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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

97
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83
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43
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35
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32
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80
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62
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47
Bella
63
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71
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63
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58
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70
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54
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32
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69
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82
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46
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30
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35
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61
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92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
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20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
58
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43
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58
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57
Flawless
87
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xx
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58
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Honeydripper
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Life of Reilly, The
50
Look
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Meet Bill
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My Blueberry Nights
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OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83
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Penelope
90
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75
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Zombie Strippers
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92
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91
Up the Yangtze
90
Persepolis
87
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Savages, The
83
Paranoid Park
83
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
82
Chop Shop
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Band's Visit, The
79
Visitor, The
78
Counterfeiters, The
76
Unforeseen, The
76
Stuff and Dough
75
Young@Heart
75
Shotgun Stories
74
Witnesses, The
73
Duchess of Langeais, The
72
Roman de gare
72
Priceless
72
Tuya's Marriage
72
Life of Reilly, The
71
My Brother Is an Only Child
71
Blindsight
71
Standard Operating Procedure
70
Caramel
69
Redbelt
69
Chicago 10
68
Honeydripper
67
Snow Angels
67
Praying with Lior
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
67
Jellyfish
66
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
66
Shelter
65
Married Life
64
Surfwise
64
Son of Rambow
64
Water Lilies
63
XXY
63
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
63
Body of War
63
Blind Mountain
62
Planet B-Boy
62
Battle for Haditha
61
Dhamma Brothers, The
61
OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
61
Girls Rock!
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Fugitive Pieces
58
First Saturday in May, The
58
Fall, The
58
Hats Off
58
Bra Boys
57
Flawless
57
Teeth
57
Without the King
57
Grand, The
56
Turn the River
56
Then She Found Me
55
Vice
55
Tracey Fragments, The
55
Pathology
55
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
54
Cashback
54
Mister Lonely
52
Noise
52
My Blueberry Nights
50
Look
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
48
Dark Matter
48
Penelope
47
Bella
47
Boarding Gate
46
CJ7
46
Previous Engagement, A
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
45
Zombie Strippers
44
Frontier(s)
44
Chaos Theory
43
Anamorph
43
Favor, The
41
Funny Games
40
Sleepwalking
37
Life Before Her Eyes, The
35
Meet Bill
35
Babysitters, The
35
Deal
32
Backseat
32
Chapter 27
30
Cover
24
Sex and Death 101
20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
17
Prom Night
xx
Tashan
xx
Unsettled
xx
Plumm Summer, A
xx
Kiss the Bride
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
xx
From Within
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Circle, The
Winstar Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: Not Rated
Starring
Maryiam Palvin Almani,
Nargess Mamizadeh,
Fereshteh Sadr Orfani,
Monir Arab,
Elham Saboktakin,
Fatemeh Naghavi,
and
Mojgan Faramarzi
This film tells the intertwining stories of a group of seven Iranian women, each of whom has a criminal past due to societal prejudices and oppressive laws.
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Kambuzia Partovi
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Jafar Panahi
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 18, 2001
Video: December 18, 2001
Theatrical: April 13, 2001
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
90 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Iran / Italy |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Farsi (with English subtitles) |
Also known as "Dayereh"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Mr. Showbiz
Michael Atkinson
Naturalistic, gritty, and unrelenting.
100
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Quiet, rageful indictment of a two-tiered Islamic society.
100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Suspenseful and ingeniously directed.

100
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Circles the heart of noisy, modern Tehran with an informal, documentary-like freedom that is thrilling in its naturalism.

90
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
The political implications of the film are manifest, as is the quiet courage of making it.

90
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Restrained yet powerful, devastating in its emotional effects.

90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A stunning drama about the desperate state of women in Iran.
90
LA Weekly
David Chute
A triumph of invisible craftsmanship that embraces so much specific detail that none of the women ever comes across as an emblem or an abstraction.

90
Variety
Deborah Young
Both fascinates and horrifies with its bold assertions about what it means to be a woman under a cruel, institutionalized patriarchy.

90
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A memorable and devastating indictment of the oppression facing many women in Iran.

90
Film.com
Peter Brunette
The fact that this film, so sensitive to woman's plight, was made by a man is perhaps cause for a little hope.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The Circle is all the more depressing when we consider that Iran is relatively liberal compared to, say, Afghanistan under the Taliban.

88
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Such moral outrage, apart from the artistry in which it is embedded, tells us that the forces of change are stirring in Iran.
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Panahi's simplicity accentuates the movie's power: its sense of life caught unobserved.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
A mix of the poetic and the polemic, the film is oddly abstract and untethered.

80
TV Guide
Ken Fox
This tightly structured, often exciting film is among the boldest in a series of increasingly explicit movies.

80
New Times (L.A.)
Jean Oppenheimer
An extraordinary film from a born filmmaker.

80
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
The picture is so dramatically textured that you feel something's happening every minute.

80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Panahi is a maestro of anxiety. Whatever its political significance, this is a dark, sustained, and wrenching film.

80
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Panahi creates a raw, riveting film.

80
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
In its brisk way, it's a devastating piece of work, and very brave too.

78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
There's no denying it's a tragic film from start to finish, but equally undeniable is the endless stoicism displayed by the women, and Panahi's crisp, meandering direction.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Wesley Morris
It's a startling, speedy, gracefully executed indictment.

75
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
A Kafkaesque series of interwoven stories that depict the hopeless lives half the populace there (Iran) must lead.

75
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
How dangerous it is to be a woman in Iran, especially one going against the wishes of her menfolk, is brought home time after time in these related vignettes.

75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
A terrific social drama, the work of an artist, not a pleader.

70
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
In The Circle, which is banned in Iran, the enforced society of women is, in effect, a community of adults treated as children.

63
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
This film is fighting the good fight, albeit in a rather heavy-handed way.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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