Hit the Road

"A beautifully tender comedy that tears your heart in half with a featherlight touch."

Indiewire

"Thrillingly inventive, satisfyingly textured and infused with warmth and humanity, this is a triumph."

Screen Daily

“A stunningly assured road movie which balances emotional nuance with a bubbling undercurrent of political critique.”

BFI

"Panahi has a talent for leaving many things unsaid, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions about scenes that look natural but are filled with intent.”

“As if we’re watching a Persian Little Miss Sunshine”

The Hollywood Reporter

"An intimate, frequently funny, poignant and deeply moving piece of work.”
“Damn near being a masterpiece”

Cinevue *****

“Critic’s Pick! From the first jokey moments of Hit the Road until its heartbreaking end you will not want to be anywhere else.”

The New York Times (A. O. Scott)

“Panahi films the drama with aesthetic audacity to match his psychological subtlety… unites intimate conflicts and vast landscapes in framings as wry as they are rhapsodic.”

The New Yorker (Richard Brody)

"A breath of fresh air and a truly original work that marks [Panahi] as a talent to watch… contains more thrilling cinema than most other films at [last] year’s Cannes put together.”

The Playlist

“Lovely, beautifully composed debut feature drenched in a subtle but urgent political meaning... An irrepressible defiance and comic energy bubbles under every scene”

The Guardian *****

“Masterful. A filmmaker that both honors his father’s ongoing legacy, and inaugurates his unique, very own voice.”

Roger Ebert.com (Tomris Laffly)

“A bittersweet family drama and thrilling escape story all at once” “A beautiful tender comedy.”

IndieWire (Eric Kohn)

“Irresistible... A witty, often laugh-out-loud funny road movie”

The Times *****

“Panahi Jr has also made a miraculously accessible piece of entertainment here”

Daily Telegraph *****

“This is a hell of a debut from Panah Panahi... The tragi-comic tone is juggled skilfully”

Empire magazine ****

“Reminds us of the beauty in kindness, compassion, self-sacrifice and family love”

Rolling Stone UK ****

“Crowd-pleaser... The mood can be uproarious, the movie brimming with absurdist fun and honeyed Iranian pop — but darkness always feels just an inch off-camera”

Financial Times ****

“An absolute charmer”

Daily Mail ****

“Assured, darkly comic debut…”

Little White Lies *****

“The anxious uncertainty of life in exile embeds itself in a tender and tragic tale of an Iranian family’s journey. An act of tender devotion and a fearful launch into space.”

The Wrap (Dave White)

“Has an ambition and humour all its own... The road movie made new”

The New Statesman

“Soulful Iranian answer to Little Miss Sunshine”

Metro

“A seamless comedic affair. Perfectly meshing the aimless and the heartfelt in a consistently amusing travelogue.”

Review Online (David Cuevas)

"This film is so simple and so complex, so full of humour and immense pain, abounding with love and just a little conflict.”

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