In a 2006 interview, professor Camille Paglia stated: "I loved "Cruising" — while everyone else was furiously condemning it. It had an underground decadence that wasn’t that different from "The Story of O" or other European high porn of the 1960s." Several film directors also cite the movie as among their favorite films. Quentin Tarantino says he was doing a play in Broadway in 1995 and he held a screening for gay members of the theatre community and "It just blew their minds. They loved it." Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn called the film "a masterpiece." Safdie brothers named the film as an influence on their work.