The Salesman (Persian: فروشنده, romanized: Forušande, released in France as Le Client) is a 2016 Iranian-French drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi and starring Taraneh Alidoosti and Shahab Hosseini.

Knowing they need another place to live, their fellow actor Babak secures another apartment for them, where a woman has recently moved out, although she left in a hurry abandoning numerous belongings.

Emad calls the old man's family to the apartment, and locks him in a small room to wait, intending to reveal his true character to them all.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi said he had conceived of much of the story for The Salesman years before production, but did not feel there was enough to make a film until he decided his protagonists should be stage actors.

[5] Looking for a play within the film, Farhadi researched the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Henrik Ibsen before finding Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, which he described as "a gift for me".

[7] In Miller's play and his script, Farhadi said he found parallel themes of "humiliation", and also compared the relationship between his characters Rana and Emad to that of Linda and Willy Loman.

The website's consensus reads: "The Salesman takes an ambitiously complex look at thought-provoking themes, and the well-acted results prove another consistently absorbing entry in writer-director Asghar Farhadi's distinguished filmography.

[18] After its Cannes screening, Owen Gleiberman wrote in Variety that, following Farhadi's A Separation and The Past, The Salesman "is another finely cut gem of neorealist suspense.

"[19] Donald Clarke's review from The Irish Times stated that "The latest from Asghar Farhadi sees another family put under stress after a violent attack.

[22] The film was supported by Iranian social media users, and after its screening and two awards at Cannes, some government officials and politicians congratulated Farhadi.

Scott wrote it was not initially clear why Death of a Salesman was selected, but Willy Loman's presence soon became felt, and favourably compared the use of the play to All About My Mother's use of A Streetcar Named Desire.

[24] Peter Travers gave the film three and a half stars in Rolling Stone, praising it as "a dazzling, darkly funny, quietly devastating human drama.

[37] The Persian playwright and filmmaker, Bahram Beyzai congratulated Farhadi on his Academy Award in a voice message played in public by Hayedeh Safiyari, the editor of the film.

[38] Following United States President Donald Trump's order which blocked entry of citizens from Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries to the U.S., on 26 January 2017 Alidoosti tweeted that she would boycott the Academy Awards in protest at the "racist" ban.

[58] On 29 January, Farhadi wrote to The New York Times that he originally planned to attend the ceremony and draw the media's attention to "the unjust circumstances", believing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would share his moderate position.

[59] On 30 January, Australian director George Miller supported Asghar Farhadi's decision, saying that "irrational craziness" is "affecting the United States and the rest of the world,"[60] and some of Britain's filmmakers wrote a letter organized by Mark Donne to Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster, for permission to hold an outdoor screening of The Salesman in London's Grosvenor Square "directly opposite the United States embassy building" on the night of the Academy Awards Ceremony.

[63] On 19 February, United Talent Agency's head, Jeremy Zimmer, announced that UTA's annual Oscars party was cancelled and a protest rally would be held instead.

[64] On 24 February, Farhadi announced that Anousheh Ansari, known as the first female space tourist, and Firouz Naderi, a former director of Solar System Exploration at NASA – would represent him at the Oscars ceremony.