The film holds an 86% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Critic Doug Cummings called it "an unusually literate and thematically nuanced genre film," adding, "The disaster genre is not generally known for its insights into characters or its clever dialogue, but "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" is an admirable exception. Its attention to the inner and outer lives of its protagonists makes its physical doom an externalized metaphor for Stenning's personal life, off-kilter and spinning out of control, both fates equally weighted between hope and despair."