover character from the YRF Spy Universe (Tiger making an appearance).

3. Tiger 3 (2023)

The only real merit in the film is the appearance of Pathaan.

4. War 2 (2025)

This awful film undoes any of the good work of the first War film. The first segment of the film feels like the director trying to channel John Wick with a splash of Tarantino but that isn’t anything compared to the absurd middle segment which rehashes the worst aspect of 1980s Hindi cinema plot (long lost childhood friends). That awful middle segment introduces melodrama which isn’t as commonplace in Bollywood as it once used to be and destroys any narrative momentum before a final third which feels like it will never end as the characters keep fighting and fighting.

5. Tiger Zinda Hai (2017)

This is mostly watchable in scenes when the camera doesn’t feature Tiger (Salman Khan) but instead focuses on Zoya (Katrina Kaif).

6. Ek Tha Tiger (2012)

Unwatchable. The movie features the worst masala aspects of Indian cinema, where comedy, action, drama and songs are all mixed and thereby weaken the overall content.

Next Steps

The run rate of this YRF Spy Universe isn’t that great. I would only qualify one of these six films as good (War), with another one as decent (Pathaan) and 0 points for the others (in fairness, I should have negative points for the others). That leaves 1.5/6 which is 25%. Of course, my personal rating has no bearing on anything and the financial returns of the films ensure this franchise will continue.

The 7^th film in this franchise arrives on Dec 25, 2025 with Alpha and the post-credits of War 2 depicted the main antagonist (Bobby Doel, who seems to be every where now, be it Cinema or Streaming TV). Pathaan 2 is in the works and a future Tiger-Pathaan film as well. 

Best Films of 2024

This is an update to the previous Best Films of 2024 list. I finally now have 10 films!

Best Films of 2024

1. No Other Land (Palestine co-production, Yuval Abraham/Basel Adra/Hamdan Ballal/Rachel Szor)

Easily the most relevant film of 2024! It is amazing that this film exists at all. This isn’t the first time theft of Palestinian land is shown on camera. Pomegranates and Myrrh (2008) showed how the Israeli army uses a pretext of security to annex a Palestinian family’s home. That 2008 fictional film, albeit based on real-life scenarios, was ignored. No Other Land shows this very topic in a documentary format and it has gotten some attention. The Academy Award for Best Documentary also helped gain distribution but people will see the film and nothing will change. In fact, the land grab and stealing has been increasing after this film came out. At least, this film documents what happens and in the future, it will be evidence that the world did nothing and watched it all happen.

2. Santosh (UK/Germany/India/France, Sandhya Suri)

The core topic of the film isn’t new as many films have depicted how corruption and abuse of power allows crimes against girls/women to go unchecked. Yet, since this isn’t an Indian production, it lends an outsider observational perspective that is focused on tiny details often neglected by Indian films. Director Sandhya Suri’s previous work on documentaries is also another reason those details help in giving this film a realistic feel. In addition, there is a new angle to observe the events from women. The film is shown from the perspective of a female police officer who is wearing the uniform but who is still a civilian at heart, due to how she got the job in the first place. That allows her to straddle the line between the two worlds while still maintaining her humanity.

The two performances by Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar are top-notch.

3. Soundtrack for a Coup D’état (Belgium/France/Holland, Johan Grimonprez)

Another film that takes a topic covered before but adds a new entry point which allows things to be considered in a new light. The assassination of Patrice Lumumba has been shown on film before but the association with jazz music and the incorporation of Khrushchev’s words give plenty of food for thought. This film will always be relevant because the cycle of events that this assassination started is still impacting our world.

4. Dahomey (France/Senegal/Benin/Singapore, Mati Diop)

The film focuses on the specific return of 26 artifacts to Benin but opens up what should be a universal debate about the fate of looted property across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Highly relevant and essential viewing.

5. Cloud (Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Cloud is a gripping thriller that seamlessly weaves horror, dark humour, gangsters, crime and a social commentary of our contemporary world.

6. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong/China, Soi Cheang)

Perfect illustration of that brilliant Hong Cinema of old: incredible choregraphed fights, larger than life characters, socially relevant topic, a touch of supernatural and mythology.

7. Grand Tour (Portugal/Italy/France/Germany/Japan/China, Miguel Gomes)

The film lives up to the title yet being playful. A woman is abandoned by her fiancée who runs away yet she doesn’t give up. She follows him around the world, picking up on clues. A leisurely chase.

8. Misericordia (France/Spain/Portugal, Alain Guiraudie)

One of the most creative murder investigation films that plays with genre and expectations. There is a very subtle deadpan layer to the film which becomes apparent once the strangeness of the scenarios increases.

9. Sister Midnight (UK/India/Sweden, Karan Kandhari)

Like many films in this list, another one that creatively blends many genres together. Even though the different references and genres are admirable in their own right, not everything adds up to a coherent whole. Still, the film stands out for many stunning flourishes.

10. Universal Language (Canada, Matthew Rankin)

Matthew Rankin showed his creative talent with The 20^th Century. This time he raises the creativity bar a few more notches with a reimagined version of Canada where Farsi-French are the two official languages and people confuse Manitoba with Alberta (entirely believable from a Toronto perspective).

Honourable Mention: 

Caught by the Tides (China/France/Japan, Jia Zhang-ke)