October 1, 2025
by Carla Hay
Vahid Mobasseri in “It Was Just an Accident” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
Directed by Jafar Panahi
Persian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Iran, the dramatic film “It Was Just and Accident” features an all-Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A former political prisoner kidnaps a man whom he thinks was a government agent who tortured him and other political prisoners, but he has doubts that he has abducted the right person.
Culture Audience: “It Was Just an Accident” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Jafar Panahi, and intense crime thrillers about vigilante justice.
Harrowing and often darkly absurdist, “It Was Just an Accident” explores the moral dilemmas of revenge during a kidnapping that could be a case of mistaken identity. This piercing drama also has sharp observations of the damaging effects of oppression. The movie asks questions about redemption and forgiveness while not offering easy answers.
Written and directed by Jafar Panahi (who is also one of the film’s producers), “It Was Just an Accident” takes place in Iran, where the movie was filmed on location. “It Was Just an Accident” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. “It Was Just an Accident” also screened at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie was partially funded by a French production company, which is why “It Was Just an Accident” is France’s official entry for Best International Feature Film for the 2026 Academy Awards.
“It Was Just an Accident” begins by showing what appears to be a normal car ride taken at night by a family of three: Eghbal (played by Ebrahim Azizi) is driving the car. His pregnant wife Azam (played by Afssaneh Najmabadi) is in the front passenger seat. Their daughter Nilufar (played by Delmaz Najafi), who’s about 7 or 8 years old, is in the back seat.
Nilufar, who is happily playing with a Westland Terrier dog toy, seems excited to be on this trip. There are hints that the family is living an isolated existence. Nilufar mentions that their family has no neighbors. Later in the movie, Nilfar also says she’s not allowed to use a phone.
The reason for the car trip is never stated, but it appears to be an unusual outing for this reclusive family. Suddenly, Eghbal accidentally hits something with the car. He gets out and sees that he hit a dog, who is close to death. The dog is never seen in the movie, but its wounded whimpers can be heard. Eghbal leaves the dog on the street and gets back in the car to continue the journey.
Nilufar is very upset about what happened to the dog. Azam tries to bring some comfort and says, “It was just an accident. God put that dog in our path for a reason.” Nilufar responds, “He killed the dog! God had nothing to do with it!”
A few minutes later, the car engine stops working. Azam also thinks this car trouble is an omen. The family is stranded on a nearly deserted road near a mechanic garage that has closed for the night. A man named Omid passes by on a motorcycle and sees the stranded family.
Eghbal asks where the nearest car repair shop is that’s open, and Omid says it’s about two kilometers (about one mile) away. Eghbal thinks that’s too far for his family to walk at night, so he asks Omid to see if he can possibly help fix the car. Omid obliges this request. Observant viewers will notice that Eghbal doesn’t use a cell phone to call for help.
Omid has a co-worker named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasseri), who is also at the garage that night. However, Vahid is acting strangely as soon as he sees this family. Vahid doesn’t want to be seen and stays in another room. He also disguises his voice when Eghbal asks him where a toolbox is.
The next day, a tow truck takes the family’s car to be repaired. Vahid stalks the repair shop to see when Eghbal gets his repaired car returned to him. And then, Vahid follows Eghbal by car and waits until Eghbal is walking on a street. When Eghbal passes by Vahid’s car, Vahid deliberately opens his car door to knock Eghbal unconscious.
As already revealed in the trailer for “It Was Just an Accident,” Vahid is a former political prisoner who ends up kidnapping Eghbal, because he thinks Eghbal was a government agent who tortured Vahid and other political prisoners several years ago. Eghbal now has kidney problems because of this torture. The prisoners were blindfolded while in captivity, but Eghbal says he remembers certain details about who tortured him.
Eghbal has a left leg that is prosthetic. Vahid tells Eghbal that he immediately identified him because he vividly remembers the unique scraping sound that Eghbal’s prosthetic leg makes when Eghbal walks. Vahid tells the kidnapped man that his nickname for Eghbal is Peg Leg. Vahid is also fairly certain that he recognizes Eghbal’s voice as the voice of the man who tortured Vahid.
Vahid is about to bury his captive alive in a desert, but the man whom Vahid has kidnapped insists that Vahid has kidnapped the wrong person. The kidnapped man says his name is Rashid, not a government agent named Eghbal who tortured Vahid years earlier. The kidnapped man says that he’s only had a prosthetic leg for about a year, and he shows Vahid a fresh scar on his leg as if to prove it. The man also says that he was on his way to a doctor’s appointment, and his doctor can also prove his identity.
Vahid is now thoroughly confused and begins to wonder if he kidnapped the wrong person. Vahid decides to tie up the captive, put him in a wooden box in the back of Vahid’s van, and show him to some other former political prisoners whom he knows were also tortured by Eghbal. The rest of the movie shows what happens during this topsy-turvy kidnapping scheme.
The former political prisoners who get involved in the kidnapping are a motley crew of people who all want revenge on Eghbal. High-strung bride Golrokh (played by Hadis Pakbaten) and her level-headed groom named Ali (played by Majid Panahi) get mixed up in the kidnapping on the eve of their wedding. The couple’s feisty wedding photographer Shiva (played by Mariam Afshari) is wary of Vahid at first but eventually learns to trust him. Shiva’s volatile ex-lover Hamid (played by Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) is the person in the group who is the most eager to kill the kidnapped man.
Before going to these former political prisoners for help, Vahid asks another former political prisoner named Salar (played by George Hashemzadeh) to seek advice and to see if Salar (who was also tortured by Eghbal) can identify the kidnapped man as Eghbal. Salar is an elderly man who works in a bookstore. Salar cannot be certain that the kidnapped man is Eghbal, but he advises Vahid not to get revenge by killing the kidnapped man.
“This is not like you, Vahid,” Salar tells Vahid. “We are not killers. We are not like them. Even if it is him, let him go. You can’t get away with it.” It’s later revealed that Vahid has another reason to seek revenge against Ehgbal: Vahid’s fiancée committed suicide because of Eghbal’s sadistic actions.
“It Was Just an Accident” is an intense crime story that has touches of very dark comedy. Things go wrong in this kidnapping, and there are situations where the kidnappers come very close to getting caught. The kidnappers also bicker about what to do with the kidnapped man, as time is running out before he might need medical attention.
“It Was Just an Accident” also shows how police corruption and being falsely accused of crimes have become so common in this community, people are almost numb to it. The performances by the cast members are stellar all around, particularly with Mariam Afshari, Elyasmehr, and Mobasseri, since their characters in the movie have the most influence in how the group handles the kidnapping. The movie’s screenplay and direction masterfully weave a tension-filed story of revenge that might or might not be a misguided vendetta.
Iranian filmmaker Panahi is famously a former political prisoner in Iran for two months in 2010, and then from July 2022 to February 2023, after being accused of spreading propaganda against the Iranian government. Panahi was banned from filmmaking in Iran from 2010 to 2023, but he continued to make films in Iran during this time period. He has said in interviews that much of the dialogue in “It Was Just an Accident” was inspired by real conversations with former political prisoners in Iran.
Beneath the madcap screwball comedy aspects of “It Was Just an Accident” is an underlying tone of both rage and resignation about political oppression that seems to have no end in sight. How to resist this political oppression is open to debate, as depicted in how this ragtag group of kidnappers can’t agree on what to do with the person who’s in their captivity. After all the anger and chaos, “It Was Just an Accident” builds up to an impactful finale that shows with quiet intimacy that regardless of what happens in this kidnapping, the unjust imprisonment and torture of others will continue.
Neon will release “It Was Just an Accident” in select U.S. cinemas on October 15, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 16, 2025.