The film was shot without a proper script, relying on improvisations.
Abbas Kiarostami shot each of his actors separately with him either sitting in the driver's or passenger seat. He would instigate conversations with his non-professional actors and film the responses.
The film's coda was to a certain extent unplanned, according to an interview with Abbas Kiarostami. After they had filmed preliminary versions of the final scene, they did the final scene proper, but the lab accidentally destroyed these final reels. Kiarostami then decided that the off-focus and colors of the test reels worked, and used those instead.
In 2009 Time Magazine ranked Taste of Cherry as one of the top 10 films of Cannes film festival entire history.