"The Round-Up" was Jancsó's first film to also receive international attention. In 1966, it was the first of five films by the director to be entered in the competition category of the Cannes Film Festival, but failed to win any awards. The brutal, dictatorial methods depicted in the film were read by local audiences as a partial allegory for the clampdown that happened following Hungary's failed 1956 uprising against Soviet Russia. Therefore, before Jancsó was allowed to screen the film in Cannes, he had to make a declaration stating the film had nothing to do with the recent events in the country, even though he later said that "everybody knew it wasn't true". Later in 1966, the film was released in the United Kingdom, and in 1969, it received a limited release in the United States.