All About Eve while "Harrison's Reports" called it "a fascinating, continually absorbing story about Broadway theatrical people, given a mature treatment and penetrated with realistic dialogue and flashes of slick, sardonic humor." John McCarten of "The New Yorker" called it "a thoroughly entertaining movie." Writing in 2000, film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" praised the film, saying Bette Davis' character "veteran actress Margo Channing in "All About Eve" was her greatest role." Boxoffice.com stated that it "is a classic of the American cinema – to this day the quintessential depiction of ruthless ambition in the entertainment industry, with legendary performances
All About Eve subtlety employed in "All About Eve" is seen as primarily being due to Production Code restrictions on the depiction of homosexuals in the media during this time. However, notwithstanding those restrictions, Corber cites the film as but one example of a recurrent theme within American film of the homosexual as an emotionally bereft predator. The documentary "The Celluloid Closet" also affirms this theme to which Corber refers, including citing numerous other film examples from the same Production Code time period in which "All About Eve" was made. Another important theme of the film, in terms of war politics and sexuality,