Satrapi and her female classmates are forced to wear veils at their newly segregated all-girls school.

Satrapi overhears her parents discussing the Rex Cinema fire, in which 400 civilians died behind locked doors.

Satrapi's father reveals that her grandfather served as the shah's prime minister before being repeatedly imprisoned and tortured.

Satrapi sneaks the family maid Mehri out to join demonstrations on the day of the massive Black Friday massacre.

The shah abdicates and flees Iran, and the entire country erupts in celebration.

Freed political prisoners Siamak and Mohsen visit the Satrapi family and describe the torture they endured in prison.

Uncle Anoosh visits after his release from prison and tells Satrapi stories of his revolutionary life and exile.

Uncle Anoosh is suddenly arrested and imprisoned on charges of espionage for Russia.

Satrapi visits Uncle Anoosh in prison, where he tells her she is the daughter he always wanted.

Uncle Anoosh is executed, and Satrapi screams at God to leave her room and never come back.

The Satrapi family returns home from a European vacation to discover that Iraq has invaded and war has begun.

Iraqi fighter jets bomb Tehran while Satrapi and her father are out together in the city.

A ballistic missile destroys the neighboring Baba-Levy family's house, and Satrapi finds their daughter's arm in the rubble.

Satrapi's parents decide to send her to a French school in Austria to keep her safe from the war.

As Satrapi passes through airport security, she turns back one last time and sees her mother collapse from heartbreak.

Following the Islamic Revolution, young Satrapi and her classmates are forced to wear veils at their newly segregated school, thrusting her family into a disorienting new order. She learns of her family's deep political history, including her grandfather's imprisonment under the shah, connecting her personal story to Iran's turbulent past. The celebration greeting the shah's departure quickly gives way to darker realities, as freed political prisoners describe their torture and the legendary Uncle Anoosh enters Satrapi's life as a revolutionary hero. Anoosh's sudden arrest and execution devastates Satrapi and destroys her faith in God, marking her most profound loss of innocence. When the Iran-Iraq War breaks out and Iraqi missiles level her neighbors' home, her parents realize she is no longer safe in Tehran. They make the heartbreaking decision to send her to a French school in Austria, and Satrapi leaves Iran with the haunting image of her mother collapsing at the airport.

The defining events of Marjane Satrapi's childhood in revolutionary Iran.

Satrapi's mother is photographed at demonstrations and dyes her hair to avoid being recognized in public.

Young Satrapi believes she is destined to be a prophet and speaks with God every night before bed.

Satrapi soaks in the bathtub for as long as she can to understand her grandfather's water cell torture.

Satrapi's grandmother visits and describes the poverty the family endured after grandfather's repeated imprisonments, including taking up sewing to survive.

Satrapi helps the family maid Mehri write love letters to the boy who lives next door.

Satrapi's father confronts the neighbor and tells Mehri her love is impossible because of their difference in social class.

Mohsen, a family friend and recently freed political prisoner, is found dead in his bathtub.

Siamak's sister is murdered by the regime, and his remaining family flees Iran hidden among a flock of sheep.

Satrapi's mother is verbally and sexually threatened by a stranger on the street and takes to her bed for days.

Mali's family arrives at the Satrapis' home in the middle of the night after their border-town house is destroyed in bombing.

Women at a grocery store gossip about refugees stealing food, and Satrapi's mother publicly defends Mali's displaced family.

Poor young boys are given gold keys at school promising them entry to paradise if they die in battle.

Satrapi smokes her first cigarette alone in the basement, declaring to herself that she has finally become an adult.

Satrapi's parents smuggle Western rock posters back into Iran by sewing them into the lining of the father's coat.

Satrapi's grandmother tucks jasmine flowers into her bra and advises Satrapi to always stay true to herself on her last night in Tehran.

While revolution reshapes Iran around her, Satrapi's private world is filled with formative moments that define her childhood self. From her early belief that she was destined to be a prophet, to her attempts to understand her grandfather's torture by soaking in the bathtub, she navigates the revolution through imagination and family memory. Her friendship with the family maid Mehri introduces her to painful social class divides, while the murders of family friends and the flight of loved ones make the political violence impossible to ignore. As the Iran-Iraq War escalates, displaced families like Mali's arrive on their doorstep, exposing Satrapi to the ugly treatment of fellow Iranians by their own neighbors. Her growing disillusionment surfaces in small acts of rebellion — her first cigarette, her obsession with forbidden Western music — as her parents quietly work to give her joy amid the danger. Her grandmother's jasmine-scented farewell on her final night in Tehran becomes the most vivid sensory memory she carries with her from Iran.

The personal, family, and wartime moments behind the revolution's human cost.

Satrapi gives up her dream of becoming a prophet and begins idolizing socialist revolutionary figures like Che Guevara.

Satrapi's father explains the true political history of how the shah came to power through British and foreign interference, not divine right.

Satrapi's father returns from photographing demonstrations and describes a widow joining marchers who had mistaken her cancer-stricken husband for a revolutionary martyr.

Satrapi organizes her classmates to beat up Ramin, whose father worked in the shah's secret police, but her mother intervenes.

Ramin tells Satrapi his father only killed communists, leaving Satrapi deeply confused about the meaning of forgiveness and justice.

Uncle Anoosh explains that religion, not Marxism, can unite Iran's largely illiterate population, predicting the Islamic republic's consolidation of power.

The new government closes universities and announces a cultural revolution, declaring school curricula too decadent and Western.

Satrapi accompanies her mother to an anti-veil rally and watches police stab a woman protester in the crowd.

The Satrapi family escapes Tehran on a three-week vacation to Spain and Italy, experiencing a joyful and magical reprieve.

Satrapi learns her schoolmate Pardisse's father died bombing Baghdad and watches Pardisse write a letter to him instead of a war essay.

Satrapi and her father visit Khosro to arrange an illegal passport for Uncle Taher and meet Niloufar, a communist woman Khosro is hiding.

Niloufar is arrested and executed, forcing Khosro to flee the country before he can complete Uncle Taher's forged passport.

Guardians of the Revolution stop Satrapi on the street for wearing Western clothes, and she lies convincingly to avoid being taken away.

Satrapi's mother reveals that Niloufar was forced into marriage, raped, and then murdered by the regime, warning Satrapi of the danger she faces.

Satrapi hits her school principal for trying to confiscate her jewelry, and her family struggles to find any school willing to accept her.

From an early age, Satrapi replaces her childhood religious faith with a growing political consciousness, shaped by her father's revelations about the shah's illegitimate rise to power and the unmasking of official myths she was taught at school. Encounters with classmates like Ramin force her to grapple with questions of justice, inherited guilt, and the dangerous beliefs children absorb from their parents. Uncle Anoosh's explanation of how religion supplanted Marxism in uniting Iran's population reveals the forces behind the revolution's unexpected direction toward Islamic fundamentalism. As the government shuts down universities and the Iran-Iraq War begins claiming people she knows personally, Satrapi's world narrows dangerously until her own confrontation with the Guardians of the Revolution makes the threat feel immediate. The shocking truth about what happened to Niloufar — raped and murdered by the regime — galvanizes her parents' determination to send her abroad regardless of the cost. These turning points trace the arc from an idealistic child's questions to a teenager's clear-eyed understanding of what her country has become.

The key decisions, discoveries, and shifts that shaped Satrapi's understanding of Iran and herself.