"Holy Spider" is a 2022 Persian-language crime thriller film co-produced, co-written, and directed by Ali Abbasi. The film stars Mehdi Bajestani and Zar Amir Ebrahimi. It's based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who targeted street prostitutes and killed 16 women from 2000 to 2001 in Mashhad, Iran. The film depicts a fictional female journalist investigating a serial killer.
The plot follows Tehran-based journalist Arezoo Rahimi who arrives in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad to investigate a serial killer targeting local street prostitutes addicted to drugs, dubbed the "Spider Killer" by the media. The killer follows a pattern of picking up women on his motorcycle, taking them to an apartment and strangling them with their headscarves, before ultimately disposing of their corpses in desolate areas on the city's outskirts.
"Holy Spider" was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award for her performance. It was chosen as the Danish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, and made the December shortlist. The film has a duration of 1 hour and 57 minutes and has an IMDb rating of 7.3/10.