Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

Asghar Farhadi's film yields a tonal and emotional friction that's simultaneously tragic, transcendent, and comic.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

His new film, in Persian with English subtitles, is of a piece with his best work — tightly focused, rather than broad-gauge brilliant, and another instance of this superb filmmaker turning elusive motivations and the mysteries of personality into gripping drama.

Entertainment Weekly by Joe McGovern

By the film’s shattering end, you’ll feel the spirit of Arthur Miller, one of the great dramatists of the 20th century, reaching across the transom to touch one of the great dramatists of the 21st.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

With exquisite patience and attention to detail, Asghar Farhadi, the writer and director, builds a solid and suspenseful plot out of ordinary incidents, and packs it with rich and resonant ideas.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Kate Taylor

With The Salesman, Farhadi opens a window into his own society that offers a universal view of the emotional rivalries within the human heart. Neither America nor Iran could ask any more of an artist.

Boston Globe by Peter Keough

As often happens in films about putting on plays, life imitates art, but in this instance obliquely.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Calvin Wilson

The film offers insights into Iranian society while also subtly making a case that human foibles are universal.

Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang

The world of The Salesman isn’t quite as intricately imagined as some of its predecessors, and the story’s sleuthing element, while absorbing, often feels more narratively expedient than germane. But if the setup is creaky, the payoff, when it arrives, is a thing to behold.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

All I can is that I didn’t draw too many breaths during the last half hour.