--- name: "Leila Hatami" canonical: "https://film.one/person/leila-hatami" fi1m_id: "leila-hatami" imdb_id: "nm0368689" tmdb_id: 240240 wikidata_id: "Q255510" roles: ["Actor"] born: "2 October 1972" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T23:15:33.656751+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." --- # Leila Hatami ## Identity Leila Hatami - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/leila-hatami - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** leila-hatami - **IMDb ID:** nm0368689 - **TMDB ID:** 240240 - **Wikidata ID:** Q255510 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leila_Hatami, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q255510, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0368689/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/240240 Actor. Born 2 October 1972 in Tehran, Iran. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 2 October 1972, Tehran, Iran - **Also known as:** 레일라 하타미, Leyla Hatami, لیلا حاتمی - **Berlin International Film Festival:** 1 Berlin prize (1 won) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leila_Hatami, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q255510, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0368689/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/240240 ## Coming up - *A Time in Eternity* (2026-11-15), as Maryam ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*A Separation*](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) (93) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Leila Hatami > Leila Hatami uses small changes of expression to make domestic frustration felt. We value her restraint most when it allows for stubbornness as well as hurt; in *A Separation*, she makes taking sides difficult. Leila Hatami can stay quiet without making the woman she plays seem passive. She uses glances and silences to let feeling build, so that an outburst has something behind it. In *A Separation* (2011), her Simin has enough force to make the quarrels with Payman Maadi's Nader feel like arguments between people who have lived together. We found their marriage upsetting to watch because both actors make it seem substantial enough for its unravelling to hurt. Her adult film career began with the title role in Dariush Mehrjui's *Leila* (1997), and domestic drama has remained central to her work. Through the 2000s she worked steadily in Iranian cinema, frequently playing educated or middle-class women under family pressure. *The Deserted Station* (2002) offered another quiet, introspective story. The international attention that came with *A Separation* recognised an actor whose restrained way of showing distress was already well established. Asghar Farhadi gets particularly good work from her because Simin need not win our approval to remain persuasive. Maadi makes Nader's certainty uncomfortable, and Hatami gives his wife equal force rather than treating her as the reasonable person provided for our convenience. We can understand why these two people are at odds without being invited to dismiss either of them. A few of the plot complications look carefully placed, but the performances keep the quarrels from feeling like exercises set by the writer. The film is worth returning to for the difficulty the actors create whenever we think we have settled on a side. Hatami followed that film with the role of Leyli in Ali Mosaffa's *The Last Step* (2012), and has continued taking leads in domestic dramas. The reservation about her acting is that vulnerability can become a familiar habit, making different characters seem too close to the same wounded woman. That is a limit to watch for, not a reason to mistake restraint for a lack of force. Simin gives us little opportunity to make that mistake. For a first encounter, choose *A Separation* and allow time to argue about it afterwards. ## Biography Leila Hatami is an Iranian actress. She was born on 1 October 1972 in Tehran to director Ali Hatami and actress Zari Khoshkam. She appeared in small roles in her father's productions as a child, including the film *Kamalolmolk* (1984). After secondary school she studied in Lausanne, Switzerland, first electronic engineering and then French literature at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She returned to Iran and made her first leading film appearance in *Leila* (1997), directed by Dariush Mehrjui. Hatami is known for her performance as Simin in *A Separation* (2011), for which she received the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. She won the Montreal World Film Festival Award for Best Actress for *The Deserted Station* (2002). She is married to actor and director Ali Mosaffa. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93, as Simin — [page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) ## Complete filmography (50) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *A Time in Eternity* (2026), as Maryam - *Idol* (2026), Actor - *Daria’s Night Flowers* (2025), as (Archive footage) - *The Old Bachelor* (2025), as Raana - *The Killer and the Savage* (2025), as Ziba - *Absence* (2023), Actor - *Imagine* (2022), as Leila - *The Last Fiction* (2019), as Shahrzad (voice) - *A Man without a Shadow* (2019), Actor - *We Are All Together* (2019), Actor - *Blue Whale* (2019), series, as Anahita Kashef - *Tale of the Sea* (2018), Actor - *Pig* (2018), as Shiva Mohajer - The Actress - *Bomb: A Love Story* (2018), as Mitra - *Being a Woman is Beautiful* (2018), Actor - *Subdued* (2017), Actor - *Me* (2016), as Azar - *Your Gift to the Earth* (2016), Actor - *What's the Time In Your World?* (2015), as Goli - *Il était une fois... Une séparation* (2014), Actor - *Time to Love* (2014), as Bita - *The Sealed Secret* (2013), as Saba - *The Last Step* (2012), as Leila · Costume Design, Production Design - *Meeting Leila* (2012), Actor - *Orange Suit* (2012), Actor - *Felicity Land* (2011), Actor - *A Separation* (2011), as Simin — Fi1m 93, [page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *Beloved Sky* (2011), Actor - *There Are Things You Don't Know* (2010), Actor - *A Walk in the Fog* (2010), as Roya - *Forties* (2010), as Negar - *Shirin* (2009), Actor - *Poverty* (2009), Actor - *Every night loneliness* (2007), Actor - *Verdict* (2005), as Foroozandeh - *My Boats* (2005), Actor - *Poet of the Wastes* (2005), Actor - *Portrait of a Lady Far Away* (2005), Actor - *Garden Salad* (2005), as Leila - *Low Heights* (2002), as Narges - *Deserted Station* (2002), as The wife - *Sweet Jam* (2001), Actor - *Water and Fire* (2001), as Maryam - *The Mix* (2000), Actor - *Sheyda* (1999), Actor - *Leila* (1999), as Leila, the Wife - *Love-Stricken* (1992), as Leila - *Hezar Dastan* (1988), series, as Young Amineh Aghdas - *Kamalolmolk* (1984), as Kamalolmolk in childhood - *The English Bag*, series, as Mastaneh Pirayesh ## Gallery - ![Leila Hatami](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-18286c90a1bf.jpg) Leila Hatami — Hamed Malekpour, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Leila_Hatami_20190204_03_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![علی مصفا و لیلا حاتمی در سی‌وهفتمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-542e7a2ccf74.jpg) علی مصفا و لیلا حاتمی در سی‌وهفتمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019) — Mehdi Marizad, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Ali_Mosaffa_and_Leila_Hatami_20190204_01.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![لیلا حاتمی در نشست خبری فیلم های دومین روز سی و ششمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2018)](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-af9d1f93f208.jpg) لیلا حاتمی در نشست خبری فیلم های دومین روز سی و ششمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2018) — Soheil Sahranavard, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Leila_Hatami_13961115000035636533015186869728_20826.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![لیلا حاتمی در نشست خبری فیلم های دومین روز سی و ششمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2018)](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-42839122c91a.jpg) لیلا حاتمی در نشست خبری فیلم های دومین روز سی و ششمین جشنواره فیلم فجر (2018) — Soheil Sahranavard, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Leila_Hatami_13961115000035636533015197548133_31891.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Leila Hatami](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-dcdd44670a40.jpg) Leila Hatami — Image via TMDB - ![Leila Hatami](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-5e468a7cdd53.jpg) Leila Hatami — Image via TMDB - ![Leila Hatami](https://film.one/media/person/103079/gallery-174c87742e08.jpg) Leila Hatami — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Berlin International Film Festival — 1 won - 2011: Best Actress (won) ### Other awards — 7 won - Honorary Cyclo d'or 2022: Honorary Cyclo d'or (won) - Knight of the Legion of Honour 2020: Knight of the Legion of Honour (won) - Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress 2017: Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress (won) - FIPRESCI Award for Best Actress at the Palm Springs International Film Festival 2012: FIPRESCI Award for Best Actress at the Palm Springs International Film Festival (won) - Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress 2009: Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress (won) - Montreal World Film Festival for Best Actress 2002: Montreal World Film Festival for Best Actress (won) - Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress 1997: Crystal Simorgh for Best Actress (won) *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/leila-hatami