Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti has become one of the most recognized actresses from Iran around the world, particularly for her appearances in Asghar Farhadi’s movies. The actress, who was born in Tehran, pursued and studied acting until landing a role in the 2002 movie I’m Taraneh, 15. Alidoosti received praise globally for her performance in that movie as a 15-year-old and even won awards for her skilled performance at film festivals. Ever since then, Alidoosti has been appearing in Iranian movies and theatrical pieces, demonstrating her skill and talent for acting as a whole, not just in film.
However, she has become most well-known for her appearances in Asghar Farhadi’s movies. She first worked with the director in 2003 for his movie The Beautiful City, and from there, she has consistently appeared in his work. From 2015 to 2018, she starred in the Persian-language show Shahrzad, which was a popular series set to the 1953 coup of the democratically elected Mosaddegh to install the previous leader of Iran. In 2022 alone, Alidoosti starred in two different big Iranian movies, despite being an activist. The actress has been arrested multiple times by the Iranian government for her protests for equality and women's rights, including during the 2022 national protests. These are Taraneh Alidoosti’s best movies so far, ranked.
10 Modest Reception
Actor, writer, and director Mani Haghighi wrote and directed Modest Reception in 2012, and even starred in one of the leading roles. Alidoosti is the other star of this quiet film, which has the two of them portraying a couple leaving the city in search of the rural parts of Iran. When they arrive in smaller towns and villages in the mountainous part of Iran, they begin to hand out money to strangers if they followed their requests. These requests get stranger throughout the movie, casting further doubt about their motives. Their appearance of giving out good fortune may only be a farce, though, as their intentions might not be as innocent as they seem. Modest Reception might not give all of the answers viewers want, but has a lot to say about Iran most people abroad don’t know about.
9 Beautiful City
Beautiful City is one of Farhadi’s earlier works and was the first time he collaborated with the young Alidoosti. It was only her second movie after the release of I’m Taraneh, 15, and it continued to garner her — and Farhadi — praise at the beginning of her career. The Beautiful City is set initially in a detention center, as an 18-year-old boy, Akbar, is having his birthday. He was 16 when he was condemned to execution for murder, and his friend on the outside is trying to get the execution order stopped — Akbar is slated for execution that day. A young girl (Alidoosti) is then brought into the story’s folds, showing the double standards of the era they’re living in and the criminal justice system’s flaws in Iran.
8 Doubt
Bahram Radan and Alidoosti starred in 2009’s Doubt, known as Tordid in Farsi, which was directed by the Iranian-Armenian director Varuzh Karim-Masihi. The Shakespeare play Hamlet is an integral part of this story’s plot, as the main character realizes the correlation between his own life and Hamlet. His father commits suicide, which is more suspicious than it seems originally, and his uncle is in charge of the family’s wealth now. When the son realizes that his uncle is going to marry his mother and join the family in that way, he then decides to try and change their fates before it’s too late. With his best friend at his side, he believes that knowing how Hamlet will work in his favor, helping him overcome the challenges approaching.
7 Atom Heart Mother
Atom Heart Mother, released in 2013, is set during Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s time in government, specifically when the Subsidy Reform Plan was made to help alleviate Iran’s economic situation. Pegah Ahangarani and Alidoosti portray two good friends that are leaving a party late at night. After meeting a friend, they get into a car accident, and then things start to get very weird. The stranger they meet while in the accident keeps appearing and talking about political issues, as well as ongoing problems in Iran. As the night goes on and the two friends navigate the streets, he keeps showing up to them, crossing the movie into surreal territory.
6 Fireworks Wednesday
Fireworks Wednesday, which was directed by Farhadi, came out in 2006. The movie stars actors Hedieh Tehrani, Alidoosti, and Hamid Haroknezhad in the leading roles. A couple (Tehran and Haroknezhad) are struggling with their married life. At the beginning of the movie, they are preparing to head to Dubai, but first the holiday of Chaharshanbe Suri is swiftly approaching. As it is a custom to clean before it, the two hire a maid, who discovers that both husband and wife are engaging in suspicious activities. Fireworks Wednesday is a layered story that examines the lives of middle and lower-class Iranians in contemporary Iran, clearly marking their differences and privileges. Although it is one of Farhadi’s lesser-known movies, it shows the strengths of his filmmaking.
5 Leila’s Brothers
Leila’s Brothers made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, albeit with a controversial start as two actors in the film were accused of sexual assault. The film was also banned in Iran due to how the cast made critical remarks about the government while at Cannes. Leila’s Brothers focuses on a 40-year-old woman, Leila (Alidoosti), and how she takes care of her brothers and family all of her life. As the family’s situation gets direr, and they face spiraling into poverty, Leila decides they need to start a business to save the family. This movie is about sacrifice, but also the issues everyday Iranians now face with the sanctions against Iran imposed by other countries.
4 Shirin
Alidoosti plays a very small role in the auteur Abbas Kiarostami’s Shirin. Released in 2009, this was one of the last films Kiarostami made while in Iran. Some may call Shirin relatively plotless, as it enlists 100 actresses, many of whom are notable in Iran, along with the French actress Juliette Binoche, to watch a movie. The film they are watching is about the Persian myth of Shirin and her romance with Khosrow. When filming, the actresses weren’t aware of what they were watching, so Shirin delves into the questions of female spectatorship and cinema.
3 Subtraction
Subtraction premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, becoming a highly anticipated release from Iranian director Mani Haghighi. In Subtraction, Alidoosti portrays a young woman who is a driving instructor. Their marriage seems normal at first, but when she sees her husband walking into a stranger’s home, specifically a woman’s, she starts to get suspicious. What ends up happening is they discover there’s a couple who looks exactly like them out in the world, making the movie turn in a completely different direction.
2 About Elly
About Elly is another one of Farhadi’s movies, which was released in 2009. Alidoosti and Golshifteh Farahani star with Shahab Hosseini in a mystery that blurs the lines of living a middle-class wife. After a mother (Farahani) invites an elementary school teacher (Alidoosti), things first go wrong when the accommodation they booked turns out to not be available. Undefeated, they continue their holiday, but after the teacher goes missing while watching a child, this vacation becomes an absolute nightmare scenario for the holiday goers.
1 The Salesman
Farhadi took home his second Oscar for the 2016 movie The Salesman, making him one of the few directors to win the Academy Award for International Feature Film twice. Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini star as a young theater couple, who have to relocate after an earthquake in Tehran makes their apartment collapse. They rent a new flat on top of a building and attend rehearsals for the upcoming performance of Death of a Salesman they’re in, but one-night Alidoosti’s character is assaulted while in the shower. She needs to overcome the trauma that was caused while still going to work, and, at the same time, Hosseini’s character goes on the hunt for the perpetrator to get revenge. Farhadi teases out subtle connections between the Arthur Miller play, which is what the movie is named after, and the character’s experiences.