Punch-Drunk Love came in at #33 in The A.V. Club's "Top 50 films of the '00s",[30] while Time Out listed the film as one of the best films of the 21st century.[31] Filmmakers Lee Unkrich, Judd Apatow, Kleber Mendonça, Miranda July, Bong Joon-ho, Guillermo del Toro, Isabel Sandoval, Barry Jenkins and Taika Waititi, and actors Bill Nighy, Owen Wilson, Austin Butler, Timothée Chalamet, and Andrew Scott have cited it as one of their favorite films.[32][33][34]
When asked about Punch-Drunk Love following its twentieth anniversary in 2022, Sandler said that the film that enabled him to pursue films different from his usual roles, while sharing that it helped forge a close friendship between him and Anderson.[35] The two reunited in their first project since Punch-Drunk Love when Anderson helped film segments of Sandler's Netflix comedy special 100% Fresh (2018).[36]
Critics agreed that Punch-Drunk Love remained as one of Sandler's best acting performances, and was a launchpad for Sandler to take on dramatic roles or opportunities outside of his usual mainstream comedies. In a retrospective review following its 2017 release on Netflix, GQ's Miranda Popkey called the film "Adam Sandler's finest performance and P.T. Anderson's most underrated work," describing it as "a paean to love as a source of unfathomable power."[37] Far Out's Arun Starkey described Punch-Drunk Love as Sandler's "first true foray into auteur cinema" and "the first indicator of his prowess as an actor and shows that if he is given a good enough script that isn't shackled by the tropes of a mainstream genre, he can actually do very well at carrying a three-dimensional character onto the big screen."[38] Alan Dorich of Comic Book Resources shared that the film's critical success "changed the course of Sandler's career forever" and "opened new opportunities that enhanced his legacy as a performer," leading to other dramatic roles in films such as Men, Women & Children (2014), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), and Uncut Gems (2019).[39]
