The Proposition received highly positive reviews from professional film critics and has a "Certified Fresh" score of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 123 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10.
Roger Ebert, giving it 4 out of a possible 4 stars, described the film as "A movie you cannot turn away from; it is so pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence, that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from."