Rating the film four out of four stars, critic Roger Ebert discussed Fellini's value as a director: "It's also absolutely breathtaking filmmaking. Fellini has ranked for a long time among the five or six greatest directors in the world, and of them all, he's the natural. Ingmar Bergman achieves his greatness through thought and soul-searching, Alfred Hitchcock built his films with meticulous craftsmanship, and Luis Buñuel used his fetishes and fantasies to construct barbed jokes about humanity. But Fellini ... well, moviemaking for him seems almost effortless, like breathing, and he can orchestrate the most complicated scenes with purity and ease. He's the Willie Mays of movies." Ebert ranked the film fourth on his "10 Best Films of 1973" list. He later included the film on his Great Movies list. Jay Cocks of Time magazine considered it "some of the finest work Fellini has ever done—which also means it stands with the best that anyone in film has ever achieved."
