Editing The Hitch-Hiker (section)

== Legacy ==
The film has been widely praised in the years since its release, and holds a 93% approval rating on [[Rotten Tomatoes]], based on 43 reviews.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hitch_hiker_1953|title=''The Hitch-Hiker'' (1953) |work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |publisher=[[Fandango Media]] |access-date=February 23, 2021}}</ref>

Critic John Krewson lauded the work of Ida Lupino, and wrote, <blockquote>As a screenwriter and director, Lupino had an eye for the emotional truth hidden within the taboo or mundane, making a series of B-styled pictures which featured sympathetic, honest portrayals of such controversial subjects as unmarried mothers, bigamy, and rape ... in ''The Hitch-Hiker'', arguably Lupino's best film and the only true noir directed by a woman, two utterly average middle-class American men are held at gunpoint and slowly psychologically broken by a serial killer. In addition to her critical but compassionate sensibility, Lupino had a great filmmaker's eye, using the starkly beautiful street scenes in ''[[Not Wanted]]'' and the gorgeous, ever-present loneliness of empty highways in ''The Hitch-Hiker'' to set her characters apart.<ref>[https://www.avclub.com/the-hitch-hiker-1798195552 Krewson, John]. ''[[The A.V. Club]]'', DVD review, March 29, 2002. Last accessed: June 12, 2024.</ref></blockquote>

''[[Time Out Film Guide]]'' wrote of the film, <blockquote>Absolutely assured in her creation of the bleak, noir atmosphere – whether in the claustrophobic confines of the car, or lost in the arid expanses of the desert – Lupino never relaxes the tension for one moment. Yet her emotional sensitivity is also upfront: charting the changes in the menaced men's relationship as they bicker about how to deal with their captor, stressing that only through friendship can they survive. Taut, tough, and entirely without macho-glorification, it's a gem, with first-class performances from its three protagonists, deftly characterised without resort to cliché.<ref>[http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/72096/the_hitch-hiker.html Time Out Film Guide] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080503184042/http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/72096/the_hitch-hiker.html |date=May 3, 2008 }}. Film review, 2008. Last accessed: April 23, 2008.</ref></blockquote>

In January 2014, a restored 35mm print was premiered by the Film Noir Foundation at Noir City 12 at the [[Castro Theatre]] in San Francisco. On April 6, 2014 ''The Hitch-Hiker'' was shown again at the [[Grauman's Egyptian Theatre|Egyptian Theatre]] in Hollywood. Mary Ann Anderson author of ''The Making of The Hitch-Hiker'' appeared at this event.

While most ''films noir'' were filmed in claustrophobic cities, ''The Hitch-Hiker'' was filmed in the desert southwestern United States (territory similar to that of Baja California, where most of the story takes place), mostly in wilderness and small villages. Critics Bob Porfiero and Alain Silver, in a review and analysis of the film, praised Lupino's use of shooting locations. They wrote, "''The Hitch-Hiker''{{'}}s desert locale, although not so graphically dark as a cityscape at night, isolates the protagonists in a milieu as uninviting and potentially deadly as any in ''film noir''."<ref>[[Alain Silver|Silver, Alain]], and Elizabeth Ward, eds. ''Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style'', film noir analysis by Bob Porfiero and Alain Silver, page 130, 3rd edition, 1992. New York: The Overlook Press. {{ISBN|0-87951-479-5}}.</ref>