He took a BA in philosophy at McGill University in Montréal, where he studied under Charles Taylor and Brian Massumi, and directed plays including Pinter’s Betrayal and Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

He contributed a chapter to A Shock to Thought: Expression after Deleuze and Guattari, edited by Brian Massumi, and also translated Michel Foucault's This is Not a Pipe into Persian.

In 2006, Haghighi and Asghar Farhadi wrote Fireworks Wednesday, a domestic social-realist drama that dealt with issues of class and alienation in contemporary Tehran.

Canaan (2007), Haghighi's second writing collaboration with Farhadi, was based on "Post and Beam", a short story by the Nobel prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro.

Scott Foundas called the film "the revelation of the Berlinale -- a fever dream Iranian horror-western; Kiarostami meets Jodorowsky."

In 2016, Haghighi made 50 Kilos of Sour Cherries, a popular romantic comedy that became, in the year of its release, the third-highest grossing film in the history of Iranian cinema.

The film was quickly embroiled in controversy due to its frank treatment of female sexuality and unconventional approach to romance in the Islamic Republic.

In response, Haghighi published two consecutive open letters to Janatti, outlining the elaborate censorship process the film had endured and accusing him of deception and bad faith.

In 2018, Haghighi made Pig, a black comedy about the misadventures of a black-listed film director who is falsely accused of the serial murder of his colleagues.

In September 2016, the fundamentalist weekly journal Yalasarat al-Hussein published an article claiming to have uncovered a love triangle involving Haghighi, the actress Taraneh Alidoosti and the director Asghar Farhadi.