[10] A dance-pop song,[11] "Telephone" starts slowly as Gaga sings in a solemn voice over a harp melody, which changes immediately to a pounding beat.

[21] For Adam White of The Independent, "Telephone" showcased the duo at their "most basic", but deliberately so, as it was crafted for "nightclub frivolity", epitomizing the essence of "trash-pop, a noisy and glitchy slab of energy and dial tones resting entirely on their shared charisma".

[22] Billboard's Jason Lipshutz named the song Gaga's second best collaboration and called it her "most dynamic duet — and arguably the most compelling pop star team-up of the '00s".

[23] On the contrary, Sarah Hajibagheri from The Times and Brian Linder of IGN disliked Beyoncé's part; the former believed that her inclusion negatively added to the song's feeling of complete disorder.

[24][25] Armond White from the New York Press also expressed disappointment, writing that the song "celebrates a heedless refusal to communicate; to mindlessly, heartlessly indulge pop culture—Tarantino style".

[a] Calling it "a shuttering electro-pop banger", Billboard acknowledged the song as "an ass-kicking piece of empowerment pop during Gaga's most prolonged win streak".

[45] In Australia and New Zealand, "Telephone" reached a peak of number 3,[46][47] and it was certified eight times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments of 560,000 copies.

In published photos from the set, they were seen shooting in a car called the "Pussy Wagon", which Uma Thurman's character drove in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film Kill Bill: Volume 1.

[60] Because of Gaga's and Beyoncé's busy schedules, director Jonas Åkerlund and cinematographer Pär Ekberg had to finish filming in two days while coordinating multiple locations, dance numbers and extras.

[62] Åkerlund utilized a mixture of hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamps (HMI) and fluorescent fixtures to light the prison interiors and the diner scenes that were filmed at The Four Aces Motel in Palmdale, California.

[64] She poisons the food she prepares for the unsuspecting customers, causing them to die, including Bobo, characters played by Semi Precious Weapons and Lava – her Great Dane.

[d] Amy Phillips from Pitchfork wrote it was "the most fun, most ridiculous, and arguably best music video of the year",[75] and William Goodman of Spin called it a "big-budget, pop masterwork".

[76] According to James Montgomery from MTV, "Telephone" helped Gaga's ascent to the upper echelons of pop stardom, alongside others on par with Madonna and Michael Jackson in terms of showmanship.

[77] Matt Donnelly from the Los Angeles Times and Monica Herrera from Billboard praised the scenes with the fight between inmates; the former approvingly called it a video "packed with [...] poisoned diner food, an army of headpieces and lots of Gaga goodness".

J. Jack Halberstam argued that the music video portrays a powerful image of sisterhood that aligns with the intimate bonds seen in movies such as Thelma & Louise (1991) and Set It Off (1996).

Ganz called the video a "mash-up of lesbian prison porn, campy sexploitation flicks and insidery winks at the two divas' public personas", noting, "If Quentin Tarantino and Russ Meyer remade Thelma & Louise as an orgy of product placement with fiercely choreographed interludes, this would be the result".

[83] Talking with NME in 2011, Gaga said the display of these items was not meant to be product placements but references to Andy Warhol as part of a commentary on commercialism in the US regarding technology and information overload.

[26] Despite calling the video "thoroughly mediocre", Douglas Haddow of The Guardian believed it was a highly effective advertisement in that Gaga successfully curated visual references and pop culture motifs designed to appeal to a wide range of demographics.

[89] According to Yebra, this stereotype is subverted through Gaga, who embodies a drag queen and a murderer, along with her flamboyant dancers, in an unexpected setting—the kitchen of an American middle class family.

The video subverts the genre by casting a muscular performance artist as the object of Gaga's desire, portraying female bodybuilders as prison guards and adding a "lesbian happy ending".

[93] Horn further discussed how the video combines elements of the rape-revenge and road movie genres to create a new narrative that emphasizes female empowerment and solidarity.

[95] Burns and Lafrance wrote the music videos represent two different ideas, but understanding how these oppositions are constructed is essential for fully comprehending their themes and meaning.

James opined that to support post-racial[h] and post-feminist ideologies, the modern media has updated this trope by having female characters eliminate such misogynist black men.

She found "Telephone" reinforced this belief: Gaga and Beyoncé form a "cross-racial bond" through their need to defeat the stereotypically misogynistic black man, thus confirming that the white supremacist patriarchy is indeed "multi-racial".

[17][75] In his description, Sheffield wrote that "Telephone" was a "communication breakdown on the dance floor" and "Beyonce, the most egregiously non-crazy pop star of our time, gets to pretend she's as nuts as Gaga for a few minutes.

[113] NME placed it at number 17 on their 2011 list of the 100 best music videos of all time: "[it] eschews all the overreaching cosmic weirdness of her recent clips and settles for a nine-minute lesbo action-filled Tarantino rip-off".

[115] Gaga first sang "Telephone" with "Dance in the Dark", the fourth single from The Fame Monster,[116] at the 2010 Brit Awards, where she wore an all-white outfit, complete with a lace mask by Philip Treacy and a Marie Antoinette-style wig.

[125] On March 3, 2010, she performed "Telephone" and "Brown Eyes" (from The Fame) on the British comedy chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross for an episode that aired two days later.

[141] "Telephone" was covered by Lea Michele as Rachel Berry and Jake Zyrus as Sunshine Corazon for the American TV show Glee episode "Audition", which aired on September 21, 2010.

[146][147] In 2019, Jonathan Van Ness and Karamo Brown from the reality show Queer Eye performed a lip sync of the song to a positive response from reviewers.