Watch at Home 01.08.2027

Bashu, The Little Stranger

Directed by Bahram Beyzaie
Film Movement Classics
1985
122 Minutes
Iran
Gilaki, Arabic
Classics, Coming of Age, Drama
Not Rated
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Voted “the greatest Iranian film of all time” by Persian film magazine Picture House, writer/director Bahram Beyzaie’s BASHU, THE LITTLE STRANGER is a deeply humanist and poetic tale of empathy and compassion. With studied realism and lyrical artistry, the film resonates as a prophetic parable of life during wartime.

During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a young boy named Bashu loses his family in a bombing raid on their home in Southern Iran. He escapes on a cargo truck headed to Northern Iran where he finds refuge with a farmer, Naii, and her two children. Despite the differences in their respective language and culture, the two form an indelible bond as they must face new challenges from Naii's tight-knit community.

Hailed as a “vital cinematic masterpiece” by director Jafar Panahi, BASHU, THE LITTLE STRANGER is presented in a new 4K restoration by Roashana Studios with the support of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.

Director & Cast

  • Director: Bahram Beyzaie
  • Starring: Susan Taslimi
  • Starring: Adnan Afravian
  • Starring: Parviz Pourhosseini
  • Starring: Akbar Doodkar
  • Starring: Hamid Rahbar

Where to Watch

Photos

Reviews

  • "A vital cinematic masterpiece. A reminder that art at any time, in any place, awakens human consciousness and shows us humane paths through friendship, coexistence, and peace. The new restoration felt like a discovery, not a rediscovery, as if seeing such a masterpiece for the first time."
    Jafar Panahi
  • "Simple and quietly effective...."
    Janet Maslin, The New York Times
  • "“Bashu, the Little Stranger” is a pure joy in which there are absolutely no false moves and both laughter as well as tears. Every movement of the camera, its every placement, its every composition, indeed, every cut in the film is exactly right, serving unobtrusively to tell a story."
    Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
  • "Bashu, The Little Stranger remains one of the most luminous works in the history of Iranian cinema and its recognition at the Venice Film Festival is both a triumph of artistic integrity and an affirmation of the universal power of storytelling that transcends borders, languages, and cultural boundaries. Bahram Beyzai’s masterpiece is at once a tale of exile, survival, motherhood, cultural collision, and above all, human resilience, told with a poet’s sensibility and a dramatist’s sharp instinct for human conflict."
    Bijan Tehrani, Cinema Without Borders
  • "A masterpiece."
    Les cahiers du cinéma
  • "Four decades later, one can see more clearly than ever how Beyzaie transforms the cinema screen into a window carved from the history and literature of Iran, opening it onto a beautiful and spectacular world."
    Mohammad Rasoulof
  • "Forever one of the most important directors in Iran. BASHU, THE LITTLE STRANGER contains a message that is everlasting."
    Amir Naderi
  • "Not merely a film for me; it is an image etched into the memory of my childhood."
    Shahram Mokri
Winner
Best Restored Film
Venice Film Festival
Official Selection
Toronto Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Chicago Int'l. Film Festival
Official Selection
Mar del Plata Film Festival

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