Livingston's documentary about a New York gay and transgender Black and Latinx ball culture won the 1991 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and was a key film both in the emerging American independent film movement and in the nascent New Queer Cinema. "Paris is Burning" was one of Miramax Films' earliest successes, and helped pave the way for a current crop of commercially successful documentary films. It was one of the best films of 1991 according to "The Los Angeles Times", "Time Magazine", "The Washington Post", and NPR; "New York Magazine". In 2016, it was included in the Film Archive at the Library of Congress, along with 24 other films including "The Birds", "The Lion King", and "East of Eden". When the film premiered, positive reviews by queer Black critics include Essex Hemphill, writing for "The Guardian" and Michelle Parkerson, writing for "The Black Film Review". Favorable reviews appeared in "The New Yorker", "Time Magazine", "The Village Voice", "Newsweek", and elsewhere. Critical reviews came, most notably, from essayist bell hooks and film critic B. Ruby Rich.