french cinema magazine "les cahiers du cinéma" voted "the brown bunny" one of the ten best films of 2004. the film won the fipresci prize at the vienna international film festival for its "bold exploration of yearning and grief and for its radical departure from dominant tendencies in current american filmmaking". the film, aside from the feud with roger ebert, gained some positive reaction from american critics as well. neva chonin of the "san francisco chronicle" called it "a somber poem of a film sure to frustrate those who prefer resolution to ambiguity... like an inscrutably bad dream, [it] lingers on". the film was praised by other filmmakers including jean-luc godard, john waters, sean penn, and werner herzog who called it "the best portrayal of the particular loneliness a man feels."