Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Mina Hasani ¹
• Ehsan Aqababaee ²
• Ali Ghanbari Barzian ²

¹ PhD student in Sociology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

This article examines how cultural change is represented in Iranian cinema during the 2010s, employing narrative analysis, semiotic inquiry, and Ronald Inglehart’s conceptual framework of value change to investigate these transformations in their narrative, visual, and action‑based dimensions. The films were selected through purposive sampling, focusing on successful and widely viewed works of the decade. The findings suggest that the cinema of this period constructs a multilayered portrayal of a “partial value transition,” a condition in which weakened social capital, economic instability, and institutional distrust hinder the consolidation of emerging values and place social actors in an ambiguous, in‑between position. Within the narratives, characters are frequently depicted in states of urgency and reactivity, lacking effective agency, while resolutions tend to arise not from collective will but from coincidence, attrition, or external intervention. At the cinematic level, the analysis of narrative structure reveals that the contemporary Iranian protagonist has shifted from the figure of an active reformer to a more vulnerable, cautious agent seeking only minimal sense of safety and dignity. The study concludes that new Iranian cinema not only reflects a crisis of values but also serves as a cultural record of an incomplete, transitional stage of value change .

Keywords

• Representation of values
• Iranian cinema
• narrative analysis
• cultural transition
• social capital

Main Subjects

• Cultural Studies