Box office Green Book grossed $85.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $236.7 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $321.8 million, against a production budget of $23 million. The film made $312,000 from 25 theaters in its opening weekend, an average of $12,480 per venue, which
Deadline Hollywood called "not good at all", although
TheWrap said it was a "successful start," and noted strong word-of-mouth would likely help it going into its wide release. The film had its wide expansion alongside the openings of
Ralph Breaks the Internet,
Robin Hood and
Creed II, and was projected to gross around $7–9 million over the five-day weekend, November 21 to 25. It made $908,000 on its first day of wide release and $1 million on its second. It grossed $5.4 million over the three-day weekend (and $7.4 million over the five), finishing ninth.
Deadline wrote that the opening was "far from where [it needed] to be to be considered a success," and that strong audience word of mouth and impending award nominations would be needed in order to help the film develop box office legs. Rival studios argued that Universal went too wide too fast: from 25 theaters to 1,063 in less than a week. In its second weekend the film made $3.9 million, falling just 29% and leading some industry insiders to think it would achieve $50 million during
awards season. In its third weekend of wide release, following its Golden Globe nominations, it dropped 0% and again made $3.9 million, then made $2.8 million the following weekend. In its eighth weekend, the film made $1.8 million (continuing to hold well, dropping just 3% from the previous week). It then made $2.1 million in its ninth weekend (up 18%) and $2.1 million in its 10th. In the film's 11th week of release, following the announcement of its five Oscar nominations, it was added to 1,518 theaters (for a total of 2,430) and made $5.4 million, an increase of 150% from the previous weekend and finishing sixth at the box office. The weekend following its Best Picture win, the film was added to 1,388 theaters (for a total of 2,641) and made $4.7 million, finishing fifth at the box office. It marked a 121% increase from the previous week, as well as one of the best post-Best Picture win bumps ever, and largest since ''
The King's Speech'' in 2011.
Green Book was a surprise success overseas, especially in China where it debuted to a much higher-than-expected $17.3 million, immediately becoming the second highest-grossing Best Picture winner in the country behind
Titanic (1997). As of March 7, 2019, the largest international markets for the film were China ($26.7 million), France ($10.7 million), the United Kingdom ($10 million), Australia ($7.8 million) and Italy ($8.6 million). By March 13, China's total had grown to $44.5 million. On March 31 the film passed $300 million at the global box office, including $219 million from overseas territories. Its largest markets to-date were China ($70.7 million), Japan ($14.6 million), France ($14 million) Germany ($13.5 million) and the UK ($12.9 million).
Critical response received positive reviews, earning him his second
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. On
review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes,
Green Book holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads: "
Green Book takes audiences on an excessively smooth ride through bumpy subject matter, although Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen's performances add necessary depth." On
Metacritic the film has a
weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, while
PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 91% positive score, with 80% saying they would definitely recommend it. Writing for
The San Francisco Chronicle,
Mick LaSalle praised Ali and Mortensen and said: "...there's something so deeply right about this movie, so true to the time depicted and so welcome in this moment; so light in its touch, so properly respectful of its characters, and so big in its spirit, that the movie acquires a glow. It achieves that glow slowly, but by the middle and certainly by the end, it's there, the sense of something magical happening, on screen and within the audience." Steve Pond of
TheWrap wrote, "The movie gets darker as the journey goes further South, and as the myriad indignities and humiliations mount. But our investment in the characters rarely flags, thanks to Mortensen and Ali and a director who is interested in cleanly and efficiently delivering a story worth hearing." Jazz artist
Quincy Jones said to a crowd after a screening: "I had the pleasure of being acquainted with Don Shirley while I was working as an arranger in New York in the '50s, and he was without question one of America's greatest pianists ... as skilled a musician as
Leonard Bernstein or
Van Cliburn ... So it is wonderful that his story is finally being told and celebrated. Mahershala, you did an absolutely fantastic job playing him, and I think yours and Viggo's performances will go down as one of the great friendships captured on film." Some critics thought
Green Book perpetuated racial stereotyping by advancing the
white savior narrative in film.
Salon said the film combines "the white savior trope with the story of a bigot's redemption." Peter Farrelly told
Entertainment Weekly that he was aware of the white savior trope before filming and sought to avoid it. He said he had long discussions with the actors and producers on the point, and believes that it was not advanced by the film, saying it is "about two guys who were complete opposites and found a common ground, and it's not one guy saving the other. It's both saving each other and pulling each other into some place where they could bond and form a lifetime friendship." Writing a positive review of the film in
The Hollywood Reporter, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar noted that "filmmakers are history's interpreters, not its chroniclers." Filmmaker
Spike Lee, whose
BlacKkKlansman was also nominated for
Best Picture at the
91st Academy Awards, expressed dissatisfaction with
Green Book win. Lee tried to exit the
Dolby Theatre after the announcement of
Green Book's victory, before turning his back on the acceptance speech that followed. Speaking to the press later that night, Lee compared the film to another Best Picture winner
Driving Miss Daisy (1989), lamenting its Oscar success over his film
Do the Right Thing (1989). He said "I thought I was courtside at the Madison Square Garden|[Madison Square] Garden, and the ref made a bad call." Asked if the film had offended him, Lee told BBC reporters it "wasn't my cup of tea." He echoed the sentiment in a 2024 podcast, saying "no one's looking at
Green Book now."
Green Book finished at number 264 in the 2025 "Readers' Choice" edition of
The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century."
Criticism from Shirley's relatives Shirley's relatives thought the film misrepresented the pianist's relationship with his family, and said they were not contacted by studio representatives until after development started. Shirley's brother, Maurice Shirley, said, "My brother never considered Tony to be his 'friend'; he was an employee, his chauffeur (who resented wearing a uniform and cap). This is why context and nuance are so important. The fact that a successful, well-to-do black artist would employ domestics that did NOT look like him, should not be lost in translation." However, in audio recordings from the 2010 documentary "Lost Bohemia", Don Shirley said "I trusted him implicitly ... not only was he my driver. We never had an employer/employee relationship." The interviews also supported other events depicted in the film. Writer-director Peter Farrelly said that he was under the impression that there "weren't a lot of family members" still alive, that they did not take major liberties with the story, and that relatives of whom he was aware had been invited to a private screening for friends and family. Shirley's cellist Jüri Täht was surprised to see a stage of his life depicted in a movie, and that he had been replaced by a fictionalised version of himself (the character of Oleg). He was dismayed that Oleg was Russian in the film whereas he was an Estonian whose family had had to flee the USSR. ==Accolades==