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Updated November 2026 Refreshed with the film’s festival record and current ways to watch it in the UK and inside Iran.
The Law of Tehran movie is a gripping Iranian police thriller about the hunt for a drug kingpin, and it is one of the best films you can watch to understand a side of the capital that tourists never see. Released in Iran in 2019 as Metri Shesh-o Nim (متری شیش و نیم), and also known internationally as Just 6.5, it was written and directed by Saeed Roustaee, who later made the acclaimed family drama Leila’s Brothers, which competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2022.
The film became a major box-office success at home, rare for a hard-edged drama in a market where comedies usually rule, and won the audience award for best film at Iran’s Fajr Film Festival. Abroad it played at the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section and won best director for Roustaee and best actor for Navid Mohammadzadeh at the Tokyo International Film Festival, according to Wikipedia.
The opening sequence sets the tone. A narcotics raid on a run-down neighbourhood turns into a frantic foot chase over rooftops and through back alleys, staged with the grit of a classic American cop thriller but with flashes of almost slapstick physical comedy. That blend of brutality and black humour runs through the whole film and stops it from feeling like a lecture.
Payman Maadi, familiar to international audiences from Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation, plays Samad, a driven and short-tempered detective who has spent years chasing dealers with little to show for it. Houman Kiai plays his partner, Hamid. Their target is Naser Khakzad, a dealer who has climbed from the streets to great wealth, played with real charisma and, later, real vulnerability by Navid Mohammadzadeh.
The story takes in a shocking range of settings: a cramped police station overflowing with detained addicts, a family home terrorised by a suspect’s relatives, an airport where poor people are used as drug mules, and finally a crowded prison. The police are far from heroes. They bend rules, mishandle seized drugs and treat suspects harshly, and the film keeps asking whether their methods do any good at all.
Roustaee’s real subject is the human cost of addiction and of the drug trade around it. Families are broken, children are drawn in and the shadow of the death penalty hangs over the dealers, yet the film never tells you what to think. Even Khakzad, for all his luxury, ends up as trapped as the people whose lives his business has wrecked. It is a long film, at more than two hours, but it rarely lets up, and the final act is quietly devastating.
For anyone living in or visiting Tehran, it offers a vivid, unvarnished picture of parts of the city most foreigners never visit, and of a social problem Iranians talk about openly. It is also simply a superb crime film that stands comparison with the best of the genre.
In the UK, Law of Tehran is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and free with adverts on services including Tubi and Plex, and to rent or buy from platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon and Curzon Home Cinema, according to JustWatch. Availability changes, so check JustWatch for your own country. Inside Iran, look for it under its Persian title on Iranian streaming platforms. If you enjoy it, Roustaee’s Leila’s Brothers is the natural next step.
More Iranian films. If you enjoyed this, see our list of ten Iranian films to watch, from Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry to Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation.
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