The Runner

Released Jun 21, 1991

1 hr. 34 min.

Drama

List

100%

19 Reviews

Tomatometer

92%

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Audience Score

Amiro, an illiterate 11-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running... seemingly to nowhere.

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Audience Member

Love This Very Much.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

10/28/08

Full Review

Audience Member

Poetry. Profound, beautiful, non-verbal, gets you in the gut. Most astonishing ending of any movie ever.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/24/08

Full Review

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Amir Naderi

Director

Majid Niroumand

Amiro

Abbas Nazeri

Actor

Musa Torkizadeh

Actor

Amir Naderi

Screenwriter

Behrouz Gharibpour

Screenwriter

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Derek Smith

Slant Magazine

To borrow the title of a film by Amir Naderi’s contemporary, Abbas Kiarostami, The Runner is a portrait of life and nothing more.

Apr 1, 2024

Full Review

Kathleen Sachs

Chicago Reader

His gleeful entreaty is open for interpretation: is he merely seeking attention from the enviable explorers within, or do they represent a yearning for a sort of liberation?

Feb 11, 2023

Full Review

Christy Lemire

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

It is just joyous. Tactile, gritty and vivid, but it is also so much fun. The joy and vibrancy of filmmaking just leaps off the screen.

Dec 20, 2022

Full Review

George Elkind

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Without veering into romanticism or glossing over struggle, Naderi shoots his film in a way that accounts carefully for the medium’s formal interplay of performance, pacing, and light.

Mar 23, 2023

Full Review

Michael J. Casey

Boulder Weekly

The film is rich with symbolism, but none of it feels forced or academic. Rare are movies this effortless.

Rated: 4.5/5

Mar 16, 2023

Full Review

Ray Pride

Newcity

Little-seen masterpiece, getting its first American theatrical release,.. He runs and runs. He runs and runs and runs. Why? He runs. He dreams of the ships and planes that pass, and he runs. Exhilarating, magnificent, essential.

Rated: 10/10

Feb 17, 2023

Full Review

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Synopsis

Amiro, an illiterate 11-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan, survives by shining shoes, selling water, and diving for deposit bottles, while being bullied by both adults and competing older kids. But he finds solace by dreaming about departing cargo ships and airplanes and by running... seemingly to nowhere.

Director: Amir Naderi
Screenwriter: Amir Naderi, Behrouz Gharibpour
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Persian
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 21, 1991, Original
Rerelease Date (Theaters): Oct 28, 2022