The film ends with Harry awaiting his sentencing hearing. The film fell into difficulty when RKO Pictures pulled out of the picture, leaving Filmakers to distribute it. The film received rave reviews at the time of release, with Howard Thompson of "The New York Times" calling it "Filmakers' best offering, to date". The plot cheekily mines aspects of Lupino’s own private life (sharing same scriptwriting husband with Fontaine; an extramarital pregnancy with Duff) and showcases the Hollywood homes of some of her friends on a see-the-stars bus-tour. The film has since earned acclaim from critics and is included in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". Chris Fujiwara calls it a "haunting film" which is "one of several out-of-nowhere masterpieces" to be directed by Lupino. He particularly praises the final courtroom scene, which he considers to be "shattering", with a "combination of ambiguity and intensity that recalls both Carl Dreyer and Nicholas Ray". When the two female leads exchange glances with each other in court they both knew what it meant to be married to the same man in real life - an inside joke not lost on Hollywood. The "Encyclopedia of Film Noir" considers "The Bigamist" to be "unusually ambiguous" for the period. Ray Hagen and Laura Wagner remark that "The Bigamist" is "not a sensationalized rendering of a potentially sordid subject, but a very human story of a man (Edmond O'Brien) tangled between two women". Leonard Maltin gave it a three-star rating, calling it "one of Lupino's best directorial efforts".