[4] The film stars Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman, Alan Arkin as a violent criminal searching for drugs, and Richard Crenna as another criminal, supported by Jack Weston and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.[5] Audrey Hepburn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1967, and Zimbalist was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

A few days later, con artists Mike Talman and Carlino arrive at the Greenwich Village basement apartment of Sam and his blind wife, Susy, believing it to be Lisa's.

Mike, posing as Sam's old army buddy, gives her the number for the phone booth across the street as his own after falsely warning her of a police car outside the residence.

[7] The Wait Until Dark score is notable for Mancini's use of two pianos, tuned a quarter-tone apart, with the "wrong" notes echoing the "right" ones to add to the eerie effect.

[8] To immerse viewers in the suspense of the climactic scene, movie theater owners dimmed their lights to the legal limits, and then turned them off, one by one until the audiences were in complete darkness.

"[4] Time magazine said the film had a "better scenario, set and cast" than the play's Broadway production that preceded it, and while "the story is as full of holes as a kitchen colander," "Hepburn's honest, posture-free performance helps to suspend the audience's disbelief" and she is "immensely aided by the heavies: Jack Weston, Richard Crenna, and Alan Arkin....With virtuosity, Hepburn and Arkin collaborate to revive an old theme—The-Helpless-Girl-Against-the-Odds—that has been out of fashion since Dorothy McGuire and Barbara Stanwyck screamed for help in The Spiral Staircase and Sorry, Wrong Number.

"[13] Roger Ebert gave the movie three and a half stars and wrote "Miss Hepburn is perhaps too simple and trusting, and Alan Arkin (as a sadistic killer) is not particularly convincing in an exaggerated performance.

But there are some nice, juicy passages of terror (including that famous moment when every adolescent girl in the theater screams), and after a slow start the plot does seduce you.

The critical consensus reads: "Nail-bitingly tense and brilliantly acted, Wait Until Dark is a compact thriller that makes the most of its fiendishly clever premise.