It's infamously hard to make a movie. The politics of many conservative Muslim countries make it even harder. At an MIT screening of the phenomenal Joyland (2022), director Saim Sadiq spoke about the challenges of making a movie about LGBTQ people in Pakistan, including the government's initial banning of the movie and the troubles of getting meaningful distribution in a country with just a few dozen movie theaters. Due to its rebellious content, critically-acclaimed indie A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) was forced to film its version of Iran in desert California.

That's the biggest reason Iranian director Jafar Panahi's latest film It Was Just An Accident has been making waves since its 2025 limited release. Panahi, who's been arrested and legally barred from making movies in Iran due to his opposition towards the national government, filmed Accident in secret on-location in and around Tehran. Panahi's clandestine filming inspired global audiences and propelled him towards the Palme d'Or at Cannes and other victories across the circuit. 

At its core, though, Accident tells a pretty familiar story — with less nuance than the awards-show buzz would let on. Its setting makes it an interesting installment to the canon of art dealing with justice, forgiveness, and culpability, but outclassed by the predecessors within that canon. 

When a man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving with his small family hits a dog on the street late at night, he stops at a mechanic for repairs. As he limps through the shop on a worn prosthetic leg, the mechanic's employee, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), thinks he recognizes the leg's squeaking sound. He believes it belongs to his captor, Eghbal, who tortured Vahid in an Iranian prison and who political prisoners referred to as "Peg Leg." Wasting no time in getting revenge for years of unjust treatment, Vahid stalks and kidnaps Eghbal, driving him out to the desert outside Tehran and attempting to bury him alive. But the man who Vahid believes to be Eghbal, sobbing, denies his identity; his leg is new, he claims, from a recent accident. A seed of doubt planted in Vahid's mind, he puts Eghbal back in his van and sets out to confirm his identity. That goal takes him on a sprawling search across the city, from fellow prisoner-turned-photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari) to betrothed couple Goli and Ali (Hadis Pakbaten and Majid Panahi) to wildcard Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr). At each stop, Vahid learns more about the man unconscious in his trunk, but the journey is anything but linear.

Thanks to its talented core of local actors, Accident builds empathy quickly and sustains it through some tough moments. In the role of our protagonist, Vahid Mobasseri's pain is as viscerally clear as his uncertainty about the right thing to do, and it's impressive how he's able to muster both violent rage and tender care. The same is true for most of the supporting characters; Mariam Afshari brings tenderness and worry balancing out a lot of testosterone as the foremost woman in the cast, while Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr is funny and long-winded as the hotheaded Hamid. And despite his minimal presence throughout the bulk of the film, Ebrahim Azizi delivers a powerful (if somewhat melodramatic) performance in each of his crucial scenes as the villain-turned-victim.

Past that cadre, though, the story's twists and turns don't distract from the relatively simple quandary of revenge at its center. After the initial attempted burial, Mobasseri's gentleness assuaged me throughout that he wouldn't actually kill Eghbal, which diffused arguably too much of the tension up until the climax. And although small bits of realistic comic relief seep through, such as in every shot of Goli's wedding dress or the omnipresent yet mundane expectation of bribery, I found myself checking my watch even with a 104-minute runtime. Long takes and a minimal score didn't help, either. Side conversations about the nature of justice, and how Eghbal could possibly forgive the hurt he inflicted on our characters, make headway but never get far enough past the surface.

The film's title, It Was Just an Accident (almost a direct translation from its counterparts in the Persian یک تصادف ساده and French Un simple accident), adapts a remark from Eghbal in the opening scene. After killing the dog with his car, he proffers the phrase as a meek yet straightforward excuse to his daughter in the backseat. What, then, is the "accident" to Panahi? Who's driving the car, and who's the dog? And, accident or not, what actions simply are never excusable? Better movies have answered these proverbial questions, yet Accident still tries nicely.