Reviews
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Remarkable
passionate and fearless
will enthrall documentary and history geeks
jaw dropping revelations
has the air of something that grew from an impudent home movie into a magnum opus
Todd McCarthy – Hollywood Reporter Telluride Review
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Hollywood Reporter Critics' 20 Favorite Films From the Fall Festivals
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An exhilarating... historical documentary that unfolds with the pace and complexity of a thriller
John Powers – Fresh Air, NPR
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“This is big. This is going to be big!”
Werner Herzog – Comment at Telluride World Premiere September 2019
The result is a far-reaching insight into the misadventures of imperialist powers that feels as compelling as a John Le Carre novel or a Costa-Gavras classic.
Allen Hunter – Screen Daily
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This powerful and authoritative documentary by the Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani is as gripping as any thriller
A riveting documentary on a very British coup
a grim curtain-raiser to today's tragedies
Peter Bradshaw – The Guardian Original Score: 4/5
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Coup 53 is a film about the future. For Amirani, dr. Mosaddegh was "potentially the father of future democratic Iran," he was "the closest Iran came to having its own Mahatma Gandhi". In the words of one of the experts, "had we not overthrown Mosaddegh in 1953 and had allowed democracy to grow, we might have had a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East all these 60 years." Nothing will ever change if we don’t start imagining what could have been different. Coup 53 is a start.
Melita Zajc – Modern Times Review
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Coup 53 is a film about the future. For Amirani, dr. Mosaddegh was "potentially the father of future democratic Iran," he was "the closest Iran came to having its own Mahatma Gandhi". In the words of one of the experts, "had we not overthrown Mosaddegh in 1953 and had allowed democracy to grow, we might have had a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East all these 60 years." Nothing will ever change if we don’t start imagining what could have been different. Coup 53 is a start.
Melita Zajc – Modern Times Review
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Coup 53 is a film about the future. For Amirani, dr. Mosaddegh was "potentially the father of future democratic Iran," he was "the closest Iran came to having its own Mahatma Gandhi". In the words of one of the experts, "had we not overthrown Mosaddegh in 1953 and had allowed democracy to grow, we might have had a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Muslim Middle East all these 60 years." Nothing will ever change if we don’t start imagining what could have been different. Coup 53 is a start.
Melita Zajc – Modern Times Review
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As enlightening as “Coup 53” is as a secret history, it’s even more satisfying as an aesthetic exercise, treating viewers to one of cleverest workarounds in cinematic problem-solving in recent memory. It’s a nonfiction film that functions precisely as all documentaries should: as a piece of doggedly investigative, personally transparent reporting, and as simply great storytelling, full stop.
Anne Hornaday – Washington Post Original Score: 4/4
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The sheer level of granular detail could overwhelm without Amirani’s boundless to-camera energy. He transforms sifting through dusty plastic bags and filing cabinets into a thrilling detective case
Ralph Fiennes appears, lending a wry Le Carré air to proceedings as an enigmatic MI6 agent with an explosive testimony
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh – The Times 5 stars
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As history lessons go, this is a powerful one in which a wealth of interviews and stunning graphics have been pulled together, with extraordinary attention to detail, into an intricate but lucid whole.
a formidable achievement
Joe Morgenstern – Wall Street Journal
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The film’s editor is Walter Murch, who worked on “The Conversation” and “The Godfather: Part II” (both 1974), so there’s not much that he doesn’t know about conspiracy—how it leaks into a movie like the smell of drains
the momentum of the plot can hardly fail to engross
Anthony Lane – The New Yorker
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It takes a certain kind of documentary to make sifting through old papers look exciting, but in "Coup 53," the director Taghi Amirani sets an expectation of suspense early on.
Across time and space, a single, consistent story emerges. For a narrative shrouded in subterfuge, that’s a considerable achievement.
Both as a detective story and as a deep dive into a world event whose consequences linger, it is bracing, absorbing filmmaking
Ben Kenigsberg – New York Times
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Thrills and chills as spectacular Fiennes reveals a very British coup
Coup 53 is stranger than fiction and a terrifying reminder that the past never goes away
this unclassifiable yarn feels like a thriller
Charlotte O’Sullivan – London Evening Standard
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the most enthralling and revelatory documentary I’ve seen over the past year
this eye-opening film quickens the pulse and provokes the brain for a full two hours
Todd McCarthy – Deadline Hollywood
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“a work of art and a masterpiece of political intervention”
“a thriller that had me on the edge of my seat”
“beyond extraordinary”
Ariel Dorfman – Email to Walter Murch & Taghi Amirani
This is not some dry piece of historical revision. Amirani’s passion is palpable from the start and he peppers his film with twists and reveals that would make John le Carré smile.
Danny Leigh – Financial Times Original Score: 4/5
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Taghi Amirani’s thrilling, energetic doc Coup 53, which recalls a little-explored chapter of twentieth-century Iranian history by pulling you into the engine room of its making. It wins you over with its scrappy underdog antics and then, later, bowls you over with its heavyweight insights
It’s like taking a swim in John le Carré’s brain.
Dave Calhoun – Time Out 4 out of 5 stars
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A maddening, gripping portrait of how imperialism works Coup 53 is almost as concerned with the film-making process – the lists, the dead ends, the searching – as much as it is with political history
Tara Brady – The Irish Times 4 out of 5 stars
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A labour of love, the film is premium detective work With admirable tenacity and care, Amirani has dragged official secrets back into the light.
Tim Robey – The Daily Telegraph Original Score: 4/5
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it has a bit of “All the President’s Men” about it
Combining archival footage, interviews, and animation, the documentary is a lesson in representing fact in narrative storytelling
Coup 53 is not a dry geo-politics lesson. Instead, Amirani mounts the story with the intrigue, surprises and élan of a spy thriller and creates a film that combines the personal and the political to captivating ends.
Ian Freer – EMPIRE Original Score: 4/5
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Coup 53 is a historical documentary that plays more like All the President’s Men had it been written by John le Carré with a dash of Costa-Gavras and Manchurian Candidate by John Frankenheimer Fiennes assumes the character and recites shocking revelations that Amirani’s obsessive research has disclosed. It sounds like a cheap trick, but the actor pulls it off flawlessly. a spellbinding rabbit-hole of a movie, rife with outsized characters and conspiracies galore, but also and perhaps more importantly an eye-opening window onto the U.S. and Iran’s current state of mutual enmity.
Marc Savlov – Austin Chronicle Original Score: 3.5/5
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History buffs and John le Carré fans should love this documentary about Britain’s shameful involvement in a 1953 Iranian coup
It’s like an outtake from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
Daily Express 4 out of 4 stars
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Brilliant. Essential viewing, much like the best political thrillers
Ian Sinclair – Morning Star 5/5 stars
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What if I told you the best spy movie of the year was actually a documentary?
Imagine Costa-Gavras’ “Z” meets “Argo” with a John Le Carré novel twist. “Coup 53” is firing on all cylinders and is if “Munich” or “The Bourne Identity” film series was made into a documentary with just as many twists and surprises. Taghi Amirani exceptionally executed an unforgettable, unique documentary experience that is unlike anything you’ve seen. “Coup 53” is a game-changer and genre-defining film.
Director Taghi Amirani’s captivating “Coup 53” is a thriller for the ages
Instead of a traditional tiresome, historical documentary, Taghi Amirani and Academy Award winning editor Walter Murch (“Apocalypse Now” and “The English Patient”) bring back to life an extraordinary examination of one of the most atrocious acts and pivotal moments in modern day history
The dark, salacious secrets are an astonishing revelation and are brought to life thanks to some ingenious, inspirational interviews and footage.
This is unlike any documentary you’ve experienced!
To say this is a profound political piece of film history is downplaying the significance. This passion project is a masterpiece! Dare I even say Taghi Amirani’s magnum opus?
Out of all of the films I’ve seen all year long, this is easily a Top 10, if not a Top 5 Film of 2020!
JM – Mike the Fanboy 4 out of 4 stars
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Masterful storytelling makes this a taut and thrilling watch
Elhum Shakerifar – Little White Lies
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“Amazing. Beautifully done. Clever use of archive. Unique.”
Oliver Stone – Comment at preview screening in LA, Jan 2020
Nail-bitingly suspenseful
Plays like a thriller on the big screen
Carol Nahra – International Documentary Association
Full Review
It speaks to the strength of Fiennes as an actor that it is often easy to lose sight that he is in fact an avatar, other than the fact that he is in fact… Ralph Fiennes Coup 53 is a dense work that fluctuates between history lesson, spy thriller and personal testimonies
Jay Taylor – Cinapse
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It's not surprising that Ralph Fiennes gives such a great performance in "Coup 53." What's surprising is that he gives it in a documentary.
Rob Thomas – Capital Times Original Score: 3.5/4
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Coup 53 paints a harrowing picture of the preparations for the coup, as well as the hilariously ignorant frustration of Western interventionists
Tina Hassannia – Hyperallergic
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It unspools like a political thriller, but its real-world consequences are dead serious.
Laura Clifford – Reeling Reviews Original Score: A-
puts my knowledge of the 1953 Iranian coup to shame with the depth and breadth of detail the director explores.
Robin Clifford – Reeling Reviews Original Score: A-
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pertinent and chilling compelling and fascinating history lesson, this is a must-see work
Jeremy Clarke – Jeremy C Processing 5 stars
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I'm certain that Coup 53 will have a profound impact on an entire generation of Iran, offering a bit of closure to some, and furthers the existing material pertaining to the Iranian coup d'état, while also instigating a sense of treachery they’ve been subjected to 67 years ago
The process of decoding the massive conspiracy not only bestows a nail-biting political thriller, but also nudges that this is what good journalism should stand for
Regardless of how much I try to explicate the film, it’ll be far from the depth it offers
Amirani looks at the coup as an operation that disrupted the course of his nation and his destiny. The film is as much about bringing duplicitous politics to light, as it is about a man holding two gargantuan powers accountable for altering his life. And what a win it is! Coup 53 proves that regardless of how arid the subject matter may appear cinematically, when made with expertise, a film can succeed both on the cinematic and political fronts.
Ram Venkat Sirkar – Cinema Sentries
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this breath-taking documentary is compulsory for understanding the Middle East’s relationship with the West
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh – London Metro
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Ten years in the making, Coup 53 is a personal essay, an extraordinarily researched historical document, and a film about the process of its own making
Amy Taubin – Art Forum
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it’s rather like “Citizen Kane” and “Mr. Arkadin,” in which what the investigators found might be best half the truth, if that
the tone, as Fiennes captures it, feels absolutely right—a mixture of a smugly imperialist ethos coupled with at an intelligence agent’s pride at understanding how perceptions can be manipulated and apparently catastrophic twists turned into triumphs.
it’s a fascinating combination of detective story and historical narrative that demonstrates the process of research into the past and the important conclusions it can reach
Frank Swietek – One Guy's Opinion Original Score: B+
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Coup 53” Effectively Explains Iran’s Present Through Its Past
It starts with the British, as do so many 20th-century problems
Think what you will about the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which resulted, among other things, in the taking of American hostages, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. Call it karma or call it blowback; however you frame it, from their perspective, we kind of had it coming.
Christopher Llewellyn Reed – Film Festival Today
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Coup 53” Effectively Explains Iran’s Present Through Its Past
It starts with the British, as do so many 20th-century problems
Think what you will about the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which resulted, among other things, in the taking of American hostages, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. Call it karma or call it blowback; however you frame it, from their perspective, we kind of had it coming.
Chris Barsanti – Slant Magazine Original Score: 3/4
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Coup 53”: Taghi Amirani’s Documentary Masterpiece
a mesmerizing, tragic and finely crafted documentary that deserves a wide audience.
Hope Anderson – Under the Hollywood Sign
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Using vintage footage and interviews alongside a terrifically convincing Ralph Fiennes portraying one of the British spies who set the plot in motion, Amirani has fashioned a dismantling of government cover-ups that is something we all need right now, however unsatisfying are the revelations.
Kevin Fillipski – Static
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One of the year’s best films, and arguably its most important
Utilizing a fascinating mix of approaches rarely seen in non-fiction films, Iranian director Taghi Amirani and three-time Oscar-winning editor/sound designer Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now; The English Patient) spin a masterful, boundary-pushing yarn that’s equal parts spy thriller, exposé, and dramatic recreation so convincing that, did it not involve a famous actor, viewers would swear it was real.
quite possibly the first truly must-see film of 2020
Edwin Arnaudin – Asheville Movies Original Score: A
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But Coup 53, edited by Walter Murch (The Godfather) is the real thing; a piece of careful film scholarship that reveals unseen angles on how the great powers muscled a weak one during the Cold War. These spooks and gamblers of the 1950s caused an enduring problem for the world, long before we were born.
Richard Von Busack – Medium
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a brisk, fascinating two hours “Coup 53” does clarify in spellbinding detail what happened when Mosaddegh moved to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
As in the best detective genre films, he pieces together one detail after another of the enormously complex jigsaw puzzle, finally arriving at an astonishing picture
It’s impossible to summarize the breath-taking revelations that explain so much about the troubled Mid-East situation so sharply defined in this impressive documentary
Diane Karson – KDHX
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It is less like Michael Moore and more like Jafar Panahi, a sort of meta-textual exploration of the documentary form
Rye Clos - Spectrum Culture
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A Thrillingly Personal Documentary About The 1953 Iranian Coup D’état
Alongside him is film editor, and perhaps one of the biggest names attached to the film, Walter Murch. While Murch is only onscreen for a short amount of time, his presence is felt, mainly through his live-wire editing once the coup begins.
“Coup 53” is a live-wire thriller that is one of the best documentaries of the year
Christian Gallichio - The Playlist Original Score: A
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Amirani's filmmaking process is akin to watching a detective at work.
It's an ambitious—and sometimes too overwhelming—act of bringing research to life. Amirani's passion is obvious, but admirably, the filmmaker doesn't use Coup 53 as a platform for his own views. He allows the sad, terrible history to speak for itself.
Mark Dujsik - Mark Reviews Movies
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After watching “Coup 53,” it’s clear the ruthless Darbyshire could eat 007 for lunch
The sum of $60,000 might have bought us and Great Britain a country and its oil, but we wound up paying for it with decades of misery, embarrassment and death.
Al Alexander - Patriot Ledger Original Score: B
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A fascinating peering into that era of history, even if it doesn't dive quite as deep as some of the scholarship that's been done in the matter.
Stephen Silver - The National Interest Original Score: 4/5
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The enthralling new documentary directed by Iranian film maker Taghi Amirani and edited and co-written by the renowned film editor Walter Murch is a meticulous backward look at an event that still determines much of the resentment Iran feels toward the government of the United States—and Britain: the 1953 coup which overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran.
Winslow Myers - Counterpunch
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A compelling new film tells the fateful story of the sinister overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, who was elected by Parliament in 1951 on the platform of oil nationalization. His demise at the hands of Iranian, British and American players in August 1953 continues to reverberate, in tragic form, to this day.
Arash Norouzi - The Mossadegh Project