Decades after its initial release, the film earned a rare 100% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.58/10.

"[15] In his original 1970 review, Roger Ebert rated the movie 4 stars (out of 4) and described it as "maybe the best documentary ever made in America", adding "The remarkable thing about Wadleigh's film is that it succeeds so completely in making us feel how it must have been to be there".

"[17] In 1996, Woodstock was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In the science fiction thriller The Omega Man (1971), Colonel Robert Neville (played by Charlton Heston) is seen traveling to a movie theatre in Los Angeles to screen the film for himself alone.

Woodstock had been a recent film debuting prior to release of The Omega Man, and had been held over (continuously run) in some theaters for months.

[21] Upon the festival's 25th anniversary, in July 1994, a 224 minutes director's cut of the film — subtitled 3 Days of Peace & Music — was released theatrically in cinemas and later on DVD.

After the closing credits — featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Find the Cost of Freedom"[22] — a list of prominent people from the "Woodstock Generation" who had died is shown, including John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr., Mama Cass Elliot, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Max Yasgur, Roy Orbison, Abbie Hoffman, Paul Butterfield, Keith Moon, Bob Hite, Richard Manuel, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

The director's cut was newly remastered in high definition with a 2K scan of the original elements, and provided a new 5.1 audio mix.

Among the special features are 18 never-before-seen performances from artists such as Joan Baez, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat and Joe Cocker; five of the artists included—Paul Butterfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Winter and Mountain—played at Woodstock but had never appeared in any film version.