Overview
A family's struggle for survival in a war-torn region reveals the depths of love and sacrifice.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Easy to follow
- Violence
- Mild
- harrowing
- melancholic
- intimate
- serious film night
- world cinema exploration
What critics said
Critics broadly praised the film’s stark, moving depiction of children enduring everyday survival struggles in an impoverished Kurdish borderland.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Twelve-year-old Ayoub becomes head of the family and must organize survival and medical care for Madi.
The Kurdish village and children’s daily labor are presented with stark, unadorned immediacy.
The family’s crisis is driven by orphanhood, Madi’s urgent illness, borderland deprivation, and the need to earn money for treatment.
The story follows orphan siblings in a Kurdish village on the Iran-Iraq border, where mule labor structures survival.
Films like A Time for Drunken Horses, and why
The Song of Sparrows
shared Kurdish borderland setting, child-centered survival drama, documentary realism, and social hardship
The White Balloon
shared Iranian humanist filmmaking, rural poverty, restrained emotional power, and neorealist observation
The Color of Paradise
shared child protagonists, austere realism, and emotionally devastating focus on marginalized families
Turtles Can Fly
shared war-adjacent displacement, Kurdish cultural context, and bleak yet compassionate survival themes
Movie Details
- Director
- Bahman Ghobadi
- Release Date
- 2000-09-13
- Runtime
- 80 min
- Rating
- 7.6 / 10 (125)
Cast
- Ayoub Ahmadi
- Rojin Younessi
- Amaneh Ekhtiar-dini
- Madi Ekhtiar-dini
- Kolsolum Ekhtiar-dini
- Karim Ekhtiar-dini
- Rahman Salehi
- Osman Karimi
- Nezhad Ekhtiar-dini
Common questions
- What is A Time for Drunken Horses about?
- Orphaned Kurdish siblings confront poverty, illness, and brutal labor as they fight to keep their family together.
- What is A Time for Drunken Horses like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of A Time for Drunken Horses as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as easy to follow.
- Is A Time for Drunken Horses violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in A Time for Drunken Horses as mild.
- What did critics think of A Time for Drunken Horses?
- Critics broadly praised the film’s stark, moving depiction of children enduring everyday survival struggles in an impoverished Kurdish borderland.
- Which films are like A Time for Drunken Horses?
- Films with a similar feel include The Song of Sparrows, The White Balloon, The Color of Paradise, and Turtles Can Fly.
- How long is A Time for Drunken Horses?
- A Time for Drunken Horses runs 80 minutes.
