Box office

In its opening weekend, the film made $69,662 from five theaters.^[11]

Critical response

According to review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 91 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.5/10.^[12] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[13]

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film 4/4 stars, writing: "As with Chin and Vasarhelyi's previous films, ignore any instinct you may have to pass up this movie because it sounds too hyper-specific: an activity you're not really that interested in, and a story whose ending you've already heard."^[14] Simran Hans of The Observer gave the film 4/5 stars, describing it as a "hugely involving documentary", and wrote: "Vasarhelyi and Chin recreate the sense of the clock running down as oxygen levels in the cave decrease, while the monsoon outside rages."^[15] Kevin Maher of The Times also gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "the film-makers somehow manage to wring nerve-jangling tension from a foregone conclusion".^[16] John Lui of The Straits Times also gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "By calmly describing everything that could go wrong while hauling 13 non-divers across 4 km of twisty, submerged passages, the experts evoke a sense of dread that would make a horror film-maker proud."^[17] Leslie Felperin of The Guardian gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Not only is the story compelling, but thanks to how much the event captured the interest of the world's media, there is a lot of archive footage to splice in among the generous wodges of talking-heads narration from the main participants." However, she criticized the music used towards the end of the film as "cheesy" and questioned why the rescued children were not interviewed.^[18]

Roxana Hadadi of RogerEbert.com was more critical of the film, giving it 2.5/4 stars. She wrote: "between Vasarhelyi and Chin's inability to speak with the boys or their families, and the documentary's initially languid pacing, "The Rescue" feels like half a story told fairly well, but still, half a story."^[19] Cassie Da Costa of Vanity Fair wrote that the film "plods along without taking any formal risks", adding: "I couldn't shake the feeling of watching a network TV documentary, designed to feed the audience with detail after detail, but not to generate any significant ideas from the facts and images it contains."^[20]

Awards and nominations