The film was on J. Hoberman's Top 10 best of the year. Roger Ebert included "The Cable Guy" in his worst of the year list for 1996, though colleague Gene Siskel disagreed, calling it "a very good film. (Carrey's) best since "The Mask"". Ebert's main problems with the film were that he found Carrey's performance so bizarre and creepy that it undermined the entire story, and also that the movie was more of a dark comedy than was necessary for it to work.