---
name: "Ali Abbasi"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/ali-abbasi"
fi1m_id: "ali-abbasi"
imdb_id: "nm4389150"
tmdb_id: 1574550
wikidata_id: "Q28842152"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "1 January 1981"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 73
average_as: "director"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-09-17T16:53:25.972302+00:00"
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."
---

# Ali Abbasi

## Identity

Ali Abbasi

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/ali-abbasi
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** ali-abbasi
- **IMDb ID:** nm4389150
- **TMDB ID:** 1574550
- **Wikidata ID:** Q28842152
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Abbasi_(director), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28842152, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4389150/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1574550

Director. Born 1 January 1981 in Tehran, Iran.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 1 January 1981, Tehran, Iran
- **Active:** 2023–present
- **Also known as:** علی عباسی, Али Аббаси
- **Average Fi1m score:** 73, as director, over 2 titles
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Abbasi_(director), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28842152, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4389150/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1574550

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*The Last of Us*](https://film.one/tv/the-last-of-us.md) (85)
- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*The Apprentice*](https://film.one/film/the-apprentice.md) (61)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Ali Abbasi

> Ali Abbasi is good at making us watch people we might prefer to avoid. We value his curiosity, but *The Apprentice* shows the limit: once he has explained how someone changes, he can struggle to find anything more to say.

In *The Apprentice* (2024), Roy Cohn takes a soft, needy young Donald Trump and starts to remake him. Abbasi gives that education enough time to become properly gripping, because we can see why the pupil wants to learn. Jeremy Strong’s performance is the main reason to stay with it. The attraction here is watching behaviour being learnt, and for an hour Abbasi finds something worth examining in a familiar subject.

His first feature was the slow-burn Danish horror *Shelley* (2016), followed by his breakthrough, *Border* (2018), with its troll mythology. Horror and fantasy gave him ways to approach outsiders without making them easy to understand. Composer Martin Dirkov has worked with him on four films, providing some continuity across a career that moves between countries, languages and genres.

With *Holy Spider* (2022), that interest took the form of a story drawn from real Iranian serial killings. We were frightened because Abbasi stayed with the killer long enough for him to seem ordinary. He did not let us dismiss the man and stop looking.

For television, he directed the final two episodes of the first series of *The Last of Us* (2023). We found the series moving because Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey made us care about the people in its ruined America. The scripts sometimes leave supporting characters short of time, but the patience of its horror-drama suits Abbasi’s interests. That achievement belongs to the series as a whole; there is no need to claim it all for him.

Back in *The Apprentice*, Gabriel Sherman’s script gives Abbasi a problem he does not solve. Once Cohn’s lessons have been learnt, the film moves through familiar events without finding much more to say about Trump. Worse, Abbasi cuts away at the moments when staying close might have told us something new. Try *The Apprentice* for Strong and the first hour, rather than for any fresh understanding of its central figure.

## Biography

Ali Abbasi is an Iranian-Swedish-Danish film director, screenwriter and producer. Born in Tehran in 1981, he attended Tehran Polytechnic until 2002 before emigrating to Sweden to study architecture at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, graduating in 2007. He then trained at the National Film School of Denmark, graduating in 2011.

His feature films include *Shelley* (2016), *Border* (2018), *Holy Spider* (2022) and *The Apprentice* (2024), on which he also served as producer. He directed the final two episodes of the first season of the television series *The Last of Us* (2023). His work has received awards including the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *The Apprentice* (2024), Fi1m 61, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-apprentice.md)
- *The Last of Us* (2023), Fi1m 85, Director — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-last-of-us.md)

## Complete filmography (12)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Apprentice* (2024), Director, Producer — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/film/the-apprentice.md)
- *The Last of Us* (2023), series, Director — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-last-of-us.md)
- *Holy Spider* (2022), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Home: A Soldier's Mind Is Always at War* (2022), Actor
- *Queen of Hearts* (2019), Thanks
- *Border* (2018), Director, Screenplay
- *Mein Maa Nahin Banna Chahti* (2017), series, Actor
- *Shelley* (2016), Director, Writer
- *M for Markus* (2011), Editor, Director, Writer
- *I mørket er lyset* (2010), Director, Writer
- *Officer Relaxing After Duty* (2008), Director, Writer
- *Hamlet*, Director

## Gallery

- ![علی عباسی کارگردان فیلم عنکبوت مقدس در فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن (2022)](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-0e30bbf1ddca.jpg) علی عباسی کارگردان فیلم عنکبوت مقدس در فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن (2022) — Voice of America, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Ali_Abbasi%2C_75th_Cannes_Film_Festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![تصویر اختصاصی صدای آمریکا از حضور زهرا امیرابراهیمی و سایر عوامل فیلم عنکبوت مقدس روی فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-f04ee497012e.png) تصویر اختصاصی صدای آمریکا از حضور زهرا امیرابراهیمی و سایر عوامل فیلم عنکبوت مقدس روی فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن — VOA-PNN, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Ali_Abbasi%2C_75th_Cannes_Film_Festival_%28cropped%29.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Ali Abbasi in New York City for the movie The Apprentice. (2024)](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-9c9093316d07.jpg) Ali Abbasi in New York City for the movie The Apprentice. (2024) — Jay Dixit, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Ali_Abbasi_at_The_Apprentice_in_NYC.jpg/1280px-Ali_Abbasi_at_The_Apprentice_in_NYC.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Ali Abbasi](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-05fd3950100c.jpg) Ali Abbasi — Jay Dixit, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Ali_Abbasi_at_The_Apprentice_in_NYC_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Ali Abbasi](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-8823cd55464d.jpg) Ali Abbasi — Image via TMDB
- ![تصویر اختصاصی صدای آمریکا از حضور زهرا امیرابراهیمی و سایر عوامل فیلم عنکبوت مقدس روی فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن](https://film.one/media/person/10770/gallery-ec220091f8df.png) تصویر اختصاصی صدای آمریکا از حضور زهرا امیرابراهیمی و سایر عوامل فیلم عنکبوت مقدس روی فرش قرمز هفتاد و پنجمین دوره جشنواره کن — VOA-PNN, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Holy_Spider_Red_Carpet_-_The_75th_Cannes_Film_Festival_04.png/1280px-Holy_Spider_Red_Carpet_-_The_75th_Cannes_Film_Festival_04.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 5 won, 7 nominated

- Danish Writers Guild Best Screenplay Award 2023: Danish Writers Guild Best Screenplay Award (won), for *Holy Spider*
- Robert Award for Best Director 2023: Robert Award for Best Director (won), for *Holy Spider*
- Robert Award for Best Screenplay 2023: Robert Award for Best Screenplay (won), for *Holy Spider*
- The Carl Theodor Dreyer Prize 2023: The Carl Theodor Dreyer Prize (won)
- European Film Award for Best Director 2022: European Film Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Holy Spider*
- European Film Award for Best Film 2022: European Film Award for Best Film (nominated), for *Holy Spider*
- European Film Award for Best Screenwriter 2022: European Film Award for Best Screenwriter (nominated), for *Holy Spider*
- European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film 2019: European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film (nominated), for *Border*
- European Film Award for Best Director 2018: European Film Award for Best Director (nominated), for *Border*
- European Film Award for Best Film 2018: European Film Award for Best Film (nominated), for *Border*
- European Film Award for Best Screenwriter 2018: European Film Award for Best Screenwriter (nominated), for *Border*
- Un certain regard Award 2018: Un certain regard Award (won), for *Border*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© 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/person/ali-abbasi