Essential Films From Iran, India, Brazil and Nigeria

Film

INDIA

Selected by Mira Nair, 68, the director of ‘Mississippi Masala’ (1991) and ‘Monsoon Wedding’ (2001).

‘Jalsaghar’ (‘The Music Room,’ 1958), directed by Satyajit Ray

In this Bengali drama, an aging aristocrat clings to memories of the music room where he once hosted opulent concerts. Nair calls Ray “a beacon” for her. This film stars singers like Begum Akhtar, “the real voice of the country at the time,” she says.

‘Garm Hava’ (‘Scorching Winds,’ 1974), directed by M.S. Sathyu

Sathyu’s film shows the painful fate of a Muslim businessman and his family who decide to stay in India after partition in 1947, enduring violence that makes them strangers in their own land. “It’s a piercing film that captures the seed of the conflict that we’re facing now in India,” says Nair.

‘Manthan’ (‘The Churning,’ 1976), directed by Shyam Benegal

A veterinary surgeon tries to start a dairy co-op in Benegal’s Hindi film, which was crowdfunded by 500,000 dairy farmers in India who each contributed two rupees. “It’s an extraordinary film financed by the people,” says Nair, and it “really makes you understand the rural heartbeat of our country.”

‘Umrao Jaan’ (1981), directed by Muzaffar Ali

In this musical drama, a girl is sold to a brothel by a vengeful neighbor against whom her father once testified — she later becomes a respected dancer-poet. Nair cites the film’s “exquisite music and an unforgettable performance by Rekha,” the one-named actress who’s one of India’s biggest stars.

IRAN

Selected by Jafar Panahi, 65, the director of ‘It Was Just an Accident’ (2025).

‘Gaav’ (‘The Cow,’ 1969), directed by Dariush Mehrjui

Mehrjui’s black-and-white feature is a “socially engaged film” that marked the beginning of the Iranian New Wave, says Panahi. After his cow is killed, a farmer who relies on the animal for both joy and a living undergoes a strange transformation. Funded by the shah of Iran, who then banned the film after deeming its portrayal of rural life in the country too negative, it was eventually smuggled into the 1971 Venice Film Festival.

‘Tabiate Bijan’ (‘Still Life,’ 1974), directed by Sohrab Shahid Saless

Saless’s film about an illiterate Iranian railway crossing operator — whose life is upended after he’s forced to retire — won a prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1974. “I believe for its time it was a very modern film,” says Panahi — celebrated for its slow pacing, its minimalist camerawork and its confrontational take on Iranian society.

‘Davandeh’ (‘The Runner,’ 1984), directed by Amir Naderi

Inspired by the director’s childhood, “The Runner” tells the story of an orphan determined to survive in the gritty Iranian port city of Abadan. This movie, about “a new generation striving for the future,” says Panahi, was one of the first films made in post-revolution Iran to be screened internationally.

‘Khane-ye doust kodjast?’ (‘Where Is the Friend’s House?,’ 1987), directed by Abbas Kiarostami

In this movie from the legendary Iranian filmmaker, a young boy heads to a neighboring village to try to return his classmate’s notebook. “It was with that film that people around the world started following Iranian cinema,” says Panahi.

BRAZIL

Selected by Kleber Mendonça Filho, 57, the director of ‘The Secret Agent’ (2025).

‘Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos’ (‘Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands,’ 1976), directed by Bruno Barreto

A young woman in 1940s Bahia remarries after the death of her good-for-nothing first husband, in one of the most popular comedies in Brazilian cinema, based on Jorge Amado’s novel. “It’s kind of naughty and sexual,” says Mendonça Filho, “but at the same time, it’s about food and Carnival. And [the star] Sônia Braga, of course, is amazing.”

‘Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco’ (‘Pixote: The Law of the Weakest,’ 1980), directed by Héctor Babenco

“One of the best Brazilian films ever made,” says Mendonça Filho, it centers on a young boy who escapes from a brutal juvenile detention center only to end up trapped in the underground crime world. Nonprofessionals cast alongside actors help give the docudrama its realist edge, but “as much as it’s brutal,” the film “also has a lot of heart.”

‘Cabra Marcado Para Morrer’ (‘Twenty Years Later,’ 1984), directed by Eduardo Coutinho

Coutinho’s documentary was meant to be a fictional depiction of the life and death of an assassinated Brazilian land reform leader, but the production was interrupted in 1964 by a U.S.-backed coup. The subsequent military dictatorship lasted roughly two decades, hence the film’s English title. Coutinho returned to the original footage in 1981 and made a documentary, “painting this incredible canvas of political violence,” says Mendonça Filho, “of the history of Brazil and the divisions between the North and South.”

NIGERIA

Selected by Akinola Davies Jr., 40, the director of ‘My Father’s Shadow’ (2025).

‘Living in Bondage’ (1992), directed by Chris Obi Rapu

In one of the “biggest classics” in Nigerian cinema, according to Davies, a young man finds himself enmeshed in the world of witchcraft after being mentored by a peculiar tycoon. Rapu’s thriller, shot and released on VHS, helped launch Nollywood, as the country’s film industry is now known. “Nigerian cinema predates Nollywood,” says Davies, “but Nollywood really centralized stories by and for people in Nigeria and in the diaspora.”

‘Lionheart’ (2018), directed by Genevieve Nnaji

Contemporary Nollywood films like Nnaji’s dramatic comedy — in which a young woman must grudgingly work with her uncle to save their father’s company from being taken over — show how Nigerian films keep finding new ways to tell stories about social status, Davies says.

‘Eyimofe’ (‘This Is My Desire,’ 2020), directed by Arie and Chuko Esiri

In the Esiri twins’ debut feature, two distantly connected Nigerians — an electrician and a hairdresser — try to find ways to leave Lagos and start new lives in Europe. The film reflects the harsh economic realities faced by migrants, and Nigeria’s “brain drain,” says Davies.

‘All the Colors of the World Are Between Black and White’ (2023), directed by Babatunde Apalowo

Two men begin seeing each other in Lagos in what Davies calls a “very subtle, self-contained film” that deftly deals with the tensions of same-sex relationships in a country where they’re still criminalized.

These interviews have been edited and condensed.

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