The Sting · reception & legacy

How The Sting has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A massive hit on release — it won seven Oscars including Best Picture and out-grossed nearly everything in 1973-74 — and unlike many Best Picture winners it never suffered a backlash: it's aged into a beloved, endlessly rewatchable comfort classic.

What's debated

The perennial debate is whether it deserved Best Picture over The Exorcist and American Graffiti, or whether 'pure entertainment' was exactly the right call.

Its footprint

Its Scott Joplin ragtime score — especially 'The Entertainer' — became a genuine pop phenomenon and is still shorthand for playful trickery, and the film basically wrote the template every con-artist movie (Ocean's Eleven included) has followed since.

Where it stands

It's the gold standard of the con movie and a fixture of the 'perfect crowd-pleaser' canon — the Newman-Redford double act people tell you to watch right after Butch Cassidy.