Speed opened on June 10, 1994 and debuted at number one. It grossed $14.5 million dollars opening weekend and a total of $350.5 million total. Speed was a critical and commercial success. Many famous critics like Roger Ebert and Richard Schickel praised the film helping the film gross the amount of money it did. Speed was also nominated for three Academy Awards, winning Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing but loosing Best Film Editing to Forrest Gump. Speed also won another 12 out of the 15 awards it was nominated from other award programs.
Entertainment Weekly ranked Speed as the eighth best film of 1994.The magazine also ranked the film eighth on their "The Best Rock-'em, Sock-'em Movies of the Past 25 Years" list. Speed also ranks 451 on Empire magazine's 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time”. The film was also placed at #99 on the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Thrills list, detailing the 100 "most heart-pounding" American movies of all time.
Speed has become a big seller on home video, DVD, and Blu Ray. Speed has been re-released in a variety of packages like Special Edition, Collector's Edition, and etc. Sales of these formats, along with syndication on television has made Speed and icon action movie that shows no signs of going away any time soon.