The Stoning of Soraya M. is only recommendable to those who are completely unaware of the oppressive traditions in Islamic culture and are seeking an explicit yet underdeveloped demonstration. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/10 | Sep 27, 2023

The searing images and powerful performances ultimately overpower the sometimes overripe direction.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 5, 2019

As a documentation of an outrage, designed to horrify the world and make it pay attention, it works very well.

| Nov 6, 2018

If you sit down expecting entertainment and chuckles then you are going to be disappointed, but if you want to be moved and enlightened then this is one film for you.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2018

It illuminates the sordid local politics often behind such barbaric practices -- not, in fact, prescribed by the Koran. Brace yourself.

| Feb 6, 2018

Melodramatic, yes, but this powerful, disturbing film is based on a real event in mid-Eighties Iran, which makes it easier -- or perhaps harder -- to bear.

| Nov 20, 2017

Goes off the rails long before the Karo syrup starts gushing Monty Python-style.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 16, 2011

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 16, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 16, 2011

A strange and repugnant piece of work, half hot-button political propaganda and half sadomasochistic Outrage Porn.

| Aug 26, 2011

Though it is perfectly watchable, it latches onto the more simplistic domestic aspect of the story at the expense of exploring the more difficult and complex political issues that enable this sort of killing to come about in the first place.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 22, 2010

Nowrasteh's approach is hardly subtle, favouring didactic dialogue and overblown scoring. That said, a 20-minute stoning sequence possesses the shocking brutality of The Passion Of The Christ

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 21, 2010

[A] well-intentioned, but laboured and woodenly acted film, based on a true story.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 21, 2010

This is The Wicker Man but with scary English country folks replaced with the supposed Axis of Evil.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 21, 2010

This harrowing film spares no physical or emotional detail.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 13, 2010

With the melancholy cry of a sad cello, the film opens with a golden sun rising over the hills of a remote Iran landscape...It's a devastating story, powerfully told

| May 29, 2010

The long, shockingly barbaric stoning sequence near the film's climax is indeed grueling, and the film's depiction of the events leading up to it paint a horrifying picture of the powerlessness of women in rural Iran in this period.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 27, 2010

This film is by no means a cinematic masterpiece, but Aghdashloo's strong performance holds the film together.

| May 27, 2010

The Stoning Of Soraya M. hits you in the gut. It's a phenomenal piece of cinema, but there are many who will read about it and think, "I don't need to go there."

| May 25, 2010

Preachy outrage and clunky execution deplete a vital decrying of misogyny.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 24, 2010