[1][2] Mehrjui was a founding member of the Iranian New Wave movement of the early 1970s, which also included directors Masoud Kimiai and Nasser Taqvai.

[3] On 14 October 2023, Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, were found stabbed to death in their home in the city of Karaj, near Tehran.

At the age of 12, Mehrjui built a 35 mm projector, rented two-reel films and began selling tickets to his neighborhood friends.

[5] Although raised in a religious household, Mehrjui said that, at the age of 15, "The face of God gradually became a little hazy for me, and I lost my faith.

"[5] In 1959, Mehrjui moved to the United States to study at University of California, Los Angeles' (UCLA) Department of Cinema.

[5] When it was finally released in 1970, it was highly praised and won an award at the Ministry of Culture's film festival, but it was still denied an export permit.

[5] Several of Iran's prominent actors (Entezami, Nassirian, Jamshid Mashayekhi, and Jafar Vali) played roles in the film.

When he goes into a dress shop to purchase a wedding gown, he meets a beautiful young woman (Fakhri Khorvash) and proposes to her.

The young woman turns out to be a prostitute who rejects him and takes his money, spending him back to his village empty handed but more world-wise.

[5] After finishing Agha-ye Hallou in 1970, Mehrjui traveled to Berkeley, California and began writing an adaptation of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck for a modern-day Iranian setting.

When he discovers that his wife is the mistress of his town's wealthiest landowner, Taghi escapes to the local forest where he experiences a brief moment of peace and harmony.

Mehrjui got the idea for the film when a friend suggest that he investigate the black market and illicit blood traffic in Iran.

In the film, Kangarani plays Ali, a teenager who has brought his dying father (Mohammadi) to Tehran in order to find medical treatment.

Ali meets another doctor (Nassirian) who is attempting to establish a legitimate blood bank, and helps Dr. Sameri in sabotaging his plans.

The film's title, Dayereh mina, refers to a line from a poem by Hafiz Shirazi: "Because of the cycle of the universe, my heart is bleeding.

[8] It was finally released in 1977, with help from pressure from the Carter administration to increase human rights and intellectual freedoms in Iran.

The events leading up to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 were causing a gradual loosening of strict censorship laws, which Mehrjui and other artists had great hopes for.

In 1978, the Iranian Ministry of Health commissioned Mehrjui to make the documentary Peyvast kolieh, about kidney transplants.

Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979,[13] and to approve a new theocratic constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.

It was reported that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini saw Gaav on Iranian television and liked it, calling it "very instructive" and commissioning new prints to be made for distribution.

The film was sponsored by the Iranian Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, whose filmmaking department was co-founded by Abbas Kiarostami.

[5] In Hamoun (1989), a portrait of an intellectual whose life is falling apart, Mehrjui sought to depict his generation's post-revolutionary turn from politics to mysticism.

[17] His follow-up film, 1997's Leila, is a melodrama about an urban, upper-middle-class couple who learn that the wife is unable to bear children.

In front of a filled cinema crowd, Mehrjui announced, "Listen to me, I can't take it anymore," he said.

[20]Daryoush Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, were found stabbed to death on 14 October 2023, in their villa in Meshkin Dasht, Karaj.

[23][24] On October 17 Iranian police arrested ten individuals suspected of being involved in the murders, including "the main killer".

[26] Their funeral was held at Roudaki Performance Hall in Tehran, with tributes from Jafar Panahi, Masoud Kimiai, Mohammad Rasoulof and Bahman Farmanara.