Reception
Upon its initial release, Intolerance was a commercial failure. Intolerance has been called "the only film fugue". Professor Theodore Huff, one of the leading film critics of the first half of the 20th century, stated that it was the only motion picture worthy of taking its place alongside Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the masterpieces of Michelangelo, etc. as a separate work of art.
The film was shown out of competition at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1989, Intolerance was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," going in during the first year of voting.
In 2007, AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) ranked Intolerance at number 49 of 100 films. The film currently holds a 96% approval rating on the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.
Film critic David Thomson has written of the film's "self-destructive frenzy":
The cross-cutting, self-interrupting format is wearisome.... The sheer pretension is a roadblock, and one longs for the "Modern Story" to hold the screen.... is still very exciting in terms of its cross-cutting in the attempt to save the boy from the gallows. This episode is what Griffith did best: brilliant, modern suspense, geared up to rapidity — whenever Griffith let himself slow down he was yielding to bathos.... Anyone concerned with film history has to see Intolerance, and pass on.
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