This is a dead movie. I don’t know exactly when it passed away, but I think it was dead by the time they started filming it, and it may have died even earlier — back when somebody bought the notion of filming a “comic thriller” in 3-D (…) The Man Who Wasn’t There is arguably the worst movie from a major studio this year. Better movies have been shelved. This movie is so close to nothing that it’s a minor miracle that it was actually released; not in recent memory has a movie, even a bad movie, offered less for your money. There are even shots where the actors seem to be standing around waiting for something to happen. — Roger Ebert, 1983.