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Plot

Luis, along with his son Esteban, travels to a rave held in the deserts of southern Morocco in search of his missing daughter, Mar. A subgroup of ravers tells them that another rave is taking place deeper in the desert afterwards, and that Mar could be there. When a group of soldiers arrives to stop the rave and order European ravers to be evacuated, the subgroup breaks away in two vans, with Luis, Esteban and their dog Pipa following suit in their compact van. Radio reports that armed conflict between two countries has commenced, which soon escalates into a World War III-like event.

The ravers, consisting of Stef, Jade, Tonin, Bigui, and Josh, attempt to dissuade Luis and Esteban to no avail. Heading south to a location "close to Mauritania", the group encounters mishaps and grow closer. They share food and fuel, cross a river together in their vehicles, nurse Pipa back to health when she falls ill after eating the ravers' LSD-contaminated feces, and Tonin does a musical number while improvising a puppetry show using his leg stump. While crossing a mountain pass, one of the vans is stuck in a rut. The group manages to free the vehicle, but amid their celebration Luis's van rolls backwards off a cliff with Esteban and Pipa inside, killing them both.

The remaining group members drive further into the desert looking for help, coming across a nomadic herder who runs off when approached. A grief-stricken Luis walks into the desert alone; he is rescued by Jade and Stef. Looking to lift the group's spirits, Jade asks them to use a psychoactive drug and improvises a rave in the desert with two loudspeakers. While in a trance, she dies in an explosion after stepping on a land mine. Trying to reach Jade, Tonin steps on another mine and is killed.

Realising that they are in the middle of a minefield, the survivors are determined to reach a presumably mine-free rocky area some 60 metres away. They send one empty van forward, trying to secure a safe path; the van explodes after hitting a mine. They repeat the operation with the second van, but the van veers off course when it activates a second mine and is destroyed after hitting a third, failing to create the path they intended. Unfazed, Luis walks straight forward and reaches the area successfully. Bigui attempts to do the same but dies after stepping on a mine. With great hesitation, Stef and Josh, carrying Jade's dog in hands, follow suit with their eyes shut and safely reach Luis. Earlier a railway was briefly seen; the movie ends with the three survivors crossing the desert on the open wagons of an ore train along with other people.

Release

The Match Factory acquired the international sales rights to the film on 6 May 2024. The trailer was released on 6 May 2025. The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 78th Cannes Film Festival on 15 May 2025.

Sirāt received a theatrical release by BTeam Pictures in Spain on 6 June 2025, grossing around €1.8 million in its first 24 days in theatres. By 7 September 2025, it had grossed a "robust" €2.7 million in the Spanish box office. Distributed by Pyramide Films, it was released in French theatres on 10 September 2025, selling 468,000 tickets over the course of the month.

Following its Cannes premiere, Neon acquired the film for distribution in North America, while Mubi (which owns The Match Factory) acquired it for Italy, Turkey, and India. Altitude acquired rights for the United Kingdom and Ireland, Cine Video y TV for Latin America, Cinéart (The Match Factory's sister company) for the Benelux, Pandora Film for Germany and Austria, Filmcoopi for Switzerland, Transformer for Japan, Challan for South Korea, Andrews Film for Taiwan, Madman Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, New Horizons for Poland, Triart Film for Sweden, Fidalgo for Norway, Cinema Mondo for Finland, Feelgood Entertainment for Greece, Nitrato Filmes for Portugal, MCF MegaCom for former Yugoslavia, Transilvania Film for Romania, Aerofilms for Czechia and Slovakia, Cirko Film for Hungary, and A-One Films for the Baltic countries. Retrato Filmes scheduled a 26 February 2026 theatrical release in Brazil.

The film's festival run also included selections for screenings at the New Zealand International Film Festival, and the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival. For its North American premiere, Sirāt was screened in the Special Presentations program of the 50th Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2025. It also made it to the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival in the 'Made in Spain' section, to the lineup of the 20th Fantastic Fest for its U.S. premiere, to the main slate of the 63rd New York Film Festival, to the 2025 Beyond Fest lineup, to the 'Dare' strand of the 69th BFI London Film Festival, to the Santa Fe International Film Festival 2025 lineup, to the international competition of the 61st Chicago International Film Festival, to the 'Gala' selection of the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival, and at the 56th International Film Festival of India.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 201 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.0/10. The website's consensus reads: "A brutal reminder that the journey can be more important than the destination, Sirât is an unforgettable exercise in tension that wallops its audience like a deafening blast of bass to the face." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Upon its festival premiere, Sirāt polled as the best film in the 2025 Cannes Critics Survey conducted by IndieWire.

Jessica Kiang of Variety called the film a "brilliantly bizarre, cult-ready vision of human psychology tested to its limits". She praised Mauro Herce's cinematography and Kangding Ray's score. Damon Wise of Deadline wrote, "Part existential road movie, part apocalyptic sci-fi, [the film is] a puzzling mix of Zabriskie Point and Fury Road that starts with a bang but ends in a curiously minor key." He commended Laia Casanova's sound design. Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter echoed these sentiments, praising Casanova's sound design, but noting that the film "gets muddled near the end". David Katz of IndieWire gave Sirāt an 'A-' rating, describing it as belonging to a type of film [that is] "sui generis and evading any classification, emanating from a wholly personal vision of cinema while not resisting galvanizing, and sometimes crowd-pleasing, pleasures". Renaud Baronian of Le Parisien found reminiscences from the Mad Max saga in the film, but also from Lost Highway, The Wages of Fear, Sorcerer, Zabriskie Point, Gerry, and Nomadland. John Bleasdale of Time Out lauded it as "startlingly original, jarringly hilarious and deeply disturbing". Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa wrote that Laxe "masterfully succeeds in creating an unforgettable [...] experiential film about man and the world, the collective and the individual, being and nothingness, radicality and universality, the intimate and the cosmic." Carlos Boyero of El País described the film as "strange in the best sense".

Manuel J. Lombardo of Diario de Sevilla gave Sirāt four stars, concluding that the film "invites us to a borderline experience from which it is difficult to emerge unscathed or indifferent". For The New Yorker's Justin Chang, what unfolds in between the film's beginning and its conclusion is "an experience of singularly turbulent and transfixing power" unmatched in terms of "sheer visceral excitement and sustained emotional force" in 2025.

In June 2025, IndieWire ranked the film at number 25 on its list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)."

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