This paper explores the place of traditional metaphysics in Iranian cinema through an analysis of three films by Majid Majidi. Countering evaluations of Majidi’s films as tritely patriarchal or heavy-handedly logocentric, this paper considers images and allegories in Majidi’s films as responses to the pains of modernity. Majidi’s films, specifically, Children of Heaven, Baran, and the Color of God, draw on Sufi and Shii theologies to locate meaning in a world changed by war, modernization, economic disparity, and nationalism. The result is a sense of ambiguity that aims at both realism and transcendence