Production notes

From Hell took several years to reach production, and two studios had owned the property before it found its home at 20th Century Fox. The Hughes Brothers originally wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to play Abberline. In a 1997 interview, Alan Moore stated that Sean Connery had been cast in the role. When Connery dropped out, the Hughes Brothers met with Brad Pitt and Jude Law before deciding to cast Johnny Depp. The Hughes Brothers were hired to direct From Hell after choosing not to work on Planet of the Apes. Principal photography began on June 5, 2000 in and around Prague, Czech Republic and at Barrandov Studios on a massive backlot set recreating the 19th-century Whitechapel district of London. Additional exteriors were filmed in the United Kingdom, including at Crackington Haven, Boscastle in Cornwall and Goldings estate in Hertfordshire. Nigel Hawthorne was originally cast as Sir William Gull, but on July 26, 2000, it was announced that Hawthorne had withdrawn from the role because of his terminal cancer. He was replaced by Ian Holm. The disparity in height between Hawthorne and the much shorter Holm forced some of the scenes to be altered. Hawthorne died two months after the film's release. As some critics considered the film to be too violent and gory, it was edited in order to avoid an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. Eventually, it received an R rating due to "strong violence/gore, sexuality, language and drug content". From Hell's premiere took place at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2001. During the September 11 attacks, Graham was flying to New York City for a number of meetings with film directors when she saw smoke coming from the World Trade Center. Marilyn Manson originally intended to work with the film's composer Trevor Jones to remix portions of the score for use within the film. It proved impossible to do this work before the film's release date, so Manson instead contributed a remixed version of his song The Nobodies, which plays over the film's end credits.

On Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of 151 critics gave the film a positive review. The site's critic consensus reads: "Visually impressive, but this latest Ripper tale is dull and far from scary." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. E! Online stated that the film is "two hours of gory murders, non-sequitur scenes, and an undeveloped romance" and gave the film a C−. The New York Post called it a "gripping and stylish thriller". Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four. Leonard Maltin gave the film three stars, calling it "colorful and entertaining; an impressive showing for the Hughes Brothers." Joe Leydon of The San Francisco Examiner gave the film a scoring of three stars, saying "Much like Sleepy Hollow, From Hell will delight movie buffs with key elements of its lavish production design". Michael Sragow of The Baltimore Sun gave it a one-and-a-half star rating, stating that "a visionary sort of horror movie should ponder three words: Bram Stoker's Dracula". Robert W. Butler of The Kansas City Star described the film as "delivered with a visual flourish that puts even Tim Burton to shame". Empire's Kim Newman awarded the film four out of five stars, praising the "range of squirmingly superior British acting talent" although noting that "the script can't quite sell its Jack as at once a purposeful assassin and a mad killer." Philip French was impressed by the film, praising Depp's "very good" performance as well as those who played the Ripper's victims. French also praised the production design and cinematography, which evoked representations of London by the artists Whistler and John Atkinson Grimshaw. The original comic's writer, Alan Moore, criticized the replacement of his "gruff" version of Frederick Abberline with an "absinthe-swilling dandy".

From Hell grossed $31.6 million in the United States and a total of $74.6 million worldwide. During its opening weekend, the film earned $11 million and finished in first place at the box office, beating Training Day, Riding in Cars with Boys and The Last Castle. It dropped into third place in its second weekend behind K-PAX and Thirteen Ghosts with $6.3 million. When Monsters, Inc. was released on its third weekend, From Hell would hold on with a 38% drop, ranking in seventh place and earning $3.7 million. In the United Kingdom, From Hell made $1.2 million in its opening weekend, putting the film in sixth place behind Monsters, Inc., The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Shallow Hal, Vanilla Sky and Gosford Park.