10 Best Nazanin Boniadi Movies & TV Shows

The cast of the upcoming The Lord of the Rings TV series is in focus these last months and everyone wants to know who these young actors and actresses are and where we have already seen them. Nazanin Boniadi is a pretty familiar face and name and we can’t wait to see her in the role of Bronwyn.

Born and raised in 1980 in Tehran, Iran, this talented actress is rapidly gaining more popularity, after a few interesting roles in some of the most famous American tv series. Her future looks stellar and before we witness her performance in the most anticipated series this year, let’s have a look at her 10 best movies and tv shows.

General Hospital (Leyla Mir, 2007-2009)

One of American longest-running tv series, General Hospital is the stepping stone for many actors and actresses who later gained popularity. Nazanin Boniadi was a regular there for almost three years, playing a student nurse who hopes to become a doctor one day.

This is a soap opera that shows the destinies of various people in the big upstate city of Port Charles in New York and depicts their love, professional and family lives. We follow their stories in a busy hospital, cosy diner, upscale hotel and a dangerous waterfront which is often frequented by different criminals engaged in different criminal activities.

Next Three Days (Elaine, 2010)

Nazanin plays a young mother Elaine in this intriguing thriller drama with Russel Crowe and Liam Neeson in leading roles. Lara Brennan is arrested for murdering her boss after her fingerprints were found at the crime scene. 

Her husband John will spend the next few days trying to prove her innocence even though nothing indicates this innocence. When John begins to realise that everything is starting to take its toll on Lara, he decides to break her out of prison, starts planning her escape and does a lot of research to find a way and make it happen. 

How I Met Your Mother (Nora, 2011-2014)

This funny tv series follows a group of friends in their twenties and thirties in New York, their relationships, work problems and love issues. Ted is an architect who always daydreams and searches for his significant other. Marshall and Lily are a couple with different personalities, Robin is an independent woman, who is much softer than she wants to appear and Barney is a womanizer with a kind heart.

Nazanin Boniadi plays Nora, one of Barney’s biggest love interests and Robin’s co-worker at World Wide News. It looked as if it might work out between them but it ended abruptly and unexpectedly, leaving everyone surprised and sad.

Scandal (Adnan Salif, 2012-2018)

This is a drama thriller directed by one of the most successful women in the tv series, Shonda Rimes, with Kerry Washington in the leading role. She is Olivia Role, a person you call when you find yourself in trouble. She is a “professional” fixer who makes problems disappear even before someone else learns about them.

She and her crew are extremely professional and take pride in what they do and even the President relies on their services and discretion. This is a fast paced, intriguing and interesting story where there is never a moment of rest. Boniadi played one of the antagonists in the third season of the show.

Homeland (Fara Sherazi, 2011-2020)

This extremely well received tv show features a brilliant story, action packed episode and a list of excellent actors. Claire Danes is a bipolar CIA operative who is convinced that a war prisoner has been turned by Al-Qaeda and is about to plan a terrorist attack on American grounds.

One of the best things about this show is the chemistry between the main actors and the complex relationship they have and that is built on lies, suspicion and desire which makes it even more exciting to watch. Boniadi joined the cast in the third season as a CIA analyst.

Ben Hur (Esther, 2016)

In this remake of one of the most epic movie classics of all time, Boniadi plays Esther, Ben Hur’s love interest. It is a story of a Jewish nobleman and his adopted Roman brother Messala who become best friends despite their origin. Ben Hur falls in love with Esther who he is not allowed to marry, especially after her father finds out about their feeling.

She is to marry a Roman, but when Ben Hur hears about it, he takes her for his wife. Three years later, Messala returns as a Roman officer and suddenly finds himself on the opposite side of Ben Hur, since it is the time of the Zealots’ uprising and Ben Hur is one of the Jewish protesters. 

Hotel Mumbai (Zahra, 2018)

This is a true story about the Taj Hotel terrorist attack in Mumbai. It is a gripping story of people who finds themselves inside a glamorous Mumbai hotel and their will to survive. The main characters are the hotel staff who will risk their lives to save their guests, while everyone else will make different sacrifices to save themselves and their families.

Boniadi plays Zahra, a wealthy Middle Eastern woman who arrives at the hotel with her American husband, their baby and their nanny just before the terrorist attack. Various characters from the movies are based on real life people who found themselves in the middle of this terrifying situation.

Counterpart (Claire Quayle, 2018-2019)

Boniadi plays one of the main roles in this excellent tv series about a mysterious world hidden behind everyday life. Howard Silk works for a Berlin-based spy agency that happens to hide a gateway to a parallel dimension where his other self is a top spy and the only person he can trust in this world.

It is in the middle of the cold war which is gradually starting to heat up and Silk will soon get involved in a world of intrigue, danger and double-cross. This Sci-fi series deals with various topics and shows us the possibility of parallel reality and shows what might happen if we made some different decisions in our lives.

Bombshell (Rudi Bakhtiar, 2019)

These movies were based on a real scandal and bring us a story of a group of women in 2015 who have been victims of sexual harassment in their working environment. When Gretchen Carlson files a lawsuit against Fox News founder, a series of confessions will start coming to the surface.

Many women will come forward with their own stories and this will be the beginning of a movement where women will have to be taken seriously and observed as equal to men. 

Desert Dancer (Parisa Ghaffarian, 2014)

This breathtaking movie based on a marvellous true story talks about Afshin Ghaffarian and her friends who decide to form an underground dance company, despite Iranian strict rules that forbid dancing. They hack into YouTube and begin learning moves from the biggest dancers of all time, such as Michael Jackson and Gene Kelly.

These young people have finally found something that brings them hope and joy. Even though it is outrageous to dance, especially hidden, they decide to put on a performance deep in the desert where the military police shouldn’t be a danger to any of them.