It Was Just An Accident Review: Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-Winning Moral Thriller

Iranian director Jafar Panahi crafts a film driven by fury, resilience, and above all, deep compassion.

Every new film made by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi functions as an act of resistance. The personal and artistic risks he faces are enormous, as his work reflects the social and economic realities of a nation under intense surveillance and restriction. Ironically, the more pressure he faces to remain silent, the stronger and more fearless his films become.

His latest work, It Was Just An Accident, which received the top honor at Cannes earlier this year and later screened at the International Film Festival of Kerala, arrives quietly before exploding with emotional and narrative force. By the final moments, the audience is left with an undeniable sense of transformation. This is a revenge drama fueled by rage toward institutional power, layered with ethical tension and moral uncertainty.

The premise

Vahid, portrayed by Vahid Mobasseri, is startled by an unfamiliar sound inside his workshop. The noise instantly awakens buried trauma, suggesting a past that refuses to stay silent. The sound turns out to be that of a prosthetic leg. Drawing from true accounts and experiences Panahi encountered through former prisoners, the film establishes its urgency almost immediately.

Vahid is revealed to be one of many civilians detained during protests advocating workers rights. He identifies a man named Eghbal, played by Ebrahim Azizi, solely by the sound of the artificial limb. Eghbal, known as Peg Leg, was the prison officer who brutally tortured him.

Consumed by recognition, Vahid follows Eghbal home and confronts him the next day, striking him with a shovel. He restrains him, locks him inside a crate, and begins digging a grave, intent on burying him alive. Desperate, Eghbal pleads for mercy, insisting that Vahid has mistaken him for someone else.

Uncertain, Vahid loads him into a van and begins searching for others who can confirm Eghbal’s identity. Along the way, he encounters Shiva, a photographer played by Maryam Afshari, who is rebuilding her life after incarceration. She is in the middle of a pre wedding shoot when it becomes clear that the bride, Goli, portrayed by Hadis Pakbaten, was also a victim of Peg Leg.

One deeply unsettling monologue allows Goli to recount her suffering in prison in her own words. She joins the group with her fiance, played by Majid Panahi, the directors brother. The group later expands to include Hamid, played by Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, whose uncontrollable anger nearly leads him to kill Eghbal on the spot.

What works

As the group argues intensely over what should be done next, Panahi makes it clear that rage must not erase their humanity. It Was Just An Accident may be Panahi’s angriest film to date, yet it remains deeply reflective, forcing the audience into uncomfortable moral territory.

Dark humor weaves through the story, highlighting the cruelty and absurdity of the situation. Panahi, operating at the height of his abilities, constructs a finale of remarkable emotional weight. The climactic sequence confronting the desire for revenge is both chilling and exquisitely executed. The blend of moral conflict and raw fury is overwhelming and unforgettable.

Final thoughts

It Was Just An Accident stands as a vital piece of cinema from a filmmaker grappling with the immediate and painful realities faced by his people. While rooted in a specific national context, the film speaks to audiences worldwide, serving as a cautionary message to authoritarian systems everywhere.

Panahi forces viewers to confront an uncomfortable question: how tempting is it to respond to oppression with the same cruelty inflicted upon us? The film warns that unchecked anger can strip even the most principled individuals of their humanity. Panahi draws a firm boundary and urges us to look closely at where such rage leads. If all that remains is hatred, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we oppose.

• It Was Just An Accident
• Director: Jafar Panahi

Rating: *****