Sightlines · reception

How Hit the Road was received

2021 · Panah Panahi · Hit the Road on Sightlines

The arc

No reappraisal needed — it premiered in Cannes' Directors' Fortnight in 2021 to instant raves, won Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival, and just kept climbing as it hit best-of-2022 lists. The only shift since: it went from 'promising debut' to 'one of the great debut features of the decade.'

What’s debated

The perennial split is over the motor-mouthed little brother — half of Letterboxd finds him the most charming kid in modern cinema, the other half finds him exhausting — plus the inevitable 'is he in his father Jafar's shadow?' debate.

Its footprint

The film's signature exports are its full-throated singalongs to pre-revolution Iranian pop hits and a swooning, star-field fantasy shot that gets screenshotted endlessly — a rare Iranian art film people quote for its jokes as much as its heartbreak.

Where it stands

An instant Letterboxd darling and a fixture of 'best debuts of the 2020s' conversations — the modern Iranian film cinephiles insist you must see.

Did you know? Panah Panahi is the son of banned Iranian director Jafar Panahi, and this debut won Best Film in the official competition at the 2021 BFI London Film Festival.

Named by the director

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) — Panahi has said he realized the father-son sky sequence was subconsciously shaped by Kubrick's film — one of his favorites — and then added an explicit reference to it in the dialogue.