Box office
The Big Lebowski received its world premiere at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 1998, at the 1,300-capacity Eccles Theater. It was also screened at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival[39][40] before opening in the United States and Canada on March 6, 1998, in 1,207 theaters. It grossed $5.5 million on its opening weekend, finishing up with a gross of $18 million in the United States and Canada, just above its US$15 million budget. The film's worldwide gross outside of the US and Canada was $28.7 million, (including $2.6 million in the United Kingdom) bringing its worldwide gross to $46.7 million.[4][41]
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 191 reviews, with an average score of 7.40/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Big Lebowski's shaggy dog story won't satisfy everybody, but those who abide will be treated to a rambling succession of comic delights, with Jeff Bridges' laconic performance really tying the movie together."[42] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, has assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[43] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[44]
Many critics and audiences have likened the film to a modern Western, while many others dispute this, or liken it to a crime novel that revolves around mistaken identity plot devices.[45] Peter Howell, in his review for the Toronto Star, wrote: "It's hard to believe that this is the work of a team that won an Oscar last year for the original screenplay of Fargo. There's a large amount of profanity in the movie, which seems a weak attempt to paper over dialogue gaps."[46] Howell revised his opinion in a later review, and in 2011 stated that "it may just be my favourite Coen Bros. film."[47]
Todd McCarthy in Variety magazine wrote: "One of the film's indisputable triumphs is its soundtrack, which mixes Carter Burwell's original score with classic pop tunes and some fabulous covers."[48] USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and felt that the Dude was "too passive a hero to sustain interest," but that there was "enough startling brilliance here to suggest that, just like the Dude, those smarty-pants Coens will abide."[49]
In his review for The Washington Post, Desson Howe praised the Coens and "their inspired, absurdist taste for weird, peculiar Americana – but a sort of neo-Americana that is entirely invented – the Coens have defined and mastered their own bizarre subgenre. No one does it like them and, it almost goes without saying, no one does it better."[50]
Janet Maslin praised Bridges' performance in her review for The New York Times: "Mr. Bridges finds a role so right for him that he seems never to have been anywhere else. Watch this performance to see shambling executed with nonchalant grace and a seemingly out-to-lunch character played with fine comic flair."[51] Andrew Sarris, in his review for the New York Observer, wrote: "The result is a lot of laughs and a feeling of awe toward the craftsmanship involved. I doubt that there'll be anything else like it the rest of this year."[52] In a five star review for Empire, Ian Nathan wrote: "For those who delight in the Coens' divinely abstract take on reality, this is pure nirvana" and "in a perfect world all movies would be made by the Coen brothers."[53] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, describing it as "weirdly engaging."[54] In a 2010 review, he raised his original score to four stars out of four and added the film to his "Great Movies" list.[55]
However, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote in the Chicago Reader: "To be sure, The Big Lebowski is packed with show-offy filmmaking and as a result is pretty entertaining. But insofar as it represents a moral position—and the Coens' relative styling of their figures invariably does—it's an elitist one, elevating salt-of-the-earth types like Bridges and Goodman ... over everyone else in the movie."[56] Dave Kehr, in his review for the Daily News, criticized the film's premise as a "tired idea, and it produces an episodic, unstrung film."[57] The Guardian criticized the film as "a bunch of ideas shoveled into a bag and allowed to spill out at random. The film is infuriating, and will win no prizes. But it does have some terrific jokes."[58]
