Following its premiere at the New York Film Festival, The Walk was released by TriStar Pictures on September 30, 2015 in the United States in IMAX 3D, and on October 9 in regular 2D and 3D.

It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for Gordon-Levitt's performance, Zemeckis's direction and the visual effects, particularly during the wire walk scene, but underperformed at the box office.

After failing his first real performance by falling into a lake due to anxiety, Philippe walks between Notre Dame Cathedral's towers in Paris to redeem himself.

At one point, he meets a fan of Philippe's, seeing him at Notre Dame: Barry Greenhouse, a life insurance salesman who works in the building and becomes another team member.

Philippe begins his walk, explaining that everything around him faded once he started, except the wire and himself, and that for the first time in his life, he felt genuinely thankful and at peace.

But Philippe relentlessly continues to walk back and forth until he achieves the feat a total of six times in his 45-minute performance and feels confident enough to showboat on occasion before complying.

Philippe explains that the building manager gave him a free pass to the observation decks of the towers with the expiry date crossed out and replaced with "forever".

On January 23, 2014, it was announced that Robert Zemeckis would direct a film based on the story of Philippe Petit's walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.

[14] Along with a stunt double, the actor shot the climactic wire-walking scenes on a soundstage; it had reconstructions of the top two stories of the tower and a wire approximately 12 feet (3.7 m) off the ground, which was connected out across a green abyss and was anchored on a pole.

[14] To learn more about what it was like, Gordon-Levitt also walked the distance between the World Trade Center memorial's two pools, which are located where the Twin Towers stood before the September 11 attacks.

The site's critical consensus reads, "The Walk attempts a tricky balancing act between thrilling visuals and fact-based drama – and like its wire-walking protagonist, pulls it off with impressive élan.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts forth such an easy charm crossed with a fierce determination that it is impossible not to fall in love with Philippe Petit as he attempts what sounds utterly suicidal.

"[20] Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a positive review, saying "A filmmaker with a gift for overcoming the seemingly impossible puts audiences in the place of the man who walked between the Twin Towers in this gripping human-interest story.

"[23] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "The Walk satisfies as an absorbing yarn of authority-flouting adventure and as an example of stomach-flipping you-are-there-ness.

"[24] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Expect the worst from the first half- that's before Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) strings up a wire between the World Trade Center towers.

Dariusz Wolski's cinematography is beautiful... and Gordon-Levitt does some of his best acting when he's out on the wire and mostly silent, his face glowing from the sheer crazy joy he's feeling.

"[27] Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "For those who want to feel like they're 110 stories up and living in the clouds, Hollywood does its job conjuring movie magic with a breathtaking Walk to remember.