The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Seven Years in Tibet recalls the adventures of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian who escaped from an Indian prison-camp, crossed the Himalayas and then spent seven years in a land known to few foreigners. During this time he shot some very impressive 16 mm material of Lhasa, religious ceremonies and the flight of the Dalai Llama before the invading Chinese. The usual commercial mistrust of rough material, however great its interest, has led the producers to reconstruct parts of Harrer's adventures, by shooting studio episodes and location material, apparently in India. Needless to say, the resulting film is rather unsatisfactory. Out of seventy-five minutes, only twenty minutes are Harrer's authentic material; and even this has been rendered suspect by the interpolation of shots of totally different technical quality. On the whole, through lack of trust in their material, which was rare enough to stand on its own interest, the producers have turned a marvellous short into an overlong, tedious and unremarkable feature-length documentary."