The Wild Boys received mostly positive reviews from critics. On
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 21 reviews; the site's critics consensus states: "Debuting writer-director Bertrand Mandico's
The Wild Boys impresses with the breadth of its ambitions -- and the skill with which they're often triumphantly realized." On
Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
AlloCiné, a French cinema site, gave the film an average rating of 3.6/5, based on a survey of 27 French reviews. Cath Clarke of
The Guardian called the film an "uninhibited, deeply bizarre sex-swap drama". She wrote: "Some might find the movie outrageously self-indulgent, but I was drawn into its hermetically sealed world of oddness – and Mandico pays attention to character to a degree that experimental film-makers often don’t bother with. [...] Mandico has made a wildly strange debut, striking enough to make you sit up and pay attention." Andrew Todd of
Birth.Movies.Death noted that "there's also a robust streak of eroticism running through the whole film." He wrote: "It’s the kind of eroticism that would probably make you feel dirty if you really interrogated what you were watching, but it’s achieved with such wide-eyed innocence and tactile texture that you never even think about doing so." ==Accolades==