Holy Spider (عنکبوت مقدس, Ankabut-e moqaddas, which means "Sacred Spider" in Persian) is a Swedish-French-German-Danish thriller co-written and directed by Ali Abbasi, released in 2022.
The film premiered in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, where actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award. It was also selected to represent Denmark in the race for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, later appearing on the shortlist of fifteen films announced in December 2022.
The story takes place entirely in the holy city of Mashhad, Iran, where a journalist investigates a series of murders targeting prostitutes. Throughout her investigation, she confronts the machismo and moral rigor of a deeply conservative society.