It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for three Oscars: Best Director (Molinaro), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Costume Design.

The site's consensus reads: "La Cage aux Folles is a fine French-Italian farce with flamboyant, charming characters and deep laughs".

"[9] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote in a negative review that the film "is naughty in the way of comedies that pretend to be sophisticated but actually serve to reinforce the most popular conventions and most witless stereotypes.

"[12] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film for "stale, excruciating sex jokes" and direction that "has evidently failed to devise a playing rhythm to compensate for whatever farcical tempo the material enjoyed on the stage.

and John Bowen's play Trevor ... All shrieks, mincing and limp wrists, La Cage aux Folles also looks positively antiquated beside the sophisticated gay comedy of such as Craig Russell.

[15][16] The 1996 American remake The Birdcage, directed by Mike Nichols and written by Elaine May, moved the plot to South Beach and starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

[17] La Cage aux Folles caught the attention of television producer Danny Arnold, who in 1979 pitched the concept of a weekly series about a gay couple similar to the one in the film to ABC.