At the age of 15, he became involved in a militant group fighting against the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.

Makhmalbaf has worked in several genres, from realist films to fantasy and surrealism, minimalism, and large frescoes of everyday life, with a preference (common to Iranian directors) for the themes of childhood and cinema.

The latter tells the story of Valeh (Majid Majidi), a young man sentenced to death for Communist tendencies.

Makhmalbaf portrays human despair, exploitation, and resilience in The Cyclist (1987),[8] a movie about Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee in Iran in desperate need of money for his ailing wife.

Nasim agrees to ride a bicycle in a small circle for one week for the money he needs to pay his wife's medical bills.

In 1989, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami read in the newspaper about an incident in which a Tehranian man named Hossain Sabzian tricked a family into believing he was Makhmalbaf.

Close Up is now regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema and was voted by critics onto 2012's Sight and Sound list of The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time.

That same day the then United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Japan's Sadako Ogata, also visited these same people and promised that the world would help them.

Three months later, I heard on Iranian radio that Madame Ogata gave the number of Afghans dying of hunger to a million nationwide.

[citation needed] In contrast to his later career, for about a decade after the revolution, Makhmalbaf expressed views and made films that served revolutionary art in the cultural atmosphere of Iran.

[15] Saeed Motalebi, an established writer and director before the revolution, is one of the people who has repeatedly recounted stories about how Makhmalbaf's stances affected pre-revolutionary stars.

One of these accounts refers to the 1982 film The Imperilled (Barzakhi-ha) written by Motalebi and had four pre-revolutionary male stars in the lead roles.

Fardin opened a pastry shop too and when I visited him, I used to wait outside as long as there were no customers so that he wouldn't feel ashamed when he saw me.

Addressing Mohammad Beheshti Shirazi, then head of Farabi Cinema Foundation, which was Iran's main governmental film production company, Makhmalbaf says: "Two hours ago when I saw The Lodgers I was ready to attach a grenade to myself and hold Mehrjui to take both of us to the other world.

[21] In December 2023, together with 50 other filmmakers, Makhmalbaf signed an open letter published in Libération, demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.