Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon, The Circle) is an example of an artist literally willing to put it all on the line for his art. He’s been banned by the authorities of Iran from making movies, and then Panahi secretly made a documentary of himself serving as a taxi driver in 2015. Scanning his filmography, all of his movies after 2000 were either made “illegally” or banned in his home country before their release. He was sentenced to a six-year prison sentence in 2022 and was released shortly after undergoing a hunger strike. Panahi filmed his latest movie, It Was Just an Accident, in secret without knowledge by the Iranian Authority, which makes sense considering how openly critical it is about the regime. It won the Palm D’or, the top prize, at the 2025 Cannes film festival and has been one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. It’s also likely going to make life much harder for Panahi, who was also sentenced in absentia by Iran to another prison sentence for “propaganda activities.” Yet his art persists, and It Was Just an Accident is easily one of the finest movies of 2025 and it’s no accident.

It begins simple enough. A middle-aged man and his family have car trouble after accidentally hitting a stray dog (sorry fellow animal lovers, but at least you don’t see it). They are taken into a nearby garage and that’s where the owner overhears the family man’s voice and then freezes in terror. He sounds EXACTLY like the man who interrogated and tortured him for the Iranian government years ago. Could it be the same man? How can he verify? And if so, what does he plan to do with his possible former captor?

What a brilliantly developed and executed movie this is, taking a concept that’s easy to plug right into no matter the language and cultural barriers, and then to unfold in such contemplative, bold, and unexpected ways. It captures mordant laughter, poignant human drama, and a nerve-wracking thrills. Most of all it’s terribly unexpected. As more and more people get brought in on the kidnapping, and more reveal their personal trauma from their shared captor, I really didn’t know what the fate would be for anyone. Would they kill this man? If so, what would that say and how would they view themselves after? If not, what lessons might they have learned from this ordeal and what lessons might their former captor have learned? It really kept me guessing and because it’s so exceptionally well developed and written, the script could have gone in any direction and I would have likely found satisfaction. There’s even the question over whether or not all these people are mistaken and projecting their fury onto an innocent man. However, I will say, the movie flirts with Coen-essque dark comedy, almost at a farcical level for its first half as these amateurs stumble their way through a kidnapping plot they are not equipped to control (a woman is stuck in her wedding dress for the entirety of these vigilante deliberations). Then in its second half it transitions into a really affecting moral drama about the lengths of trauma and the desire for forgiveness as a key point toward processing grief and preparing oneself to move forward. Even though the circumstances are specific to Iran, the movie is emblematic of accountability and reconciliation, and those elements can be easily empathized with no matter one’s cultural borders.

As you might expect, this is a movie brimming with anger, but it’s not suffused with bitterness, which is a remarkable feat given its subject matter. This is a movie that unfolds like a crime thriller, with each scene unlocking a better understanding of a hidden shared history. Each new character provides a larger sense of a bigger picture of oppressive state control and abuses, with each new person adding to the chorus of complaints. Naturally, many of these victims want to seek the harshest retribution possible for a man who tortured them with impunity. It’s easy to summon intense feelings of outrage and to demand vengeance. The filmmakers have other ideas in mind that aren’t quite as tidy. It’s easy to be consumed by anger, by outrage, that surging sense of righteous indignation filling you with vibrant purpose. It’s another matter to work through one’s anger rather than simply serve it. I’m reminded of the masterful 2021 movie Mass, a small indie about two groups of parents having a lengthy conversation; it just so happens one couple’s son was killed in a school shooting and the other couple’s son was the gunman responsible. It was a remarkably written movie (seriously, go watch it) and a remarkably empathetic movie for every character. It’s easy to pick sides of right and wrong, but it’s so much more engaging, intriguing, but also humane to find the foundations of connections, that every person lives with their own regrets and guilt and doubts. It Was Just an Accident follows a similar moral edict. Every character is a person, and every person is deserving of having their perspective better known, and we are better having given them this grace.

I think the movie is also especially prescient about this time and place in American history. It very well may prove a sign of the future, detailing a populace of the abused and traumatized and the former aggressors who worked for an authoritarian agent and administered cruel violence to cruel ends. It’s not difficult to see a version of this movie set in, say, 2035 America, with a ragtag group of characters discovering a retired ICE agent who they all have an antagonistic relationship with. In many ways the movie is about Iran and its history of an oppressive government turning on its own people, but in many ways it can also be about any system of power abusing that power to inflict fear and repudiation. It’s about a reckoning, and that’s why I think while the movie is clearly of its culture and time it’s very easy to apply the movie’s lessons and themes and larger ideas to any country, It’s all about characters coming to terms with harm and accountability, and sometimes it takes a long time after the fact for the perpetrators to accept that harm has been done, especially if they can fall on the morally indefensible “just following orders” defense. In the near future, will ICE agents, especially the ones who joined up after Trump took office for the second time, argue the same as the Nazis at Nuremberg? Will they rationalize their actions as just fulfilling a job to pay a mortgage? It might even be overly optimistic to believe a reckoning would even occur in the not-so-distant future, not to the profile of the Nuremberg trials but even just an individual accounting of individual wrongdoing. That assumes an acceptance of wrong and ostensibly a sincere request for forgiveness. As I write this, with an ICE officer whisked away to the protective bosom of federal government after executing a woman shortly after dropping her child off at school, it’s difficult for me to even accept that those in power and so eager to impose their bottomless grievances upon the vulnerable and innocent would ever allow themselves to accept the possibility of blame or regret. But then again this is perhaps what the citizens of Iran felt and they’re presently marching in the thousands to protest their authoritarian government in 2026, so maybe there’s hope yet for we Americans in 2026 too.

There is a deliberate sense to every minute of It Was Just an Accident, from its long takes to its interlocking sense of discovery, to the questions it raises, answers, and leaves for you to ponder. It’s a movie that drops you into a fully-realized world with rich characters that reveal themselves over time. If there’s one pressing moral for Panahi, I think it’s that every person matters, even the ones we’re told have less value. This is an insightful, searing, and ultimately compassionate cry for justice and empathy. It will be just as effective no matter the date you watch it, but with a movie this good, why wait?

Nate’s Grade: A