The CircleMovies like The Circle
- Key Features:
- Misogyny, Oppression, Social commentary, Iranian cinema, Womens rights, Social issues, Patriarchy, Cultural conflict, Feminism, Realism
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Art house cinema enthusiasts, Social issue advocates, Feminist film viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Resignation
The Circle

Various women struggle to function in the oppressively sexist society of contemporary Iran.
The Circle
An otherworldly evil is slipping into a small town in Sweden. Six unrelated girls have been chosen to fight this evil. Together they must overcome their differences in order to save themselves and the world.

A young tech worker takes a job at a powerful Internet corporation, quickly rises up the company's ranks, and soon finds herself in a perilous situation concerning privacy, surveillance and freedom. She comes to learn that her decisions and actions will determine the future of humanity.

The lives of three strong-willed women and a young musician cross paths in Tehran’s schizophrenic society where sex, adultery, corruption, prostitution and drugs coexist with strict religious law. In this bustling modern metropolis, avoiding prohibition has become an everyday sport and breaking taboos can be a means of personal emancipation.

Filmmaker Jafar Panahi and actor Behnaz Jafari travel to a tiny village after receiving a plea for help from a girl whose family has forbidden her from studying acting. Amusing encounters abound, but they soon discover that the local hospitality is rivaled by the desire to protect old traditions.

During the 2006 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Bahrain, numerous young women are caught and rounded up for dressing as men so they could gain access to the game. Guarded by several soldiers in a holding pen, the women attempt to keep updated on the score.

In a massive, mysterious chamber, fifty strangers awaken to find themselves trapped with no memory of how they got there. Organized in an inward-facing circle and unable to move, they quickly learn that every two minutes, one of them must die…executed by a strange device in the center of the room.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

In 1986 Iran, Sahebjam, whose car breaks down in a remote village, enters into a conversation with Zahra, who relays to him the story about her niece, Soraya, whose arranged marriage to an abusive tyrant ended in tragedy.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been barred from leaving the country, arrives at a village on the Iran-Turkey border to supervise a film based on a real-life couple seeking passports to Europe being shot in Turkey, but both his stay and the production run into trouble.

A visual social examination in the form of ten conversations between a driving woman and her various pick-ups and hitchhikers.

Somaieh, the youngest daughter of an indigent family, is getting married and fear is overwhelming each and every member of the family regarding how to overcome their difficulties after she's gone.

A married couple are faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease.

A comedy/drama set in a village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favours as long as the men refuse to install a water pipe.

Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is hired as a maid for an affluent family in Tehran. Upon arriving, she is suddenly thrust into an explosive domestic conflict. The wife is convinced her husband is having an affair and enlists Rouhi as a spy, to follow her husband, and confirm her suspicions. What Rouhi discovers, however, threatens not only their marriage but her own future.

A lawyer puts his family in jeopardy when he captures the last member of a violent clan and tries to forcibly tame her.

The lives of residents in an old Cairo building, "The Yacoubian Building," are affected by issues like corruption, extremism, class disparity, and sexuality. Through diverse characters, the film offers a critical examination of Egyptian society.

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

An old villager deeply in love with his cow goes to the capital for a while. While he's there, the cow dies and now the villagers are afraid of his possible reaction to it when he returns.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

Forced out of their apartment due to dangerous works on a neighboring building, Emad and Rana move into a new flat in the center of Tehran. An incident linked to the previous tenant will dramatically change the young couple’s life.

Investigating judge Iman grapples with paranoia amid political unrest in Tehran. When his gun vanishes, he suspects his wife and daughters, imposing draconian measures that strain family ties as societal rules crumble.

Three girlhood friends now at college share first loves, first kisses and first betrayals. At the center of it all is the best-looking boy on campus. Can a self-conscious dreamer hook the biggest fish in the pond?

When five Kurdish prisoners are granted one week's home leave, they find to their dismay that they face continued oppression outside of prison from their families, the culture, and the government.

Following a city councils decision, a women's shelter will soon be closed and social workers have only three months to accommodate the residents.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse.

A poverty-stricken woman raises her sons through many trials and tribulations. But no matter the struggles, always sticks to her own moral code.

Raf and Julie, a couple on the verge of breaking up, find themselves in an emergency ward bordering on collapse on the evening of a Parisian Yellow Vest protest. Their encounter with Yann, an angry and injured demonstrator, will shatter each person's certainties and prejudices. Outside, the tension escalates.

An heiress who's been shut inside her apartment building for nearly two decades is forced to confront her fears after one of her neighbors is killed and a detective arrives to begin the investigation.

The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.

The loss of their young daughter threatens to destroy the love and faith of two married musicians.

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.

An Iranian couple living in the US become trapped inside a hotel when insidious events force them to face the secrets that have come between them, in a night that never ends.

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

In a remote, isolated Lebanese village surrounded by land mines, Muslims and Christians live together in peace. As civil strife starts to engulf the country around them, the women in the village try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark by sabotaging the village radio, and then destroying the village TV.

When Mariam, a young Tunisian woman, is raped by police officers after leaving a party, she is propelled into a harrowing night in which she must fight for her rights even though justice lies on the side of her tormentors.

Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood's borders.

When the actor in a scene for his film Life And Nothing More… has to quit, a film director casts another man for the part. However, complications arise since the man and the woman who was cast for the scene know each other.

Pierre and Manon are poor. They make documentaries with nothing and they live by doing odd jobs. Pierre meets a young intern, Elisabeth, and she becomes his mistress. But Pierre will not leave Manon for Elisabeth; he wants to keep both.

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

An opinion columnist and author, subjected to constant misogynistic abuse on social media, snaps and goes on a killing spree against her online abusers.

Four ordinary women, inflicted by silly societal norms, have to steal, lie, cheat and hide in order to lead the lives that they rightfully deserve.

After an emotional exchange between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee escalates, the men end up in a court case that gets national attention.

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

Iranian female judokas Leila and her coach Maryam, travel to the Judo World Championship, intent on bringing home Iran’s first gold medal. Midway through the Judo World Championships, they receive an ultimatum from the Islamic Republic ordering Leila to fake an injury and lose, or she will be branded a traitor of the state. With her own and her family’s freedom at stake, Leila is faced with an impossible choice: comply with the Iranian regime as her coach Maryam implores her to do, or fight on, for the gold.

A semi-autobiographical account of Makhmalbaf's experience as a teenager when, as a 17-year-old, he stabbed a policeman at a protest rally. Two decades later, he tracks down the policeman he injured in an attempt to make amends.

A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. His cat Greffier being the only one he still gives affection to, he becomes the object of Clemence's anger.

Gab has a well-ordered life: a fiancée, a wealthy family. Leïla, who struggles to juggle her studies, odd jobs, and a brother to support, does not allow herself to live her own life... When Gab meets Leïla, it is a clash of worlds, the beginning of a great love story that will collide violently with reality.

Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.

On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.

Samad is nobody’s fool. The narcotics officer has seen his share of a drug dealer’s lies and games, and his patience has come to run thin. While searching for the infamous drug baron Nasser Khakzad, he and his colleague Hamid scour the streets of Tehran, turning an overcrowded prison on its head. With his rough and dubious approach, Samad finally manages to find the criminal’s whereabouts – but things do not quite go according to plan...

Camille, is the eldest of a large family. One day, her parents enter a religious community which gradually, regimentation becomes sectarian and Camille will have to fight to assert her freedom and save her brothers and sisters.

A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.

Irreverent city engineer Behzad comes to a rural Kurdish village in Iran to keep vigil for a dying relative. In the meanwhile the film follows his efforts to fit in with the local community and how he changes his own attitudes as a result.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

After Shideh's building is hit by a missile during the Iran-Iraq War, a superstitious neighbor suggests that the missile was cursed and might be carrying malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits. She becomes convinced a supernatural force within the building is attempting to possess her daughter Dorsa, and she has no choice but to confront these forces if she is to save her daughter and herself.

In a war-ridden country, a woman watches over her husband, comatose from a bullet in the neck and abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

A group of drug-influenced lumpen teenagers from the suburbs of the city descends into the center where they do not belong, where they are excluded. They adopted a brutal method to seize rights that were not granted to them. Unaware of what will happen to them, cheerful and well-to-do university students are helpless in the face of this gun-wielding mob that suddenly raids the bar where they are having fun.

A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores and takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. Slowly, her ritualized daily routines begin to fall apart.

Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the Internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

A desperate love story between two young girls of extremely different social backgrounds who, unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, are pushed to commit a crime.

An 8-year-old boy must return his friend's notebook he took by mistake, lest his friend be punished by expulsion from school.

A young Western woman is recruited by the Mossad to go undercover in Tehran where she becomes entangled in a complex triangle with her handler and her subject.

A yellow cab is driving through the vibrant and colourful streets of Tehran. Very diverse passengers enter the taxi, each candidly expressing their views while being interviewed by the driver who is no one else but the director Jafar Panahi himself. His camera placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures the spirit of Iranian society through this comedic and dramatic drive…

Indolent aristocrat Tony employs competent Barrett as his manservant and all seems to be going well until Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister as a live-in maid.

A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.

A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.

Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

While her husband is on a business trip, Gam-hee meets three of her friends on the outskirts of Seoul.

Dreams and reality collide as a young woman navigates a tumultuous relationship amid rising social tensions, protests and tragedies in Paris.

The mysterious disappearance of a kindergarten teacher during a picnic in the north of Iran is followed by a series of misadventures for her fellow travelers.

When a factory is bound to close, a group of workers decides to take action against the owner.

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.

In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Reza, residing in the wilderness with his wife and son, lives a retired life and devotes himself to freshwater fish farming. A private company that has targets on his land is ready to do anything to force him to sell.

A mentally disturbed young woman takes a job at a posh country club and falls in with a clique of wealthy college kids where she's taken under the wing of the clique's twisted leader, who harbors some dark secrets too terrifying to tell.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

A superficial woman finds conflict choosing between her abusive husband and her vain lover.

Antoine has agreed to follow a writing workshop where some young people in insertion must write a noir novel with the help of Olivia, a recognized novelist. The work of writing will bring to life the working-class past of the city. Its shipyard is closed for 25 years, a nostalgia that does not interest Antoine, influenced by the anxiety of the present world

The story centres on a group of teenagers street cast in their neighbourhood and selected to play in a feature film during the summer. The film tells the story of this film shoot and of the connections that will be formed during it.

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.

A social drama about four marginalized prostitutes in Marrakech and their complex relations with their families and society at large.

A fading celebrity decides to use a black market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

The escape of Bubber Reeves from prison affects the inhabitants of a small Southern town.

A Hindu man and a Muslim woman fall in love in a small village and move to Mumbai, where they have two children. However, growing religious tensions and erupting riots threaten to tear the family apart.

A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside. Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilization and ruled by the laws of nature.

A woman snaps and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog as her checked-out, philandering husband attempts to keep the family together.

When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

Izi's close to escaping The Kitchen, one of London's last remaining housing estates. But when young Benji enters his life, he faces some hard decisions.

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

The story of 12-year-old Ali and his three friends. Together they work hard to survive and support their families, doing small jobs in a garage and committing petty crimes to make fast money. In a turn of events that seems miraculous, Ali is entrusted to find hidden treasure underground. He recruits his gang, but first, to gain access to the tunnel, the children must enroll at the Sun School, a charitable institution that tries to educate street kids and child laborers, close to where the treasure is located.

The relationship between a middle-aged French widow and a young drifter takes a turn when her young niece pays a visit.


