01
Offside
Why this pick
Panahi again uses an apparently simple public outing to expose how rules govern women’s bodies and choices, with the same humane, street-level realism and sharply observed ensemble tension.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2000 1h 30m IRN
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Circle
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Circle, try these.
01
02
The Day I Became a Woman
Why this pick
Its three linked stories offer a similarly lucid, unsentimental view of Iranian women confronting social boundaries, using spare imagery and quietly escalating emotional pressure.
03
Under the Skin of the City
Why this pick
This intimate urban drama shares The Circle’s social urgency and compassion for women navigating institutions, poverty, and family expectations without reducing them to symbols.
04
Taxi
Why this pick
Panahi’s mobile, conversational portrait of Tehran preserves his gift for revealing civic restrictions through chance encounters, balancing dry wit with an undercurrent of unease.
05
Crimson Gold
Why this pick
Its patient observation of a working-class man moving through an unequal Tehran echoes The Circle’s controlled anger, documentary-like immediacy, and attention to social systems closing in.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The film begins in a maternity ward of a hospital, where the mother of Solmaz Gholami is upset to learn that her daughter has just given birth to a girl, even though the ultrasound indicated that the baby would be a boy. Worrying that her in-laws will force their son to divorce her daughter, she tells another daughter to call her uncles.
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