On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 45% approval rating based on 109 reviews, with an average score of 5.29/10. The site's consensus reads: "Despite DePalma's obvious commitment to the material and passion for the issues at hand, "Redacted" suffers from stereotypical characters and a forced faux-doc style". On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 30 reviews. The French film magazine "Cahiers du cinéma" chose it as the best film of 2008.