The film was a massive hit at the French box office, reaching 500,000 admissions in three days, 2 million in two weeks, 3 million in three weeks, 5 million in a month and 8 million in two months. Its final admissions tally was 10,824,000.
10 days after the premiere, Artus revealed in an interview that no designer accepted to dress the cast and crew for the projection at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which caused some controversy. A couple of weeks later, it was announced that the Kering group loaned them suits for the red carpet.
Artus has always been impressed by the imagination and energy of mentally handicapped people, and really wanted to show that on screen. He had been fascinated with Am achten Tag (1996) and thought at the time that the door was finally open, but it seemed to him that it was closed right after. During the making of this movie, he had to face a lot of negativity, with people casually telling him that "we know they exist; no need to show them!", which only reinforced his motivation.
The film was released in France on Labor Day (May 1st) 2024, a holiday, which enabled it to achieve the second best start in the history of French cinema with 252,691 tickets sold for the first day, behind Willkommen bei den Sch'tis (2008) (558,000 tickets sold in 2008). However, this was not a given, as The Fall Guy (2024) was released on the same day in France, but only achieved 80,852 tickets sold, with 33% more screens.