Hossein Rezai, a nonprofessional actor with soulful eyes and a streak of stubbornness that is as big as his ego, plays a love-smitten bricklayer whose would-be fiancee (Tahereh Ladania) refuses to acknowledge his existence. Complicating matters is the fact that the two have been cast as newlyweds in a movie about earthquake survivors in northern Iran. [The film thus] combines a panoramic visual beauty with an acute sense of human tininess in the face of eruptive natural forces.Stephen Holden, 1994, NYT

To call the pacing slow would be grossly understating the case—glacial would be more descriptive when Kiarostami demonstrates take after take after take of the same scene, to the point that we gain the director's point of view and feel like throwing up our hands when an actor screws up.John Nesbit, Old School Reviews

On a deeper level, as the film begins to fade from memory, it seems to be asking unanswerable questions about the differences between a movie and reality (life as art) and questions the problems faced by filmmakers as they try to tap into cinema's unexplored potential. Dennis Schwartz, 2006, Sover.net

Had things moved faster, numerous subtle and intricate touches would have been lost. The characters are all marvelously realized, and their interaction is so unforced that it draws the viewer in … and puts the audience right next to the actors.

Moments of comedy are sprinkled throughout, often relating to the difficulties experienced by the director of the film-within-the-film as he attempts to get uncooperative performers to complete a take.

The film's ending is open to interpretation and reminds us that movies are only windows into another reality, and it's possible for them to close at the most inopportune times.

Overall, an exceptionally well-crafted and thoughtful motion picture.

James Berardinelli, 1995, ReelViews

Rather than explore the fiction/reality/documentary conundrum abstractly, as many other films have done, Olive Trees uses its naive, non-pro actors to draw a straight line between the audience and the real-life inhabitants of the area. The power of the film lies in the masterful way this is accomplished.Deborah Young, 1994, Variety