"Clayton Dillard of "Slant Magazine" gave the film a rating of 3 1/2 out of four stars, writing, "As Bruce Beresford’s follow-up to Driving Miss Daisy, Mister Johnson is both a departure and a continuation, trekking toward more difficult narrative terrain given the colonial African setting, but united by the director’s continued interest in depicting characters, on all sides of a given conflict, with considered compassion."