The Circle
A chain of desperate women navigating Tehran’s prisons, streets, hospitals, and families becomes a searing portrait of institutionalized gender oppression.
Overview
A poignant exploration of women's struggles in a society that seeks to silence them.
Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- bleak
- urgent
- compassionate
- social justice film night
- arthouse cinema evening
What critics said
Critics broadly regard the film as a powerful, bleak, and formally compelling indictment of the oppressive conditions faced by women in Iran.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Panahi shifts dynamically from the hospital birth story through Nargess, Arezou, Pari, Elham, and Nayereh.
Crowded Tehran streets, bus stations, hospitals, and police encounters create a clandestine, documentary-like texture.
The women face prison surveillance, identification barriers, family threats, accusations of prostitution, and reproductive coercion.
Tehran’s streets, transit station, hospital, and police presence repeatedly turn public space into an arena of risk.
Films like The Circle, and why
Persepolis
shared neorealist social observation, female-centered precarity, and institutional oppression
A Separation
shared Iranian social realism, constrained female agency, and quietly devastating humanism
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
shared interwoven women’s stories, systemic injustice, and urgent political drama
Rosetta
shared documentary-like realism, marginalized protagonists, and compassionate social critique
Movie Details
- Director
- Jafar Panahi
- Release Date
- 2000-09-09
- Runtime
- 91 min
- Rating
- 7.0 / 10 (106)
Cast
- Nargess Mamizadeh
- Maryiam Palvin Almani
- Mojgan Faramarzi
- Elham Saboktakin
- Monir Arab
- Maede Tahmasbi
- Maryam Shayegan
- Fereshteh Sadr Orafaee
- Solmaz Panahi
- Fatemeh Naghavi
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Metrograph
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is The Circle about?
- A chain of desperate women navigating Tehran’s prisons, streets, hospitals, and families becomes a searing portrait of institutionalized gender oppression.
- What is The Circle like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of The Circle as brisk, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is The Circle violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in The Circle as mild.
- What did critics think of The Circle?
- Critics broadly regard the film as a powerful, bleak, and formally compelling indictment of the oppressive conditions faced by women in Iran.
- Which films are like The Circle?
- Films with a similar feel include Persepolis, A Separation, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and Rosetta.
- How long is The Circle?
- The Circle runs 91 minutes.
- Where can I watch The Circle?
- In United States, The Circle streams on Metrograph.
