The Things You Kill

Alireza Khatami's 2025 film was shot in Turkish and set in Turkey. Ali, played by Ekin Koç, teaches language and translation at a university. When he finds his mother's death suspicious he starts asking questions, and old accounts with his father reopen. At the same time his relationship with a mysterious man who begins working in his garden shifts the ground under the film: what opened as family drama turns into a psychological thriller in which identity and agency change places. Khatami, an Iranian director working in Turkey, builds a regionally familiar argument about fatherhood, masculinity and inherited violence. The film won the directing award in World Cinema Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Who it's for: viewers who like slow-building psychological thrillers and films that break their genre. Who it's not for: anyone who needs a clear explanation and a single plane of reality; the film gives neither.