Sundance 2025: The Things You Kill (dir. Alireza Khatami) | Review

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has wrapped up, and I’m still thinking about Alireza Khatami’s latest film, The Things You Kill, which earned him the Directing Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It starts as a compelling family drama, grappling with weighty themes and moral dilemmas in the first half, before transforming into something completely different—confusing, intense, tight, almost unbearable to watch, yet impossible to look away from.

The film follows Ali (Ekin Koç, Burning Days), a university teacher at risk of losing his job and struggling to have children with his wife, Hazal (Hazar Ergüçlü, The Wild Pear Tree), only to discover that his weak sperm is the cause of their difficulties. Khatami uses this complex character backstory to immerse us in another challenging situation: Ali and his father have a fraught relationship. But let’s delve deeper into their conflict. The father, played by Ercan Kesal (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), may be estranged from Ali because Ali spent 14 years in the United States while his mother was gravely ill at home. Or could their strained relationship stem from a web of lies?

Ali’s elderly mother is now seriously ill, requiring assistance to walk and often being very stubborn. When his ailing mother passes away, the family gathers, but what should be a time of mourning turns into a battleground of arguments—and this is when all the lies are exposed. Ali’s younger sister reveals that when their mother was taken to the hospital, she had actually been locked in the house by their father. As Ali sneaks into his father’s house to investigate his mother’s death, he uncovers an affair his father had with another woman—something his older sister already knew. But why does everyone continue to conceal their father’s wrongdoings?

Ali, accompanied by his guard dog and owning a farm in a valley outside the city, struggles with infertile land and a barren environment—his last hope after being fired from the university. One day, he is visited by Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, Sibel), a stranger seeking work, who offers to help him fertilize the soil by digging a deeper well. However, there’s something unsettling about Reza’s behavior. Could he be hiding something as well?

One of the most promising voices in contemporary Iranian cinema, Khatami made his debut with Oblivion Verses, a French-German-Dutch-Chilean production that earned him the Best Screenplay Award in the Venice Orizzonti strand in 2017. But he is probably best known for co-directing Terrestrial Verses with Ali Asgari, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2023. While his co-director was banned from leaving Iran after the Cannes premiere—which led to the creation of the documentary Higher Than Acidic Cloud at IDFA last year—Khatami launched his third film at Sundance and continues to explore foreign territories. Now set in Turkey, The Things You Kill is a thought-provoking and complicated morality tale that ultimately unfolds into a mystery full of ambiguities and complexities.

Alireza Khatami knows how to stage his scenes, showing just how people behave when little white lies can destroy their reliance on each other. It may be our instinct to understand stories in terms of heroes and villains, but Khatami, with his solid and brilliant screenplay, pushes us to defy those dichotomies. As audiences, we are trapped in our belief about what is good and what is evil.

Helmed by Polish cinematographer Bartosz Świniarski, whose credits include Apples (Venice 2020) and Silent Land (TIFF 2021), the film is a technical marvel that puts you right in the heart of anxiety but ultimately leaves you emotionally cold to the fates of the men involved. Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, and Ercan Kesal give terrific performances. Even as you get frustrated over everything in this film, their central performances reflect the subtlety and complexity of their characters. Shot with precision, written with distinction, and unraveling the mystery in a tense manner, The Things You Kill is a confusing but clever and impressive work from Alireza Khatami.

The Things You Kill was produced by Elisa Sepulveda-Ruddoff for Fulgurance (France), Cyriac Auriol for Remora Films (France), Mariusz Włodarski for Lava Films (Poland), Michael Solomon for Band With Pictures (Canada), and Alireza Khatami for Tell Tall Tale (Canada). Marta Gmosińska, Cenk Ünalerzen, and actor Ekin Koç co-produced for Turkey’s Sineaktif, with Ercan Kesal serving as executive producer. Best Friend Forever is handling international sales.

The Film Fest Report team was an accredited media at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Expect substantial coverage from Park City, Utah, as the festival unfolds from January 23 to February 2, 2025.