The Open Road: Taste of Cherry
Opens November 23, 2026
The austere, middle aged Mr. Baadi drives around the dusty hills on the outskirts of Tehran with a somber goal: searching for someone who will bury him after he commits suicide, a taboo under Islamic law. As he winds his way through the warm, autumnal landscape, Baadi picks up various passengers (a soldier, a seminarian, and a taxidermist) to engage in reflexive conversations on mortality and individual choice. Despite the grimness of its end of the road subject matter and the weight of the decision with which Baadi grapples, Taste of Cherry remains a life affirming and euphoric film experience. Along with being the first Iranian film to win the Palme d’Or, it subsequently brought Abbas Kiarostami’s masterful body of work to full international prominence.
“Kiarostami, one of the great filmmakers of our time, is a master at filming landscapes and constructing parablelike narratives whose missing pieces solicit the viewer’s active imagination.” — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
- Director: Abbas Kiarostami
- Principal Cast: Homayoun Ershadi, Abdolrahman Bagheri, Afshin Khorshid Bakhtiari
- Country: Iran
- Year: 1997
- Running Time: 99 min.
- Producer: Alain Depardieu, Abbas Kiarostami
- Screenplay: Abbas Kiarostami
- Cinematographers: Homayun Payvar
- Editors: Abbas Kiarostami
- Filmography: Like Someone in Love (2012), Certified Copy (2010), The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), Through the Olive Trees (1994), Close-Up (1990)
- Language: Persian
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- US Distributor: Janus