Mazaffaro Din Shah introduced the moving image to Iran in 1900. Over the first few decades of the new century there were a number of theaters established in the major cities of Iran, but going to the cinema was considered a pastime only for the upper class. One reason was that many of the films being made during this time were commissioned by the shah to document the events of the royal family. With no other films being made, theaters needed something to show, so many foreign films were imported and subtitled in Farsi. The first Iranian feature film was a silent film, Abi va Rabi (Abi and Rabi, Avanes Ohanian, 1930), and the first Iranian sound film, Dokhtare Lor (The Lost Girl, Ardeshir Irani, 1932), was made in Mumbai. Its release and box-office success encouraged the production of other films.
In the 1940s film studios were set up in Iran. The Pars Film Studio was owned by Esma'il Kushan, who later directed many other sound films made in Iran, The Tempest of Life (1948) and Prisoner of the Emir (1949) among them. During World War II strict censorship was imposed on art (including film), and most films of the period derived from traditional Iranian folklore and epic literature, although the few Western films that had infiltrated Iran were also shown. The 1950s saw the studios flourish, but with an emphasis on profit, filmmakers were making cheap films with low production values. It was also at this time that film became more acceptable in Iranian society. In a notable change from the 1940s, films now depicted a society that had been heavily influenced by Western culture and had lost traditional Iranian values. Iran began to produce comedies, melodramas, and action-hero films such as Velgard (Vagabond, Mehdi Rais Firuz, 1952).
In the 1960s the state finally took control of the entire film industry, and Iranian-made films did not attract the audiences that Western films did. In 1969 two films ushered in what is now known as the Iranian New Wave: Qaisar by Mas'ud Kimai (b. 1941) and Gav (The Cow) by Dariush Mehrju'i (b. 1939). New Wave cinema was popular and influenced many films and filmmaking up until the Iranian revolution in 1978, but most Iranian films were made primarily for domestic audiences.