Indian music is simply uncongenial and tiresome to our ears." In 1965 Derek Malcolm called it Ray's "most perfect film." When the film was released in Paris in 1981 it was a surprise hit and led many French critics to adopt a new appreciation for Ray that had not been common in France up to that time. San Francisco Chronicle critic Edward Guthmann described it as "A wonderful tale of pride and the fools it makes of men." Werner Herzog said about Jalshaghar "The most amazing Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray and there’s one film, really beautiful, it’s called The Music Room... And it’s of phenomenal beauty and Ray really knew how to use music and create a drama around music." Pauline Kael gave the film a rave review writing " great, flawed, maddening film -- hard to take but probably impossible to forget. It's often crude and it's poorly constructed, but it's a great experience. Worrying over its faults is like worrying over whether King Lear is well constructed; it really doesn't matter". On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 100% based on 24 reviews with an average rating of 9.09/10. Box office In 1981, the film was a box office success in France, where it sold 173,758 tickets, the highest for an Indian film up until Salaam Bombay! (1988). Awards and recognitions 1959 – All India Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film 1959 – National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali Best Music Award at 1st Moscow International Film Festival. Also got a nomination for Grand Pix for Best Film in the festival. Widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Voted #20 on the list of "100 Best Films" by the prominent French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 2008. Was ranked at #27, #146 and #183, respectively, in the Sight and Sound list of Greatest Films in 1992, 2002 and 2012. Film critic Derek Malcolm ranked the film at No. 56 on his list of the "Top 100 Movies" in 2001. The British Film Institute included it in their list of '360 Classics'. The film got the 7th spot (jointly with few other films) on the list of Cinemayas Greatest Asian Films (1998). Recently, Busan International Film Festival featured it at no. 18 (jointly with few other films) in their list of 100 Best Asian Cinema. In 2021,