Persepolis is a 2007 French animated film based on Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. The film was written and directed by Satrapi with Vincent Paronnaud. The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The story ends with Marjane as a 24-year-old expatriate. The title is a reference to the historic city of Persepolis.

The film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France and Belgium on June 27. In her acceptance speech, Satrapi said "Although this film is universal, I wish to dedicate the prize to all Iranians." The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Ratatouille.

The film was released in the United States on December 25, 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2008.

I've never seen a movie so personal deal with issues that are so huge and ultimately universal. And it does so in an almost entirely visual manner. The aesthetics of Persepolis are so inventive and so finely tuned and sharpened that you could watch it on mute and still get most of the impact. This is a shining example of the power expressionistic movie making is capable of. What we have here is essentially your basic coming of age story, with a very smooth and simple narrative that is crafted like a flashback and broken up into specific time frames, that is jam-packed with worldly themes and concepts - religion, war, oppression, feminism, puberty, love - that are viewed from an entirely subjective perspective in an aesthetically consistent and beautiful manner. Things that have become drilled into our collective subconscious to look and feel a certain way become entirely new and fresh in Persepolis. The war scenes, for example, look like something out of Fritz Lang's M, as opposed to the Private Ryan "YOU ARE THERE" aesthetic we have been spooned by filmmakers lately. And it is all because of the bold and striking animation. This completely reinvents the wheel when it comes to the potential power of animated filmmaking.

I told myself a couple of weeks ago that it would take a miracle for a movie to enter the heights of my two designated masterpieces this year (No Country and Jesse James). Persepolis is a miracle. It is simultaneously hilarious, heartbreaking, heart warming, informative, beautiful, stirring... any arbitray adjective you wanna throw at this movie is going to stick like fucking glue.

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While some of the cast remains the same - Catherine Deneuve is the English voice of the mother, and the adult Marjane is played by Chiara Mastroianni (Deneuve's daughter) - there are a few interesting variations. Sean Penn lends his voice to Marji's father, Ebi, and Uncle Anouche sounds suspiciously like Iggy Pop. Gena Rowlands even pops up as the grandmother, taking the place of Danielle Darrieux.

Of course, a few choice lines in the movie were already in English; most notably Marji's strangely accented, delightfully mangled rendition of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," accompanied by her best Rocky imitation as she vaults out of bed and out of her depression. Then there are the muttered voices of fences, who peddle bootleg "Jichael Mackson" and Iron Maiden cassettes, along with black-market cosmetics and Nike sneakers, on the streets near her school.

The slogan on Marji's jacket, "Punk Is Not Ded," will stay misspelled [ aside from the language, the film is unchanged, according to a representative from the Sony Pictures Classic press office. This time around, Marji's Viennese roommate, hairy armpits and all, will be flummoxed by her English rather than her French. The lederhosen and yodeling will remain lost in translation.