A Separation

Plot

Nader, Simin, and their 10-year-old daughter, Termeh, are an upper-middle-class family living in a flat in Tehran. Simin wants the whole family to leave Iran and has prepared the visas, but Nader wishes to stay to care for his father, who lives with them, and has Alzheimer's disease. Simin therefore files for divorce, but the family court considers the grounds to be insufficient and rejects the application. Simin moves back to her parents’ home and Termeh stays with her father.

Nader hires Razieh, a deeply religious woman from a poor and distant suburb, to take care of his father during the day. She comes each day with her young daughter, Somayeh. She soon finds that she cannot cope, in particular because the old man has become incontinent. One day, when Razieh and Somayeh are busy, he slips out and wanders in the street. Razieh hastens out and dodges through the traffic to get to him.

The next day, Nader and Termeh come home early and discover the old man lying unconscious on the floor in his bedroom, tied to the bed. Razieh and Somayeh are out. When they return, Razieh says she had some urgent personal business; Nader accuses her of neglecting his father and stealing some money (which Simin had in fact used to pay some movers). When Razieh refuses to leave until he pays her, he pushes her out of the flat. She apparently falls down some steps. Nader and Simin later learn that Razieh has suffered a miscarriage.

If Nader knew of Razieh's pregnancy and caused the miscarriage, he could be guilty of murder. There is now a series of claims and counter-claims before a criminal judge: on one side, Nader, with Simin and Termeh; on the other, Razieh and her husband, Hodjat. He is a hot-tempered man, embittered and humiliated by the loss of his long-time job as a cobbler, and harassed by creditors. More than once, he attempts to assault Nader.

Razieh says that Nader knew of her pregnancy because he heard a conversation in the flat between her and Termeh's tutor, in which the tutor recommended a doctor to her. Nader denies this, and the tutor gives evidence in his support. Termeh finds reasons to believe this is not true, and Nader at last admits to her that he has lied for her sake and his father's: he cannot go to prison. The tutor withdraws her evidence. To protect her father, Termeh tells the judge that her father did not know of the pregnancy until she told him.

Nader claims that when he pushed Razieh out of the flat, she could not have fallen down the steps, but would have been protected by the railing. Razieh confesses to Simin that when she went out to bring back the old man, she was hit by a car and was in pain that night; this was the day before Nader pushed her, and she had gone out that day to see a doctor.

Hodjat is violent, and Simin fears for Termeh's safety. Simin persuades Nader to make a payment to Hodjat, but Nader first asks Razieh to swear on the Qur'an that he is the cause of her miscarriage. She cannot do so. Hodjat cannot force her, and begins hitting himself in a rage.

Later, at the family court, Nader and Simin are granted a divorce. As the film ends, they wait separately outside the court while Termeh tells the judge which parent she chooses to live with.

Cast

• Leila Hatami as Simin, a teacher and mother in Tehran
• Peyman Moaadi as Nader, Simin's husband of 14 years
• Sarina Farhadi as Termeh, Simin and Nader's teenaged daughter
• Sareh Bayat as Razieh, devout wife and mother employed as a caregiver for Nader's father
• Shahab Hosseini as Hodjat, Razieh's troubled and unemployed husband
• Kimia Hosseini as Somayeh, Razieh and Hodjat's young daughter
• Merila Zarei as Mrs Ghahraei, Termeh's teacher
• Babak Karimi as Judge
• Shirin Yazdanbakhsh as Simin's mother and Nader's mother-in-law
• Ali-Asghar Shahbazi as Nader's elderly father, suffering from severe Alzheimer's

Production

The concept came from a number of personal experiences and abstract pictures which had been in Asghar Farhadi's mind for some time. Once he decided to make the film, about a year before it premiered, it was quickly written and financed. Farhadi described the film as the "logical development" from his previous film, About Elly. Like Farhadi's last three films, A Separation was made without any government support. The financing went without trouble much thanks to the success of About Elly. The production was granted in support from the Motion Picture Association's APSA Academy Film Fund.

In September 2010, Farhadi was banned from making the film by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, because of an acceptance speech held during an award ceremony where he expressed support for several Iranian film personalities. Notably he had wished to see the return to Iranian cinema of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an exiled filmmaker and Iranian opposition profile, and of the imprisoned political filmmaker Jafar Panahi, both of whom had been connected to the Iranian Green Movement. The ban was lifted in the beginning of October after Farhadi claimed to have been misperceived and apologized for his remarks.

Release and reception

The film premiered on 9 February 2011 at the 29th Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran. Six days later it played in Competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. Farhadi had previously competed at the festival's 2009 edition with About Elly, for which he had received the Silver Bear for Best Director. Distribution rights for the United Kingdom were acquired by Artificial Eye.

Box office

As of 17 April 2014, A Separation has grossed worldwide over $24 million on an estimated budget of just $800,000, making it a huge box-office success.

Critical reception

The film has been met with universal acclaim from film critics. It currently holds a 99% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 176 reviews with an average rating of 8.90/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving, A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity." The site ranked it 24th on their "300 Best Movies of All Time" list in 2025. It has a score of 95 on Metacritic based on 41 reviews, making it the best-reviewed film of 2011.

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter wrote from the Berlinale:

Young noted how Farhadi portrayed Iran's social and religious divisions, and complimented the film's craft:

In a strongly positive review from Screen Daily, Lee Marshall wrote:

Alissa Simon from Variety called it Farhadi's strongest work yet and described it:

David Thomson for The New Republic wrote:

The film won the Fajr Film Festival's Crystal Simorghs for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematographer and Best Sound Recorder. It also received the Audience Favourite Film award. It won the top award, the Golden Bear for Best Film, at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. The actress ensemble received the Silver Bear for Best Actress, and the actor ensemble the Silver Bear for Best Actor. In addition it received the Competition Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers' Prize. Isabella Rossellini, the Jury president of the Berlin International Film Festival, said that the choice of Farhadi's film for the Golden Bear was "pretty unanimous". Ahmad Miralaii, the director of Iran's Farabi Cinematic Foundation, said that "Iranian cinema is proud of the awards", as he welcomed Farhadi at the airport upon the director's return from Berlin.

A Separation was voted the second best film of 2011 in the annual Sight & Sound critic poll, as well as in the LA Weekly Film Poll 2011. The film was also voted No. 3 in the annual indieWire critic survey for 2011, No. 4 in the 2011 poll by Film Comment, and was ranked No. 5 on Paste magazine's 50 Best Movies of 2011. Roger Ebert ranked the film No. 1 on his The Best Films of 2011 list and wrote: "A Separation will become one of those enduring masterpieces watched decades from now". In 2024, Looper ranked it number 7 on its list of the "50 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time," writing "While you can't go wrong with any Farhadi movie, A Separation is an especially strong and thoughtful achievement from this artist."

Iranian critic Massoud Farasati, whose views are close to those of the Islamic regime, said "The image of our society that A Separation depicts is the dirty picture westerners are wishing for".

Industry reaction

Steven Spielberg stated he believed the film to be the best of that year by a wide margin. Other admirers of the film included Woody Allen who called Farhadi to congratulate him on the film. David Fincher, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie spoke to Farhadi during the awards season each offering their praise for him and the film.

Top ten lists

The film has appeared on numerous critics' top ten lists for 2011, some notable of which are the following:

• 1st: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
• 1st: Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
• 1st: Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor
• 1st: Mike D'Angelo, Freelance
• 1st: Nathaniel Rogers, The Film Experience
• 1st: Kristy Puchko, The Film Stage
• 1st: A. A. Dowd, Time Out Chicago
• 2nd: Alison Willmore, The A.V. Club
• 2nd: Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
• 2nd: Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist
• 2nd: Chuck Bowen, Slant
• 2nd: David Fear, Time Out New York
• 2nd: Peter Martin, Twitch
• 2nd: Tom Hall, Sarasota Film Festival
• 3rd: Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
• 3rd: Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
• 3rd: Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club
• 3rd: Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
• 3rd: Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
• 3rd: Dave McCoy, MSN Movies
• 3rd: Nick Schager, Slant
• 3rd: Peter Howell, Toronto Star
• 4th: Ray Greene, Boxoffice Magazine
• 4th: Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Sight & Sound magazine included the film in its list of "30 great films of the 2000s". A Separation was later named the ninth-greatest film of the 21st century in a 2016 BBC critics' poll. In 2018, the film was ranked 21st in the BBC's list of The 100 greatest foreign language films of all time. In 2019, The Guardian ranked the film 36th in its 100 best films of the 21st century list. In 2021, members of Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) voted its screenplay 66th in WGA’s 101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far). In 2022, Sight and Sound ranked the film 72th in its Directors' 100 Greatest Films of All Time list In 2025, the film ranked number 33 on The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list, finishing at number 145. In July 2025, it ranked number 12 on Rolling Stones list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century."

Awards and nominations

Each date is linked to the article about the awards held that year wherever possible.

References

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