It Was Just An Accident12A

Directed by Jafar Panahi | France/Iran/Luxembourg | 2025 | 1h 44m | Persian w/ English subtitles | Starring Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi

Azerbaijani car mechanic Vahid still bears the scars of his past when he was imprisoned and interrogated blindfolded by Iranian authorities. One day, after a road accident, a man named Eghbal enters his workshop with a creaking prosthetic leg. Vahid is struck by a chilling thought: could this be one of his former torturers? As suspicion turns to obsession, he begins to contemplate revenge. After years of censorship and imprisonment, award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi returns with a tense and unforgettable thriller which won the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

Panahi holds this tonal range expertly as laughs give away to a probing, philosophical third act that upends expectations in quietly thrilling style.’
★★★★★
Philip De Semlyen, The Times

‘It’s another very impressive serio-comic film from one of the most distinctive and courageous figures in world cinema.’
★★★★
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Sorry - you missed it!

We showed It Was Just An Accident between December 19, 2025 and January 8, 2026.

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Today (Wednesday 1st April)

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Tomorrow (Thursday 2nd April)

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15:00

The President's Cake 12A
1h 45m | Arabic w/ English subtitles
During 1990s Iraq, schoolgirl Lamia is chosen by her class to bake a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein. With her pet rooster beside her she searches the town for ingredients in an award-winning debut about childhood resilience and life under dictatorship.

Book here

17:45

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20:30

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Plan your visit

Our beautiful art deco inspired auditorium can be found just off East Oxford's Cowley Road.We are open 7 days a week. We open the cinema and box office 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of each film, and the Box Office then closes 10 minutes after the film starts. We only show a few adverts – less than most cinemas – and we only play a couple of trailers, so please don’t be late as the film itself starts very close to the advertised time!