Critical response[edit]
Office Space received positive reviews from critics.[7] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 79%, based on 95 reviews, with the site's critical consensus reading, "Mike Judge lampoons the office grind with its inspired mix of sharp dialogue and witty one-liners." OnMetacritic, the film has a score of 68 out of 100, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In his review in The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, "It has the loose-jointed feel of a bunch of sketches packed together into a narrative that doesn't gather much momentum."[11] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote that Judge "treats his characters a little like cartoon creatures. That works. Nuances of behavior are not necessary, because in the cubicle world every personality trait is magnified, and the captives stagger forth like grotesques".[12] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle writes, "Livingston is nicely cast as Peter, a young guy whose imagination and capacity for happiness are the very things making him miserable."[13] In USA Today, Susan Wloszczyna wrote, "If you've ever had a job, you'll be amused by this paean to peons."[14]
However, Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C" rating and criticized it for feeling "cramped and underimagined".[15] In his review for the Globe and Mail, Rick Groen wrote, "Perhaps his TV background makes him unaccustomed to the demands of a feature-length script (the ending seems almost panicky in its abruptness), or maybe he just succumbs to the lure of the easy yuk...what began as discomfiting satire soon devolves into silly farce."[16]
In 2008, Entertainment Weekly named Office Space one of "The 100 best films from 1983 to 2008", ranking it at #73.[17]