Production notes

By August 2011, the film was shooting in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported: "The estate's indoor pool was converted into a massive hydroponic cannabis farm for the film's production, with about 300 high-octane pot plants jamming the covert nursery." Production designer Tomas Voth said: "I wanted to use real plants and had them all ready to go, but it was some legal thing. Universal told us to use fakes." The sex scenes were filmed during the first three days. The film entered post-production in October 2011. Stone personally categorized it as a romantic action thriller.

Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast as Ophelia but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Other actresses considered to replace Lawrence included Amber Heard, Olivia Wilde, Lindsay Lohan, Teresa Palmer, and Abbie Cornish. In April 2011, it was reported that Blake Lively had been cast as Ophelia. Before casting Taylor Kitsch in the film, Oliver Stone asked director Peter Berg to show him 30 minutes of Kitsch's work in Battleship to see how he was as a leading man, and after seeing that footage, he cast him. Trevor Donovan originally auditioned for a role that was cut but after seeing Donovan's tape, Stone specifically wrote him a part that was not in the book. Uma Thurman played Ophelia's mother, Paqu, but her scenes were cut due to time constraints.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 50% based on 195 reviews. The site's critics consensus reads, "It's undeniably messy, but Savages finds Oliver Stone returning to dark, fearlessly lurid form." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted mean an average score of 59 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "C+" on scale of A+ to F. The film was somewhat better received in Europe. UK film and music journalist Dylan B Jones praised it, claiming director Oliver Stone had found "a magic strain of sultry sex, frantically emotional turmoil, and glossily savvy action sequences". In a positive review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Oliver Stone's direction, saying, "Much of the fascination of 'Savages' comes through Stone's treatment of the negotiations, which involve percentages, sliding scales over three years, an ultimate payout, and other financial details that drugs have in common with big business. It's spellbinding to watch the two sides trying to outthink each other." HitFix's film critic Drew McWeeny gave the film an A− and called it "one of the most complete pleasures for me this summer". He was in general positive of the actors' performances; he described Lively's work as "smart and sad precisely because she plays O as such a broken, needy little soul" and praised the bond between Kitsch and Taylor-Johnson which "seems not only credible but lived in and authentic throughout the film." In comparison, MovieFix's film critic Connor Jason gave the film 2/5, noting that "Savages is a hot mess – beautiful actors and locations mixed with a plot that starts strong but ultimately turns into a snooze-fest. With a lead villain seemingly ripped from the cover of Cosmo magazine, Stone's latest flick savagely disappoints."

The film was nominated at the 2012 ALMA Awards in four categories including "Favorite Movie Actor", "Favorite Movie Actress—Drama/Adventure", "Favorite Movie Actor—Supporting Role", and "Favorite Movie Actress—Supporting Role" for Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Demián Bichir and Mia Maestro, respectively. According to InSight Crime, the assertions used to promote the movie "are not only false but promote a dangerously misleading view of the country's criminal groups." According to the article, in a televised interview Oliver Stone made a series of unfounded and false assertions to justify his opposition to the war on drugs, fueling a "dystopian narrative of Mexico" and feeding on the belief that the Mexican criminals are "invincible supermen."