---
title: "Sirāt"
year: 2025
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/sirat"
fi1m_id: "sirat"
imdb_id: "tt32298285"
tmdb_id: 1151272
wikidata_id: "Q133850188"
fi1m_score: 83
critics_score: 80
critics_reviews: 19
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:45.682332+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Sirāt (2025)

Directed by Oliver Laxe · 1h 55m · MPA R · Drama, Thriller

## Identity

Sirāt

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/sirat
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** sirat
- **IMDb ID:** tt32298285
- **TMDB ID:** 1151272
- **Wikidata ID:** Q133850188
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32298285/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1151272, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133850188

**Fi1m score: 83** · Critics 80 from 19 reviews

*In a sentence:* A father looks for his daughter at a desert rave and finds, instead, the desert

> Oliver Laxe sends a father and son looking for a missing daughter into a convoy of ravers and across the desert. It is loud, patient and frightening, and it earns nearly all of it; only a late surprise felt written rather than fated.

## Synopsis

Luis (Sergi López), a middle-aged Spaniard, has come to a rave in the Moroccan desert with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez). His daughter is missing, and he moves through the dancers handing out flyers with her photograph. Nobody has seen her. A radio carries reports of a war, and soldiers arrive to clear the site. Luis hears of another party further south and, with nowhere else to look, follows a small convoy of ravers, Steff (Stefania Gadda), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), Tonin (Tonin Janvier) and Jade (Jade Oukid), in their battered trucks across the sand. Oliver Laxe’s film runs 115 minutes and carries a 15 certificate.

## Review

*Sirāt* opens with a speaker stack being bolted together in the middle of nowhere. Cables, sub-woofers, a generator, then the first kick drum, then people, dancing in the dust. Somewhere among them a middle-aged Spaniard, Luis (Sergi López), is handing out flyers with his daughter’s photograph, his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez) beside him. Nobody has seen her. Oliver Laxe, who wrote the film with Santiago Fillol, spends a long time at this party, and he is right to. Everything that follows depends on our believing in it.

It is very good, and we recommend it with one caveat we will get to. For most of its 115 minutes it is the most physically frightening thing we have sat through in some time, and it gets there without much of what usually counts as plot. A radio carries reports of a war. Soldiers arrive and clear the site. Luis hears of another party further south and, having nothing else, follows a handful of ravers in their trucks. That is the story, or as much of it as we will describe.

Mauro Herce shoots on 16mm, and the grain does a lot of the work: the desert looks hot and unkind, and the trucks look small on it. He shoots the dancers close, at hip height, so we are among bodies rather than watching them from a distance. Kangding Ray’s score is techno built almost entirely from the bottom up, kick and sub-bass with little on top, and in a cinema we felt it in the sternum before we heard it. Cristóbal Fernández cuts the party slowly, holding on faces long past the point a music video would, until the dancing stops looking like fun and starts looking like work.

The ravers, Steff (Stefania Gadda), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), Tonin (Tonin Janvier) and Jade (Jade Oukid), are played by performers most critics take to be non-professionals, and they behave like people who have lived in these trucks for years. Laia Ateca’s production design gives each vehicle a history: bunks, spare parts, speakers wedged where the cargo should be. Nadia Acimi dresses them in salt-stained clothes that have plainly been slept in, and puts López in the sort of fleece a man packs for a weekend. He is the film’s anchor. López plays Luis as decent, tired and completely out of his depth, and the scenes where the ravers decide, without discussing it, to look after him and the boy moved us more than we expected. Nobody makes a speech about it. Someone passes him a bottle of water.

We were horrified more than once, and at one point we were angry with the film for a few minutes, because it had done something to us we had not agreed to. The anger did not last. Laxe has set every stage of it up, and looking back you can see him doing it; the film has been telling you what kind of world this is since the first radio report. A few critics have not forgiven him, and one or two think it mean-spirited. We do not. The film’s gentlest scenes come after its hardest ones, and they only work in that order.

Our caveat is the last stretch. The tension, once it takes hold, plays one note for a long time, and a late surprise felt less like fate than like a screenwriter. It is a small part of a long film and it does not undo the rest. It does make us think a braver cut would have stopped five minutes earlier.

Several critics have reached for Clouzot’s *The Wages of Fear* (1953), and the comparison holds for the trucks and the nerves. What Laxe adds is the party, and the idea that the people best equipped for the end of things might be the ones who never planned for anything.

See it in a cinema, the biggest you can find, and sit where the sub-bass is. At home the opening will be a scene you watch. In a room with proper speakers it is a scene you are at, and the rest of the film depends on the difference.

*Fi1m score 83, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Sirāt a great deal: sixteen of nineteen reviews are positive, and only two reject it. The praise clusters around the sound. Almost every review names the techno score and the sound design, and several single out the opening rave, shot close and loose among nonprofessional ravers, as the film’s strongest stretch. The desert landscapes come next, along with the twists in the second half, which most reviews describe as brutal and decline to detail.

The reservations gather at the ending. The Hollywood Reporter finds the last act muddled, The AV Club thinks it too literal, Screen Daily finds the effect inconclusive, and The Wrap tires of the brutality. The two dissenters go further: The Guardian says the film loses meaning altogether in its second half, and The Skinny calls it sloppy and politically careless. Almost nobody argues about whether it is well made; the argument is about whether the second half earns what it puts the audience through.

## Straight answers

**Is Sirāt worth watching?**

*Sirāt* is worth watching for anyone who can sit through a slow, loud and physically frightening thriller, and we scored it 83. Oliver Laxe follows a father and son across the Moroccan desert with a convoy of ravers, and Sergi López anchors it as a decent man out of his depth. Our one caveat is a late surprise that felt written rather than fated.

**How long is Sirāt, and what is it rated?**

*Sirāt* runs 1h 55m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and thriller film.

**Where can I watch Sirāt in the US?**

*Sirāt* is streaming on Disney+ in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $5.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Sirāt, and is it suitable for children?**

*Sirāt* carries a 15 certificate in the UK and an R in the US, and it is not suitable for children. There is no conventional violence for most of its running time, but we found it more physically frightening than most thrillers, and it does something to the viewer late on that some critics have not forgiven. The squeamish and the easily unsettled should know that going in.

**How does Sirāt compare to The Wages of Fear?**

*Sirāt* borrows the trucks and the nerves of [*The Wages of Fear*](https://film.one/film/the-wages-of-fear), but what Oliver Laxe adds is the rave and the people in it, so it is as much about a community as about a road. Clouzot's film is the tighter of the two and the better pure thriller; Laxe's is looser, stranger and gentler in places. Newcomers to slow cinema should start with Clouzot.

**What should I watch after Sirāt?**

After *Sirāt*, try [*The Wages of Fear*](https://film.one/film/the-wages-of-fear) (1953, Fi1m 90): Trucks, nitroglycerine and men who know the road will kill them; the template. Then [*Climax*](https://film.one/film/climax) (2018, Fi1m 73): A dance troupe, a bowl of spiked sangria, and a night that will not stop; and [*Aguirre, the Wrath of God*](https://film.one/film/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god) (1972, Fi1m 91): Conquistadors drift downriver into madness; the river does what the desert does here.

### Reviews we read (27)

- **Little White Lies**, David Jenkins (4/5/5): The critic lauds it as a staggering major film that builds a community around a missing person search before pivoting into a symbolic fable dealing with survival and worship. They single out the audiovisual template of bass-heavy music and the ravers' utopian vision. [Read](https://lwlies.com/festivals/sirat-first-look-review)
- **Time Out**, John Bleasdale (5/5): The critic calls it a startlingly original mix of The Wages of Fear and The Vanishing on shrooms, praising the desert landscapes, the makeshift family of ravers, and the dangerous twists in the second half. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/sirat-review-2025)
- **Evening Standard**, Nick Howells (90/100, inferred): The review hails it as an early contender for film of the year and an arthouse-to-mainstream crossover hit. They praise the body-melting techno soundtrack, the spectacular and gnarly desert sequences, and the unguessable brutal twists. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/sirat-film-review-oscars-b1272311.html)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Brian Tallerico (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's evocative imagery and sound design as a powerful, vibe-driven experience that evokes rather than explains. He highlights its unpredictable narrative turns and existential dread while noting its reminder of cinema's ability to move viewers through visuals and rhythm. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sirat-oliver-laxe-movie-review-2026)
- **The New Yorker**, Justin Chang (90/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as an astonishing, propulsive work of singular turbulent and transfixing power that begins in exhilaration and ends in despair while revealing compassion amid fate's cruelty. He singles out its intimate exchanges, communal bonds and the way it leaves the viewer invigorated rather than drained. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/24/sirat-movie-review)
- **The Observer**, Wendy Ide (90/100, inferred): Óliver Laxe’s desert rave odyssey Sirāt is unlike any other film, beginning with an extended sequence of exultant revellers before taking us on a journey to the edge of the abyss. It is a piece of extraordinarily visceral film-making that combines deep spirituality with nihilistic abandon. [Read](https://observer.co.uk/culture/film/article/sirat-is-a-mind-bending-journey-to-the-abyss)
- **Empire**, Ian Freer (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a vital, unpredictable mind-blower that mixes adventure, trippy odyssey, loss, and dancing with maximalist confidence. They single out the immersive opening rave, the sound design, and the gut-punch twists leading to a shattering climax. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/sirat/)
- **IndieWire**, David Katz (85/100, inferred): The review hails the film as a spectacular, groundbreaking rave tragedy centered on a father's desperate search. It singles out the visceral desert journey and unexpected tonal shifts for their emotional and cinematic impact. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/sirat-review-oliver-laxe-1235123917/)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (85/100, inferred): Oliver Laxe’s unpredictable epic about a Spanish father searching for his missing daughter is produced by Pedro Almodóvar and wastes no time in subverting all possible expectations. It is explosive, ovation-worthy cinema with a jaw-dropping plot swerve. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/sirat-review-oscars-movie-25rlmgcgc)
- **Vulture** (85/100, inferred): The film is praised for its mesmerizing unease and devastating narrative rug-pull that shatters the characters' illusions of security. It singles out the nonprofessional ravers' performances and the ambient-to-thrilling tension for building the impact. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/sirt-has-the-most-brutal-rug-pull-youll-see-this-year.html)
- **The AV Club**, Natalia Keogan (B+): The critic describes it as a thrillingly hypnotic, pulse-pounding look at spiritual anguish and communal bonds among ravers in an apocalyptic desert. It praises the score and group dynamics but notes a too-literal ending undercuts the journey. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/sirat-review)
- **Slant Magazine**, Mark Hanson (80/100, inferred): The review calls it a sensorially rich, trippy desert odyssey and vivid parable about human possibility amid fate and nature. It singles out the spectacular landscapes, hypnotic music, and tense set pieces for their immersive power. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/sirat-review-oliver-laxe/)
- **The Telegraph** (80/100, inferred): This sun-torn survival thriller from France’s Oliver Laxe doesn’t merely rack its audience’s nerves but stretch them out to banjo-string tightness. It is a cryptic cinematic object that feels retrieved from the wreckage of an ancient alien ship, like Mad Max by way of David Lynch. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2026/02/26/mad-max-meets-david-lynch-sirat-film-review/)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Lovia Gyarkye (70/100, inferred): The critic calls the film an energizing if imperfect meditation on grief, loss, and societal collapse, praising its painterly desert landscapes and hypnotic techno elements while noting muddled narrative coherence toward the end. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/sirat-review-oliver-laxe-sergi-lopez-1236217763/)
- **The Guardian** (30/100, inferred): Oliver Laxe’s Cannes prize winner about a father’s search for his missing daughter starts impressively then descends into Pythonesque perdition. The film leads the audience into a wilderness of non-meaning that becomes exasperating and bizarre. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/26/sirat-review-desert-morocco-oliver-laxe-cannes-prize-winner)
- **Financial Times**, Danny Leigh (★★★★☆): Oliver Laxe’s wildly striking film is a desert road movie set to a rave soundtrack and a hum of existential dread. It is a visceral audiovisual spectacle that calls to mind The Wages of Fear and Stalker. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/dc65bd3f-3f4f-4a10-a116-80a4d3fabc85)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Amy Nicholson: The critic finds the film taut, riveting and nearly all mood, a euphoric yet shocking existential road thriller whose sharp twists and techno energy make it worth seeing. She singles out its documentary-like shooting of the opening rave and the way it makes viewers feel the exhilaration and dread of the journey. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2025-11-12/sirat-review-cannes-film-festival-oliver-laxe-sergi-lopez)
- **Screen Daily**: The critic describes it as a bold long strange trip and mystic-existential odyssey, noting the suspense and risk-taking but some frustration with inconclusive effect and lack of conventional drama. They praise the setting and music. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/sirat-review-oliver-laxes-long-strange-trip-stars-sergi-lopez/5205053.article)
- **Sight and Sound**: The critic praises the film's auditory feast and sound design in this sensorial desert parable about a father searching for his daughter amid raves and a crisis. They highlight how the music and landscape create a trance-like experience of the sublime. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/sirat-oliver-laxes-thrilling-desert-parable-lets-music-take-control)
- **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (Critic's Pick): The critic calls the film a sincere, mesmerizing and unorthodox thriller that invites love while testing patience through its loose story and demanding characters. She singles out its focus on life, death, laughter and mourning amid the ravers' ordeals in the Sahara. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/movies/sirat-review-oliver-laxe.html)
- **Variety**, Jessica Kiang: The critic calls it a brilliantly bizarre, cult-ready vision that defies narrative and genre laws with an excruciatingly tense, escalatingly insane road trip through desert purgatory. She singles out its testing of human psychology to its limits in a peri-apocalyptic setting. [Read](https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/sirat-review-oliver-laxe-1236399059/)
- **The Playlist**, Gregory Ellwood (A-): The review follows a father and son searching for their missing daughter amid hints of world-ending events at desert raves, praising the beautiful 16mm cinematography of vehicles crossing the desert and the masterful electronic score that shifts from festival energy to emotional depth. It highlights themes of chosen family, environmental naivety, and dancing through collapse as the film builds to a harrowing conclusion. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/sirat-review-a-father-searches-for-his-daughter-as-the-world-begins-to-crumble-cannes-20250523/)
- **Deadline**, Damon Wise (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a puzzling mix of existential road movie and apocalyptic sci-fi with indelible images and powerful sound design; notes it starts with a bang but ends in a minor key, framing family and loss in a new way with a killer soundtrack. [Read](https://deadline.com/2025/05/sirat-review-oliver-laxe-sergi-lopez-cannes-film-festival-1236399719/)
- **The Wrap**, Steve Pond (60/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a bold but exhausting road movie in a decaying world, akin to Mad Max without the stunts or fun; praises the vivid community and sound design but finds the insistent brutality tiring. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/sirat-review-oliver-laxe-cannes/)
- **The Skinny**, Carmen Paddock (★★): The critic finds the film delivers a thrilling sensory experience through its visuals and sound but criticizes it for being sloppy, cynical, and politically insensitive in its handling of themes and plot turns. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/sirat)
- **Collider**, Emma Kiely: The critic finds the first half a predictable but sweet road-trip story of a father and son searching for their missing daughter at a Moroccan rave, building unexpected bonds with a group of ravers. The sudden, devastating mid-film shift turns it into a harsher, more ambitious allegory for displacement and mortality, though the execution feels jarring and somewhat mean-spirited. [Read](https://collider.com/sirat-movie-review/)
- **Eye for Film**, Richard Mowe: The critic finds the film visually stunning with its apocalyptic desert vistas and searing heat, while singling out the exceptional sound design and hypnotic techno score as making it even more incredible than it looks. It exerts a hypnotic grip through its mix of professional and amateur actors and a spiritual quest evoking Mad Max: Fury Road or Wages of Fear with its own poetry and rigour. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/sirat-2025-film-review-by-richard-mowe)

## Details

- **Director:** Oliver Laxe
- **Director:** Oliver Laxe
- **Writer:** Oliver Laxe, Santiago Fillol
- **Cinematography:** Mauro Herce
- **Editor:** Cristóbal Fernández
- **Music:** Kangding Ray
- **Production design:** Laia Ateca
- **Costume design:** Nadia Acimi
- **Producer:** Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Xavier Font
- **Cast:** Sergi López as Luis; Bruno Núñez as Esteban; Stefania Gadda as Steff; Joshua Liam Henderson as Josh; Richard Bellamy as Bigui; Tonin Janvier as Tonin; Jade Oukid as Jade; Ahmed Abbou as Berber shepherd
- **Runtime:** 1h 55m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 20 February 2026
- **Genres:** Drama, Thriller
- **Budget:** $7 million
- **Box office:** $10 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_9OkHX8ZiA

## Where to watch in the US

- Disney+: add-on, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $5.99, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $19.99, uhd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, FI, FR, GB, HU, IE, IN, IT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, RO, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2026: Best International Feature Film (nominated)
- Gaudí Award for Best Art Direction 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Art Direction (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Cinematography 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Cinematography (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Makeup 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Makeup (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Non-Catalan Language Film 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Non-Catalan Language Film (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Original Score 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Original Score (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Production Director 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Production Director (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Sound 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Sound (won)
- Gaudí Award for Best Visual Effects 2026: Gaudí Award for Best Visual Effects (won)
- FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2025: FIPRESCI Grand Prix (nominated)
- Jury Prize 2025: Jury Prize (won)

## If you liked this

- *The Wages of Fear* (1953), Fi1m 90: Trucks, nitroglycerine and men who know the road will kill them; the template. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-wages-of-fear.md)
- *Climax* (2018), Fi1m 73: A dance troupe, a bowl of spiked sangria, and a night that will not stop. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/climax.md)
- *Gerry* (2002): Two men walk into the desert and keep walking; patience used as horror.
- *Fire Will Come* (2019): Laxe’s earlier film, an arsonist home in Galicia; quieter, same eye for landscape.
- *Aguirre, the Wrath of God* (1972), Fi1m 91: Conquistadors drift downriver into madness; the river does what the desert does here. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/sirat