Powerful, bold, evocative filmmaking.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 22, 2025

A slow-burning tale of real horrors, told on a human scale. A week after I first saw it, I still think about this film and its characters every day.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 10, 2025

Watching The Seed of the Sacred Fig feels more like a revolt where the simple act of watching it amplifies its purpose: to spread both awareness and the feeling of a grand injustice.

| Apr 3, 2025

a blistering drama about a family torn apart by the institutional and political pressures of the Iranian regime

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 1, 2025

This story offers a raw and realistic look at political repression in general and its devastating consequences. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 22, 2025

Rasoulof takes his time...in a sometimes repetitive narrative. But he achieves the most important things with eloquence. [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 5, 2025

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is not only an excellent thriller full of suspense, but also a masterpiece from the point of view of its audiovisual narrative (script and dramatic structure).... [Full review in Spanish]

| Mar 4, 2025

The shock ending and cut to news footage of the Amini protests is a Kiarostamian move that brings the film back into the reality, but its indictment of Iranian patriarchy and repression was already clear.

| Mar 4, 2025

It’s all about power’s capacity to corrupt and in that sense, it’s a universal story, but it’s also another courageous indictment of the Iranian system.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2025

With The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof has crafted a searing morality tale powered by charged performances

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2025

What happens [in the film] will raise various kinds of questions in the viewer...The film is an allegory about power and corruption, which rescues what is human in an extremely complex and difficult situation. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 28, 2025

In an inhuman hotbed of paranoia and dread, everyone is potentially capable of anything.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2025

Not only does Rasoulof say the unsayable, he virtually shouts: “J’accuse!”

| Feb 24, 2025

It's gripping; it's made with real peril... it discusses a national malaise in a way that works on a personal level.

| Feb 19, 2025

This is not a perfect film but it is a gripping, courageous one that is well worth watching.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 15, 2025

Given the stakes, The Seed of the Sacred Fig would be admirable even if it weren’t such a very fine film. But it is.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 14, 2025

An absorbing and well-acted slow-burn drama that blends internal conflict of a family drama and psychological thriller.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 14, 2025

...a powerful statement against tyranny of all kinds and an eye-opening, important film for U.S. audiences.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2025

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is absolutely nail-biting. Thrilling, horrifying and superbly acted, it’s as meticulously atmospheric as it is vocal in its political convictions.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2025

Understated performances and unflashy filmmaking coalesce into an absorbing mixture of the personal and the political. It may take its time but, given the circumstances of its making, this is an extraordinary achievement.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 11, 2025