Sirāt · reception & legacy

2025 · Oliver Laxe

How Sirāt has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It detonated at Cannes 2025 — Jury Prize (shared with Sound of Falling, from Juliette Binoche's jury) and instant 'shock of the festival' status — then, unusually for something this feral, the establishment kept nodding: Spain's Oscar pick, two Academy Award nominations (International Feature and Sound), two Golden Globe nods, and a Goya sweep of the craft categories.

What's debated

The fault line runs between those who call it the theatrical experience of the decade and those who find it a punishing, overpraised provocation — with a side-debate about whether its infamous swerves are profound or just cruel, which is exactly why everyone insists you go in blind.

Its footprint

It's become 2025's great 'see it loud, know nothing' film — shorthand online is some variation of 'an existential Mad Max at a desert rave' — and Kangding Ray's pounding techno score has a cultural life of its own, right down to a Golden Globe nomination.

Where it stands

A cult object that got canonised in real time: a Letterboxd obsession, a festival-circuit legend, and already a 'you haven't seen Sirāt?' film among cinephiles.

★ Did you know? Oliver Laxe is four-for-four at Cannes: every feature he has ever made premiered there and won a prize — You All Are Captains (FIPRESCI), Mimosas (Critics' Week Grand Prize), Fire Will Come (Un Certain Regard Jury Prize), and now Sirāt (Jury Prize).

Named by the director

Influences Oliver Laxe has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

The Wages of Fear (1953) — Laxe studied it for the film's hazardous physical journey — trucks, cargo, terrain as antagonist.
Sorcerer (1977) — Friedkin's remake was equally on his mind in conceiving the perilous desert crossing.
Mad Max (1979) — Laxe named it among the genre films Sirāt 'dialogues with' on its physical, end-of-the-world dimension.
Deliverance (1972) — Cited alongside the road-thriller canon that shaped the film's physical ordeal.
Paris, Texas (1984) — Named by Laxe among the films informing its desert-wanderer register.
Vanishing Point (1971) — One of the '70s American road movies Laxe cited for the film's existential dimension.
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) — Another of his declared '70s existential-road-movie touchstones.
David Lynch — Laxe said he aspires to 'make sorcery' like Lynch, whom he called an expert at keeping imagery unconscious.