in its first five days. It opened in Miami Beach, Florida and in Toronto on Friday, August 4 and grossed $20,974 for the weekend which, together with the New York grosses, combined to give a weekend gross of $95,806. It was released soon after race riots in Newark, Milwaukee, and Detroit. By January 1971, the film had earned $11 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada. Accolades Legacy In 2003, In the Heat of the Night was selected by The New York Times as one of the 1000 Best Movies Ever Made. American Film Institute recognition The film appears on several 100 Years lists by the American Film Institute. AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition): #75 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains: Virgil Tibbs: #19 Hero AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: Virgil Tibbs: "They call me Mister Tibbs!": #16 AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers: #21 AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: "In the Heat of the Night", song by Ray Charles and Quincy Jones – Nominated AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Mystery Film Preservation The Academy Film Archive preserved In the Heat of the Night in 1997. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Home media In the Heat of the Night was first released on DVD in 2001. The only extras in that release were the theatrical trailer, and audio commentary with Norman Jewison, Haskell Wexler, Rod Steiger and Lee Grant. Another DVD was released in 2008 to coincide the film's 40th Anniversary. In 2010, the film was digitized in High Definition (1080i) and broadcast on MGM HD. MGM released the film on Blu-ray on January 14, 2014 through 20th Century Fox. The release ports over all the extras from the 2001 and 40th Anniversary DVDs. Another DVD and Blu-ray were released by The Criterion Collection on January 29, 2019. The release contained new and previously released extras. Kino Lorber released In the Heat of the Night as a two-disc 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray set on April 19, 2022. The main disc includes the UHD SDR version of the film plus two audio commentaries including the 2001 commentary and a brand new commentary featuring historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson, and Robert Mirisch.