"The Rules of the Game" premiered on Friday, July 7, 1939 at the Colisée Theatre in Paris to a full house and later at the Aubert Palace also in Paris. It was shown on a double bill with a patriotic documentary about French history. The audience at the screening consisted of members of the right-wing organisations, who booed after a while into the screening; Paulette Dubost said people at the screening fought, and one person tried to set fire to the theater. Renoir said he "depicted pleasant, sympathetic characters, but showed them in a society in the process of disintegration, so that they were defeated at the onset ... the audience recognized this. The truth is that they recognized themselves. People who commit suicide do not care to do it in front of witnesses."