"Patti Cake$" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2017. The film received distribution offers from Focus Features, Neon, The Orchard and Annapurna Pictures. However, Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film for $9.5 million, the second largest deal of the festival behind Amazon Studios' purchase of "The Big Sick". It was released on August 18, 2017.