Roger Ebert rated it four stars out of four in his 1983 review, and he later added it to his "Great Movies" list. Ebert wrote, "DePalma and his writer, Oliver Stone, have created a gallery of specific individuals, and one of the fascinations of the movie is that we aren't watching crime-movie clichés, we're watching people who are criminals." Vincent Canby praised the film in "The New York Times": "The dominant mood of the film is... bleak and futile: what goes up must always come down. When it comes down in "Scarface," the crash is as terrifying as it is vivid and arresting."