Gary Arnold, writing for "The Washington Post" panned "Billy Jack" as 'horrendously self-righteous and devious', explaining: 'Every social issue is dramatized in terms of absolute, apolitical good and evil. The good guys...are next to angelic, while the bad guys are, according to the needs of the moment, utter buffoons or utter devils. Anyone with the slightest trace of skepticism or sophistication would tend to reject the movie out of hand and with good reason, since this kind of simplification is dramatically and socially deceitful.' David Wilson, in "The Monthly Film Bulletin"n wrote: 'If in the end "Billy Jack" is as much a sell-out as any glossier version of commercialised iconoclasm (Billy Jack is persuaded to accept guarantees which a hundred years of Indian history have repudiated), there is enough innocent sincerity in the film to demonstrate that Tom Laughlin at least has the courage of his convictions, even if those convictions are scarcely thought out.'