"Valentín" garnered mostly mixed reviews from film critics. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall 61% "Fresh" approval rating based on 66 reviews, with a rating average of 6.1 out of 10. The site's consensus is: "A coming-of-age tale that's more cloying than affecting." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 52 based on 29 reviews, classified as a mixed or average reviewed film.