🍅97%Tomatometer
The Invite officially landed on PVOD on August 11, 2026, following a $46 million theatrical run on a $12 million budget. Before reaching home audiences, it had already triggered a 72-hour bidding war at Sundance where Netflix, Sony, Searchlight, Focus Features, and a Warner Bros. label all competed for domestic rights.
A24 won. Why? Because Olivia Wilde held her ground: she refused to sell without a guaranteed theatrical release, and A24 was the only bidder who agreed without hesitation. Variety confirmed bids crossed $12 million; the final figure was reportedly higher.
Critics rewarded that conviction with a 97% Tomatometer.
If that number sounds familiar, it should. Booksmart (2019) — Wilde's directorial debut — also sits at 96%. Meanwhile, Don't Worry Darling (2022) stumbled to 38%.
The pattern is not subtle. When Wilde controls the material, the environment, and the ensemble, she delivers some of the sharpest character-driven cinema of the decade. When she gets pulled into a studio machine on someone else's timetable with a cast publicly imploding before opening weekend, the result is a tabloid circus that drowns out anything worth discussing about the actual filmmaking.
The narrative Hollywood wants to tell is that Wilde "bounced back" with The Invite. The lesson worth learning is that she never needed to.
96%, 38%, 97%: What Wilde's Three Films Actually Tell You
Across three theatrical features, here is what the data looks like:
| Film | Year | Budget | Worldwide | RT Critics | RT Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booksmart | 2019 | $6M | $24M | 96% | 77% |
| Don't Worry Darling | 2022 | $35M | $87.6M | 38% | 74% |
| The Invite | 2026 | $12M | $46M | 97% | 89% |
Two things are visible immediately. First: the two films Wilde developed organically — intimate in scale, ensemble-driven, script-first — score 96% and 97% with critics. Second: Don't Worry Darling was the most expensive, earned the most at the box office, and is the film nobody can discuss without getting the off-screen chaos involved.
The chaos was real. Shia LaBeouf was cast and departed under disputed circumstances — Wilde said she fired him to protect Florence Pugh; LaBeouf denied being fired, and a video surfaced at release appearing to contradict Wilde's account. Pugh's relationship with Wilde throughout production was the subject of extensive reporting. Harry Styles replaced LaBeouf and began a relationship with Wilde; they broke up publicly after the Venice premiere. Wilde was served legal papers by ex Jason Sudeikis on stage at CinemaCon. A video purporting to show Styles spitting on co-star Chris Pine circulated globally and was mocked on every platform simultaneously.
None of this had anything to do with whether Olivia Wilde could direct.
The 38% RT is partly earned. The script — an original story by Katie Silberman — was widely noted as the weakest element; the premise worked better than the execution and the ending dissatisfied critics. That is a legitimate critique. But Wilde was directing into a production environment that had already collapsed around her. The studio-scale thriller, on a corporate timetable with a cast that generated more copy than the film itself, was the wrong context for what she actually does well.
Small Rooms, Big Stakes: Why Intimate Dramedies Are Wilde's Real Superpower
Booksmart wasn't great because of its high school premise. It succeeded because of what Wilde did with it: the stop-motion drug-trip hallucination sequence, the underwater pool scene shot with an almost otherworldly stillness — these are not the choices of a director learning the language. They are the choices of a director with a fully formed point of view finding the right visual register for each emotional beat.
The Invite shares that exact creative DNA. Adapted from Cesc Gay's 2020 Spanish film Sentimental by screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, the film traps four people in a single apartment over one dinner. Host couple Joe and Angela (Seth Rogen and Wilde) invite their upstairs neighbors Piña and Hawk (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton), and polite social pleasantries disintegrate into uninhibited emotional chaos.
Chamber pieces live or die on rhythm and spatial awareness. Wilde directs the single-location setting like a suspense thriller, letting every awkward silence and shifting glance build genuine comedic tension. The difference between Don't Worry Darling and The Invite is not that Wilde "found her footing." It is that The Invite is the kind of film she should have been making after Booksmart: small, precise, character-driven, built around a group of actors given room to work at the highest level of what they can do.
Editorial note: Hollywood loves a comeback story. Wilde didn't bounce back with The Invite — she walked away from a system built to fail her and returned to the intimate, performer-first filmmaking that made Booksmart remarkable. That is not a comeback. That is a correction.
The RT consensus reads: "Perversely funny while giving its quartet of fine actors some of their best material yet, The Invite is a sophisticated farce that reaffirms Olivia Wilde as one of the most exciting filmmakers working today."
Reaffirms, not establishes. Booksmart established it. The Invite confirms it was not a fluke.
Penélope Cruz Steals the Show in 2026's Sharpest Ensemble
The standout of The Invite is Penélope Cruz as Piña, and this is not a close call.
Cruz plays the upstairs neighbor — outwardly magnetic, possibly dangerous, operating on a completely different social register than anyone else at the table. It is the kind of role that requires a performer who can make an audience simultaneously charmed, unsettled, and uncertain whether they are watching a villain or a prophet. Cruz has spent thirty years building exactly that toolkit. She won the Astra Midseason Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress and sits on Gold Derby's early list for 2027 Oscar consideration. Neither is surprising to anyone who has watched the film.
Opposite her, Edward Norton provides deadpan restraint as Hawk — several reviews singled out a single facial reaction in the third act as among the best comic acting of the year. Seth Rogen serves as the audience surrogate: the most relatable person at the table, the one who most visibly does not know how to process what is happening.
Wilde also directs herself as Angela, the wife whose marriage is visibly calcifying, with a control that suggests she was entirely aware of the trap: playing the lead while directing can flatten both performances. She doesn't let it. As Norton said at the Sundance premiere: "It's hard for me to overstate the grace and wisdom with which Olivia gave that performance and directed us."
Why A24 Paid to Keep The Invite Out of Streaming Purgatory
Wilde's insistence on a theatrical release was not just a personal preference. It was a bet that The Invite — a four-person, R-rated chamber drama with no action, no franchise, and no sequel hook — could find an audience in a multiplex landscape overwhelmingly dominated by IP.
The bet paid off. $46 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. A24's theatrical-first model, which has built its brand around exactly this kind of prestige adult film, proved again that the audience exists when the distribution strategy trusts it.
Wilde described The Invite to Variety as the kind of genuinely collaborative creative experience she had always wanted to make — a film built entirely around the actors and the room, with no external machinery pulling in other directions. On what came before: "I believe in early failure. If you go through that, the way 'Don't Worry Darling' did with a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, there's liberation." And separately, on where she landed after making the film: "It's melted the cynic out of me."
The $50M Trap: What Wilde Does With the Offers That Follow
With The Invite thriving on PVOD and Penélope Cruz generating real awards momentum, Wilde is at a crossroads that is familiar to every successful indie director.
Hollywood's instinct is always to offer twice the scale. The filmmaker who made a precise $12 million chamber piece for A24 will be offered a $60 million studio project. The director whose last studio film still grossed $87.6 million — despite everything — will be offered a franchise.
What Booksmart and The Invite prove, combined, is that Wilde's filmmaking is specific: it thrives in closed rooms, with small casts, on scripts that trust character over concept. That specificity is a strength. It is also a constraint the industry will try to expand away from the moment the grosses justify it.
What she chooses next will determine whether she builds one of the genuinely distinctive auteur filmographies of her generation — or whether she ends up back in the machine that produced a 38%.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Invite about? The Invite is a dark comedy-drama about a married couple, Joe and Angela, who invite their eccentric upstairs neighbors — the glamorous and unpredictable Piña and Hawk — for a dinner party. Over the course of one evening, polite conversation gives way to uncomfortable confessions and revelations about love, compromise, and long-term relationships.
Is The Invite based on an original script? No. The Invite is an English-language adaptation of Cesc Gay's 2020 Spanish film Sentimental (released internationally as The People Upstairs). The adapted screenplay was written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.
Who stars in The Invite? Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde play Joe and Angela, the married couple hosting the dinner. Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton play Piña and Hawk, the upstairs neighbors. The film is a four-person ensemble with no significant supporting roles.
Where can I watch The Invite? The Invite is available on PVOD as of August 11, 2026 — $24.99 to purchase or $19.99 to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and YouTube Movies.
What is The Invite's Rotten Tomatoes score? The Invite holds a 97% Tomatometer score from 271 critic reviews and an 89% audience score. The critics consensus reads: "Perversely funny while giving its quartet of fine actors some of their best material yet, The Invite is a sophisticated farce that reaffirms Olivia Wilde as one of the most exciting filmmakers working today."
How much did The Invite make at the box office? The Invite earned approximately $46 million worldwide against a $12 million production budget — a strong result for an R-rated adult comedy with no franchise attachment.
How does The Invite compare to Don't Worry Darling? Don't Worry Darling (2022) earned $87.6 million worldwide on a $35 million budget and holds a 38% Rotten Tomatoes score. The Invite earned $46 million on $12 million and holds 97%. By critics' measure, The Invite ranks among the best-reviewed films of 2026. Don't Worry Darling remains the outlier in Wilde's filmography — not a representative sample of what she makes when she controls the material.