On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 204 reviews and an average rating of 7.33/10. The site’s critical consensus reads, “Spike Lee’s energetic and clever bank-heist thriller is a smart genre film that is not only rewarding on its own terms, but manages to subvert its pulpy trappings with wit and skill – and Denzel Washington is terrific as a brilliant hostage negotiator.” Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based on 39 critics, considered to be “generally favorable reviews”.[39] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B+” on an A+ to F scale, with exit polls showing that 54% of the audience was male, while 68% was at least 30 years old or older.The American Film Institute named Inside Man as one of the top ten films of 2006.