The film won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and high praise from the President of the Jury, director Quentin Tarantino. The film has been well received by critics in the United States, with film critic Roger Ebert stating that "Oldboy" is a "powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare". The film also received praise for its action sequences, most notably the single shot fight sequence. It has been regarded one of the best neo-noir films of all time and listed among the best films of the 2000s in several publications.