Prior to "Loving's" successful screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival, the film had premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, on May 16, 2016 in Cannes, France, where it had been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. Focus Features initially gave the film a limited release in the United States on November 4, 2016, in four locations in New York City and Los Angeles, including ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark. The film was later given a wide release at 46 theaters in the United States on November 11. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave the film a "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 178 reviews with an average score of 7.7/10. Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 79 (out of 100) based on 45 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "generally favorable".