Jean-Luc Godard rated the film number one in his list of the best films of 1964. As well, "Cahiers du cinéma" voted it the second-best of 1964, beaten only by Godard's own film, "Band of Outsiders". Andrew Sarris rated it the second-best of 1966, only beaten by "Blowup". Tom Milne called it "the kind of majestic, necromantic masterpiece that few artists achieve even once in a lifetime." Penelope Houston called it "an enigmatically modern film with the deceptive air of a staidly old fashioned one... This is a kind of distillation, at once contemplative and compulsive." Jean Sémolué said that "Of all Dreyer's works, it is the most inward and thus the culmination, if not the crown, of his aesthetic."