A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

A young man named Arash has spent years working to buy a vintage sports car, and he lives in Bad City, a run-down Iranian ghost town where law and order have faded and vice and drug use are part of daily life. His father Hossein is addicted to drugs, gambles and owes money to a dealer and pimp named Saeed. When Hossein cannot pay, Saeed takes Arash's car instead. Adrift in the dark streets, Arash meets a mysterious, veiled girl who, it turns out, stalks the town's residents at night and feeds on their blood.

Ana Lily Amirpour wrote and directed this 2014 release, her first feature. It sits at the start of a directing career that continued with The Bad Batch in 2017 and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon in 2022, and she also produced alongside Justin Begnaud and Sina Sayyah. Sheila Vand plays the Girl, with Arash Marandi as Arash, Marshall Manesh as Hossein, Mozhan Marnò as Atti, Dominic Rains as Saeed and Rome Shadanloo as Shaydah. The film runs 101 minutes. Made for about one million dollars, it is a modestly budgeted independent horror-romance that found a substantial audience relative to its cost. On IMDb it holds 6.9/10 from around 41,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.8/10 from roughly 980 votes. A critics' rating of 8/10 from 135 reviews places it above both audience scores.