the review aggregator website rotten tomatoes reported a 57% approval rating with an average score of 6.21/10, based on 63 reviews. the website's critical consensus reads, "while it may leave some viewers wishing for a more in-depth exploration of its story and themes, "j.t. leroy" offers a diverting dramatization of incredible real-life events." on metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".