Release

The film held its world premiere at the 56th Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 1999.[33] Fight Club commercially opened in the United States on October 15, 1999 and earned $11,035,485 in 1,963 theaters over the opening weekend.[34] Fight Club placed #1 for its opening weekend, ahead of Double Jeopardy and The Story of Us, a fellow weekend opener.[35] The gender mix of audiences for Fight Club, initially argued to be "the ultimate anti-date flick", was 61% male and 39% female, with 58% of audiences below the age of 21. Despite the top placement, its opening reception had fallen short of the studio's expectations.[36] The following weekend, Fight Club dropped 42.6% in revenue and earned $6,335,870.[37] The film, whose production budget was $63 million, went on to gross $37,030,102 during its domestic run. Fight Club earned $100,853,753 in theaters worldwide.[34] The underwhelming domestic performance of Fight Club soured the relationship between studio head Bill Mechanic and media executive Rupert Murdoch, eventually leading to the resignation of Mechanic in June 2000.[38]

For the UK release of Fight Club on November 12, 1999, the British Board of Film Classification removed two of the film's scenes that had involved "an indulgence in the excitement of beating a (defenseless) man's face into a pulp." The film was awarded an 18 certificate, limiting the release to adult-only audiences in the UK. The BBFC did not censor any further, having considered and dismissed claims that Fight Club contained "dangerously instructive information" and could "encourage anti-social (behavior)". The board noted of the film: "The film as a whole is -- quite clearly -- critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the anti-social behaviour that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels."[39]

Fight Club has spawned several fight clubs in America since its release. A "Gentleman's Fight Club" was started in Menlo Park, California in 2000 and has members mostly from the high tech industry.[40] Teens and preteens in Texas, New Jersey, Washington state, and Alaska also initiated fight clubs and posted videos of their fights online, leading authorities to break up the clubs. In 2006, a fight club in Arlington, Texas injured an unwilling participant from high school, and the DVD sales of the fight led to the arrest of six teenagers.[41]

Critical reaction
On Rotten Tomatoes, Fight Club received 80% overall approval out of 123 reviews from critics, with a Cream of the Crop rating of 65% out of 23 reviews from major media outlets.[42] On Metacritic, Fight Club received 66% approval based on 35 reviews.[43] Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised Fincher's direction and editing of the film. She also noted that Fight Club carried a message of "contemporary manhood", and if not watched closely, the film could be misconstrued as an endorsement of violence and nihilism.[44] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called Fight Club "visceral and hard-edged", as well as "a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy" that most audiences would not appreciate.[45] Jay Carr of The Boston Globe thought that the film began with an "invigoratingly nervy and imaginative buzz", but that it eventually became "explosively silly".[46]

American anarcho-primitivist philosopher John Zerzan has considered Fight Club a film that reflects the rise of alternative consciousness and anti-culture thinking.[47]

Dr. Henry Giroux described the pathology of Fight Club as an intensely misogynistic representation of women, and an advancement of the theory that the intense expression of violence is the only means by which men can be cleansed of feminism.[48]

Awards and nominations
Fight Club was nominated for the 2000 Academy Award for Sound Editing, which it lost to The Matrix.[49] The film was also nominated a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing, but also lost to The Matrix.[50] Actress Helena Bonham Carter won the 2000 Empire Award for Best British Actress.[51] The Online Film Critics Society also nominated awards to Fight Club for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Edward Norton), Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.[52] Though the film won none of the awards, the society listed Fight Club one of the top ten films of 1999.[53] The soundtrack for Fight Club was nominated for a BRIT Award, but lost to Notting Hill.[54]

In 2004 and 2006, Fight Club was voted by Empire readers as the ninth and eighth greatest film of all time, respectively.[55][56] The UK film magazine Total Film ranked the film as "The Greatest Film of our Lifetime" in 2007 during its tenth anniversary.[57] In 2007, Premiere selected Tyler Durden's line, "The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club," as the 27th greatest movie line of all time.[58]

DVD release

Front cover of the Fight Club two-disc special edition DVDThe DVD for Fight Club was one of the first to be supervised by the movie's director.[59] The film was released on two DVD editions. The single-disc edition included four commentary tracks,[60] while the two-disc special edition included these tracks, multiple behind-the-scenes clips, deleted scenes, trailers, public service announcements, the promotional music video "This is Your Life", Internet spots, still galleries, cast bios, story boards, and publicity materials.[61] The film found more revenue after its theatrical run, grossing $55 million in video and DVD rentals.[62] Fight Club won the 2000 Online Film Critics Society Awards for Best DVD, Best DVD Commentary, and Best DVD Special Features.[63]

Entertainment Weekly ranked the film's two-disc edition #1 in its 2001 list of The 50 Essential DVDs, giving top ratings to the DVD's content and technical picture-and-audio quality.[64] The positive reception of the DVD, despite the film's lukewarm domestic box office performance, transformed Fight Club into a cult film.[65] Newsweek described Fight Club as a cult movie that would potentially have "perennial" fame.[66]

In March 2007, another two-DVD edition was released in the UK. It features four audio commentaries and restores two scenes cut by the British Board of Film Classification.[67]

There is a view that the DVD with its special features intentionally "dissuades the viewer from acknowledging the film's homoerotic elements as representing homosexual experience,"[68] though this is only a preliminary reading.[69]