Sam Esmail directs Leave the World Behind, a 2023 drama-thriller that swaps jump scares for slow-building dread, stretching a single unraveling weekend into a 138-minute study of what happens when nobody can explain what's going wrong.
What is Leave the World Behind about?
A mother and father take their two kids to a rented house outside the city for a quiet getaway, only for the trip to sour fast: screens go dark, planes behave strangely, and two strangers arrive at the door claiming the house is theirs too. With phones useless and the outside world offering no answers, the two families are forced into an uneasy truce, piecing together fragments of a crisis nobody can fully see or name. The film keeps its horror mostly off-screen, letting suspicion between the two households do as much damage as whatever is actually happening beyond the property line.
About the cast
Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali lead as the two family heads thrown together, with Ethan Hawke, Myha'la, Kevin Bacon, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans, and Alexis Rae Forlenza filling out the cast. The pairing of Roberts and Ali carries much of the tension, since the film relies on two strangers slowly deciding whether to trust each other as the world outside stops making sense.
Context & significance
Leave the World Behind comes from writer-director Sam Esmail, working here in the mystery-thriller register rather than his more procedural instincts, and the film uses its rural setting to isolate its characters from any outside help. Genre-wise it sits across drama, mystery, and thriller, more interested in human behavior under pressure than in delivering conventional scares. At 138 minutes it takes its time, favoring slow-burn unease over a fast pace, which makes it a better fit for viewers who like ambiguity to linger.
Watching Leave the World Behind on Ktime
K-Time streams Leave the World Behind with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, so viewers can choose whichever fits the household. Anyone can read this page without an account; watching the film itself only requires logging into a free K-Time account on the platform's Farsi-first interface, built with Persian-speaking audiences in mind.