Despite the negative critical and mixed audience reception to the film, Suicide Squad was nominated for various awards, receiving several. The film was nominated for three Grammy Awards as well as one Critics' Choice Movie Awards (winning one), seven People's Choice Awards (winning one) and received multiple Teen Choice Awards nominations, including "Choice AnTEENcipated Movie", "Choice Movie Actor: AnTEENcipated" for Will Smith and Scott Eastwood, and "Choice Movie Actress: AnTEENcipated" for Margot Robbie and Cara Delevingne. It won in both the former and latter categories. The film won an Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling at 89th Academy Awards, making it the first film in the DC Extended Universe to win an Academy Award.

The film was announced in 2009 with Dan Lin as Producer, Stephen Gilchrist as co-producer and Justin Marks as the Screenwriter. David Ayer signed on to direct and write the film in September 2014. He later described the film to Empire Online as "Dirty Dozen with supervillains". Ayer had six weeks to write his script, given the release date was already set.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote, "DC Comics tries something different with Suicide Squad, an all-star collection of crime fighting villains—and the result is anything but super." Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair said, "Suicide Squad is just bad. It's ugly and boring, a toxic combination that means the film's highly fetishized violence doesn't even have the exciting tingle of the wicked or the taboo." Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern heavily criticized the film saying, "In a word, Suicide Squad is trash. In two words, it's ugly trash." He further said, it "amounts to an all-out attack on the whole idea of entertainment," and called the film a product of "shameless pandering".

Suicide Squad held a panel at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International, with stars Smith, Robbie, Courtney, Davis, and Kinnaman amongst those who appeared. A trailer intended to be exclusive to the event premiered, but was leaked online, with Warner Bros. responding by stating they would not release an official version. However, the following day, Warner Bros. released an official version, stating: "Warner Bros. Pictures and our anti-piracy team have worked tirelessly over the last 48 hours to contain the Suicide Squad footage that was pirated from Hall H on Saturday. We have been unable to achieve that goal. Today we will release the same footage that has been illegally circulating on the web, in the form it was created and high quality with which it was intended to be enjoyed. We regret this decision as it was our intention to keep the footage as a unique experience for the Comic-Con crowd, but we cannot continue to allow the film to be represented by the poor quality of the pirated footage stolen from our presentation."

In addition, it was later announced in September 2016 that Warner Bros. was planning a film focusing on Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn, with Robbie serving as executive Producer and Christina Hodson serving as the Screenwriter for the film. In December 2016, it was announced that Ayer will return to the franchise as Director and Producer of Gotham City Sirens, a film based on the comic book team of the same name, consisting of Harley Quinn, Selina Kyle / Catwoman and Pamela Isley / Poison Ivy. In December 2016, it was also reported that the studio is developing a film focusing on Floyd Lawton / Deadshot, which will star Smith. In August 2017, another film focusing on the Joker and Harley Quinn entered development with Glenn Ficarra and John Requa in final negotiations to be the co-writer/co-director team handling the project.

Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn was better received, with many critics eager to see more of the character in Future films. In January 2017, David Ayer later stated on Twitter that he wished he had done certain things differently in the film including story elements, as well as giving more screen time to the Joker.