[4][5] Waking Life premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and was released on October 19, 2001, where it received critical acclaim;[6] however, it underperformed at the box office.

An unnamed young man lives an ethereal existence that lacks transitions between everyday events and eventually progresses toward an existential crisis.

He observes quietly but later participates actively in philosophical discussions involving other characters — ranging from quirky scholars and artists to everyday restaurant-goers and friends — about such issues as metaphysics, free will, social philosophy, and the meaning of life.

Other scenes do not even include the protagonist's presence but rather focus on a random isolated person, a group of people, or a couple engaging in such topics from a disembodied perspective.

The film was mostly produced using Rotoshop, a rotoscoping program that creates blends between key frame vector shapes, which also uses virtual "layers", designed specifically for the production by Bob Sabiston.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Waking Life's inventive animated aesthetic adds a distinctive visual component to a film that could easily have rested on its smart screenplay and talented ensemble cast.

[13] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly awarded the film an "A" rating, calling it "a work of cinematic art in which form and structure pursue the logic-defying (parallel) subjects of dreaming and moviegoing,"[14] while Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote it was "so verbally dexterous and visually innovative that you can't absorb it unless you have all your wits about you".

[3] Conversely, J. Hoberman of The Village Voice felt that Waking Life "doesn't leave you in a dream... so much as it traps you in an endless bull session".

DVD special features included several commentaries, documentaries, interviews, trailers, and deleted scenes, as well as the short film Snack and Drink.

The Waking Life OST was performed and written by Glover Gill and the Tosca Tango Orchestra, except for Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major, Op.