Dick's film proved to be his most influential effort; it is cited in modern scholarship on the region's history, and his photographs of the miners and their families were displayed in a New York gallery to positive reviews. Film scholar William Alexander, documenting films of the American left wing, has said that "Men and Dust" is "affecting and powerful" through its "mind-jogging changes of stance." On December 18, 2013, the U.S. Librarian of Congress entered the film onto the National Film Registry, a list of American films the Librarian deems worthy of preservation in perpetuity.