The first Iranian film to win the Palme d'Or, this austere, humanist drama follows the enigmatic Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi) as he drives around the hilly outskirts of Tehran looking for someone who will agree to bury him after he commits suicide, a taboo under Islam. Extended conversations with three passengers (a soldier, a seminarian, and a taxidermist) elicit different views on mortality and individual choice. Operating at once as a closely observed,...

Chess of the wind: A murder mystery awash in period atmosphere plays out inside a candlelit mansion, where a web of greed, violence, and betrayal ensnares potential heirs as they vie over their matiarch's estate. Muna Moto: In a Cameroonian village, the rigid customs governing courtship and marriage mean that a betrothed couple, though deeply in love, can be torn apart by the lack of a dowry and another man's claiming of the young woman.

In this documentary-style film, which reconstructs events leading up to a trial and includes footage of actual trial proceedings, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami tells the story of unemployed Iranian man, Hossain Sabzian, who insinuated himself into the lives of a well-to-do Iranian family by posing as famous Iranian director Moshen Makhmalbaf and promising their son a prominent role in his next film.

Childhood takes on mythic dimensions in one of the defining works of postrevolutionary Iranian cinema. Inspired by director Amir Naderi's boyhood, The Runner is lit from within by Madjid Niroumand's electrifying performance as a young orphan fending for himself on the streets of a port city, determined to rise above his circumstances working odd jobs, passing time with friends, learning to read and running, always running, toward the future. Water,...

When he takes a job as a schoolteacher in a new neighborhood, the hapless intellectual Mr. Hekmati finds that he is a fish out of water.