What begins as a small accident on a lonely country road quickly unravels into a story with life-changing consequences. It Was Just an Accident is the newest film from Jafar Panahi, one of Iran’s most celebrated filmmakers. Over the years his work has been honoured at the world’s biggest festivals – Offside, This Is Not a Film, Tehran Taxi, 3 Faces and No Bears have all earned major awards, and in 2025 he claimed the ultimate prize, the Cannes Palme d’Or, for this gripping road-movie thriller.

Panahi has never had an easy path – he has faced house arrest, prison time and bans on making films – yet he has always found ways to keep creating. In this story, a family pulls into a repair shop late at night. For the mechanic, Vahid, the sound of a traveller’s squeaky prosthetic leg sparks a terrifying recognition: he is certain this is the officer who tortured him years earlier.

Fuelled by rage, Vahid kidnaps the man and drags him into the desert, planning his revenge. But doubt soon takes hold – what if he has the wrong man? His frantic attempt to confirm the stranger’s identity draws in other former prisoners, each carrying their own scars. What unfolds is chilling and absurd in equal measure, as Panahi threads gallows humour through an increasingly tense and unpredictable search for truth.

It Was Just an Accident reshapes the Iranian road movie into a taut, suspenseful fable about revenge, forgiveness and conscience. At once thrilling, unsettling and laced with black humour, it shows why Panahi remains one of the most vital voices in world cinema

WINNER OF THE PALME D’OR AT THE 2025 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL + WINNER OF THE SYDNEY FILM PRIZE 2025

In Farsi with English subtitles