Critical response Consumer magazines and newspapers generally gave
Gone with the Wind excellent reviews. While its production values, technical achievements, and scale of ambition were universally recognized, some reviewers of the time found it lengthy and dramatically unconvincing.
Frank S. Nugent of
The New York Times wrote that, although it was the most ambitious production to date, it was probably not the greatest ever made; he nonetheless described it as an "interesting story beautifully told". Franz Hoellering of
The Nation was of the same opinion: "The result is a film which is a major event in the history of the industry but only a minor achievement in motion-picture art. There are moments when the two categories meet on good terms, but the long stretches between are filled with mere spectacular efficiency." Although
Gone with the Wind was praised for its fidelity to the novel, John C. Flinn wrote for
Variety that Selznick had "left too much in", and that as entertainment, it would have benefited if repetitious scenes and dialog from the latter part of the story had been trimmed. Likewise, Hoellering also found the second half of the film weaker. Identifying the Civil War to be the driving force of the first part while the characters dominate in the second part, he concluded this is where the main fault of the film lay, commenting that "the characters alone do not suffice". Despite many excellent scenes, he considered the drama to be unconvincing and that the "psychological development" had been neglected. Of Clark Gable's performance as Rhett Butler, Flinn felt the characterization was "as close to Miss Mitchell's conception—and the audience's—as might be imagined", The record of eight competitive wins stood until
Gigi (1958) won nine, and its overall record of ten was broken by
Ben-Hur (1959) which won eleven.
Gone with the Wind also held the record for most nominations until
All About Eve (1950) secured fourteen. The running time for
Gone with the Wind is just under 221 minutes, while
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) runs for just over 222 minutes; however, including the
overture,
intermission,
entr'acte, and exit music,
Gone with the Wind lasts for 234 minutes (although some sources put its full length at 238 minutes) while
Lawrence of Arabia comes in slightly shorter at 232 minutes with its additional components. Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Academy Award—beating out her co-star Olivia de Havilland, who was also nominated in the same category—but was
racially segregated from her co-stars at the awards ceremony at the
Coconut Grove; she and her escort were made to sit at a separate table at the back of the room. Meanwhile, screenwriter Sidney Howard became the first
posthumous Oscar winner and Selznick personally received the
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his career achievements.
Carlton Moss, a black dramatist, observed in an open letter that whereas
The Birth of a Nation was a "frontal attack on American history and the Negro people",
Gone with the Wind was a "rear attack on the same". He went on to characterize it as a "nostalgic plea for sympathy for a still-living cause of Southern reaction". Moss further called out the stereotypical black characterizations, such as the "shiftless and dull-witted Pork", the "indolent and thoroughly irresponsible Prissy", Big Sam's "radiant acceptance of slavery", and Mammy with her "constant haranguing and doting on every wish of Scarlett". Similarly,
Melvin B. Tolson, a poet and educator, wrote, "
Birth of a Nation was such a barefaced lie that a moron could see through it.
Gone with the Wind is such a subtle lie that it will be swallowed as truth by millions of whites and blacks alike." Following Hattie McDaniel's Oscar win,
Walter Francis White, leader of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, accused her of being an
Uncle Tom. McDaniel responded that she would "rather make seven hundred dollars a week playing a maid than seven dollars being one"; she further questioned White's qualification to speak on behalf of black people since he was light-skinned and only one-eighth black. Even so, some sections of the black community recognized McDaniel's achievements to be representative of progress: some African-Americans crossed picket lines and praised McDaniel's warm and witty characterization, and others hoped that the industry's recognition of her work would lead to increased visibility on screen for other black actors. In its editorial congratulation to McDaniel on winning her Academy Award,
Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life used
Gone with the Wind as a reminder of the "limit" put on black aspiration by old prejudices. It repeated its success overseas, and was a sensational hit during
the Blitz in London, opening in April 1940 and playing for four years at the Little Ritz in
Leicester Square. By the time MGM withdrew it from circulation at the end of 1943, its worldwide distribution had returned a
gross rental (the studio's share of the box office gross) of $32 million, making it the
most profitable film ever made up to that point. The international response to
Gone with the Wind was volatile, and its immense scale and emotional resonance provoked political intervention. It was banned in Nazi-occupied Europe, although it was reportedly being favored by government officials. Despite the prohibition, copies were smuggled into occupied territories for private screenings, to the dismay of propaganda authorities. In early 1942 Tokyo, a select group of Japanese military officers and filmmakers viewed a double feature of
Gone with the Wind and
Disney's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, both obtained after the British surrender in Singapore. Despite Japan's early wartime successes, the advanced technology and production quality of these films caused despair among the viewers, who questioned how Japan could possibly defeat a nation capable of such cinematic achievements. At a gala premiere attended by approximately 2,500 people in the Soviet Union,
Gone with the Wind resonated deeply with audiences amid the country's own period of upheaval. Viewer Nelli Bersineva noted "Scarlett definitely has a Russian character."
Leningrad mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak highlighted the contemporary relevance, saying "we see how American people lived through their war and changed their lives". Even though it earned its investors roughly twice as much as the previous record-holder,
The Birth of a Nation, the
box-office performances of the two films were likely much closer. The bulk of the earnings from
Gone with the Wind came from its roadshow and first-run engagements, where the distributor received 70 percent and 50 percent of the box-office gross, respectively, rather than its general release, which at the time typically saw the distributor's share set at 30–35 percent of the gross. When re-released in 1947, it earned a $5 million rental in the United States and Canada and was one of the year's top ten releases. but it was finally overtaken by
The Sound of Music in 1966. The 1967 reissue was unusual because MGM chose to roadshow it, which turned it into the most successful re-release in the industry's history. It generated a box-office gross of $68 million, making it MGM's most lucrative film after
Doctor Zhivago from the latter half of the decade. MGM earned a rental of $41 million from the release, with the U.S. and Canadian share amounting to over $30 million, placing it second only to
The Graduate for that year. it was the fourth highest-earner of the decade in the North American market, with only
The Sound of Music,
The Graduate and
Doctor Zhivago making more for their distributors. Across all releases, it is estimated that
Gone with the Wind has sold over
200 million tickets in the United States and Canada, The film was phenomenally successful in
Western Europe too, generating approximately
35 million tickets in the United Kingdom and over
16 million in France, respectively becoming the biggest and sixth-biggest ticket-sellers in those markets. Its appeal has endured overseas, sustaining a popularity similar to its domestic longevity; in 1975 it played to capacity audiences every night during the first three weeks of its run at London's Plaza 2 Theatre, and in Japan it generated over half a million admissions at twenty theaters during a five-week engagement. In total,
Gone with the Wind grossed over $390 million globally at the box office; in 2007 Turner Entertainment estimated the gross to be equivalent to approximately $3.3 billion when adjusted for
inflation to current prices;
Gone with the Wind remains popular with audiences into the 21st century, having been
voted the most popular film in two nationwide polls of Americans undertaken by
Harris Interactive in 2008, and again in 2014. The market research firm surveyed over two thousand U.S. adults, with the results weighted by age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, and household income, so their proportions matched the composition of the adult population.
Critical re-evaluation When revisiting
Gone with the Wind in the 1970s,
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. believed that Hollywood films generally age well, revealing an unexpected depth or integrity, but in the case of
Gone with the Wind time has not treated it kindly.
Richard Schickel argued that one measure of a film's quality is to ask what the viewer can remember of it, and the film falls down in this regard: unforgettable imagery and dialogue are not present.
Stanley Kauffmann, likewise, also found the film to be a largely forgettable experience, claiming he could only remember two scenes vividly. Both Schickel and Schlesinger put this down to it being "badly written", in turn describing the dialogue as "flowery" and possessing a "picture postcard" sensibility. Sarris concedes that despite its artistic failings, the film does hold a mandate around the world as the "single most beloved entertainment ever produced". Schlesinger notes that the first half of the film does have a "sweep and vigor" that aspire to its epic theme, but agreed with criticisms of the personal lives taking over in the second half, and how it ends up losing its theme in unconvincing sentimentality. To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in 2014, the channel chose again to screen
Gone with the Wind, the first film ever broadcast on TCM. Discussing its re-release into theaters that year, film historian and TCM host
Robert Osborne stated, "The amazing thing to me is that
Gone with the Wind has endured and triumphed even in a very changed world 75 years later. It still affects people in the same way as it did then."
Industry recognition The film has featured in several high-profile industry polls. It was selected as the greatest film of the past half-century in a 1950 poll conducted by
Variety of more than 200 professionals who had worked in the film industry for over 25 years. In 1977 it was voted the most popular film by the
American Film Institute (AFI), in a poll of the organization's membership; with it slipping down to sixth place in the
tenth anniversary edition in 2007. In 2014, it placed fifteenth in an extensive poll undertaken by
The Hollywood Reporter, which balloted every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in the
Hollywood region. Film directors ranked it 322nd in the 2012 edition of the decennial
Sight & Sound poll, and in 2016 it was selected as the ninth best "directorial achievement" in a
Directors Guild of America members poll. In 2006, the
Writers Guild of America voted its screenplay twenty-third in its list of 101 greatest screenplays.
Gone with the Wind was one of the twenty-five inaugural films selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry by the United States
Library of Congress in 1989 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". ==Analysis and controversies==