It received mixed reviews in the UK and was not well received by American critics either. The "Evening Standard" called it "an absorbing rather than a stirring film", "The Times" noted that it was "a discreet mixture of all possible approaches, tastefully done, not unintelligent, eminently respectable, and for the most part deadly dull" while "The Guardian" was less impressed calling it "neither a very good movie nor a very formidable piece of history". Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times that "'Battle of Britain,' which opened yesterday at the DeMille, 86th Street East and 34th Street East Theaters, is a homage to those airmen who, in 1940, broke the back of the threatened Nazi invasion. It is also one of those all-star non-movies, of a somewhat lower order than "The Longest Day", that attempt to recapitulate history, but add nothing to one's understanding. The mixture of minor-key fiction and restaged fact is – for me, anyway – never particularly satisfying, since it is denied the prerogatives and possibilities of both the documentary and the fiction film."