Howard Thompson of "The New York Times" wrote, "A brilliant, mercurial performance by Elliott Gould steadies and vivifies but cannot save 'Getting Straight' ... A serious-minded, freewheeling comedy, pivoting on student unrest and rebellion on the contemporary campus scene, succumbs to theatrics and, structurally, the very conventions it deplores." Also writing in "The New York Times", Dwight Macdonald called it "a bad movie" that "reminds me of a grunt-and-groan wrestling match that tries by overemphasis to make the customers forget it's fixed."