Olivia Wilde’s ‘The Invite’ Lands the Sharpest Reviews of Her Career

Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” turns a single San Francisco dinner party into a 95% Rotten Tomatoes chamber comedy and the best-reviewed film of her directing career. The film premiered at the Eccles Theater as part of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, ignited a bidding war that ended with A24 paying more than $12 million for U.S. distribution, and now sits between its limited and wide U.S. releases as of early July 2026.

The premise is contained and cruel. Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Wilde) are a long-married couple whose upstairs neighbors, Pína (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), come down for dinner on the night the marriage finally cracks. Wilde directs and co-stars from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, and the result runs 107 minutes in one apartment set.

What “The Invite” Actually Is

The Invite is a 2026 American comedy film directed by Olivia Wilde from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. It is an English-language remake of Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish dark comedy “The People Upstairs,” also titled “Sentimental,” and the fifth remake of that film after adaptations produced in France, Italy, Switzerland, and South Korea.

The plot unfolds across a single evening. Joe, a failed one-hit-wonder musician who now teaches at a small conservatory, arrives home from work to learn that Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors over for dinner. Joe wants to confront the couple about the noise they make during sex. Angela wants to befriend them. Pína and Hawk arrive as the apartment is already mid-argument, and what begins as an unprepared dinner party turns into the long, ugly evening the film lives inside.

Production companies include Annapurna Pictures, FilmNation Entertainment, and Permut Presentations. Devonté Hynes composed the score, and “Contentious Environment” was released as a single from the soundtrack album on June 15, 2026.

Wilde’s Third Swing Behind the Camera

The Invite is Wilde’s third feature as director, following “Booksmart” in 2019 and “Don’t Worry Darling” in 2022. Where “Don’t Worry Darling” generated tabloid noise and a mixed critical response that left Wilde’s reputation as a director in question, this third feature reads as a deliberate course correction toward craft.

Production was tight and disciplined. The film shot on 35mm in 23 days and in chronological order, giving the cast room to find each other inside the long, escalating argument that drives the picture. Wilde workshopped material with the actors throughout the shoot, and the team filmed across San Francisco, including the Sunset District, the Castro District Farmers’ Market, the Make-Out Room nightclub in the Mission, and a BART train from Glen Park to Balboa Park. The film is dedicated to Diane Keaton.

Sundance’s own 2026 program entry described the film as “a fiercely energized chamber dramedy” that “revitalizes the classic, largely bygone cinema of marital strife.” The piece credits the chronological shoot and the on-set workshopping for the picture’s “remarkable authenticity.”

The development road was unusually long. A remake of “The People Upstairs” was first announced in March 2021 with producer David Permut attached; in March 2022, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were hired to direct with McCormack and Jones scripting; in May 2023, the project, then titled “The Invite,” cast Amy Adams, Paul Rudd, and Tessa Thompson. Development stalled until April 2025, when Wilde took over as director with Rogen, Wilde, Cruz, and Norton attached and shooting began in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

One Apartment, Four Actors

The cast is small, and each performer has been handed a role that fits the way a tailored jacket fits. Rogen’s Joe is a depressed music teacher who can only think about confronting the upstairs couple about the noise they make during sex. Wilde’s Angela is a gold-medal people-pleaser who invited the neighbors without telling him and who has lost all ability to discern what she actually wants. Cruz’s Pína arrives in a black dress, walking ease, and announces within minutes of arrival that she does not eat meat, cheese, sugar, or gluten. Norton’s Hawk is a quiet, soft-spoken peacekeeper built to absorb Joe’s barbs.

Wilde’s direction refuses to let the stage-bound actors settle into a generic shot-reverse-shot formula. Mirrors pull characters into the frame from angles the other side of the room can see; voyeuristic shots from adjacent rooms remind the audience it is watching a combustible situation. Dev Hynes’ score plays like something out of a war movie, an anxious pulse that ramps with each awkward silence at the table.

The four of them share a single set for almost the entire run time, and the casting has already become a topic of conversation around Rogen’s wider career. See Rogen’s argument that critics hurt performers for the wider context around his performance here.

Sundance, the Bidding War, and the Wide Release

The Invite premiered at the Eccles Theater on January 24, 2026, and received a standing ovation. The premiere was part of Sundance 2026’s final Park City lineup, the festival’s historic swan song in Utah before its move to Colorado.

The post-premiere distribution market moved fast. Multiple studios entered talks for the U.S. rights, including A24, Netflix, Searchlight Pictures, Focus Features, Sony Pictures, Black Bear Pictures, Neon, and Apple TV, with early bids reported as high as $10 million. The bidding eventually narrowed to A24 and Focus, with offers going over $12 million. A last-minute bid from Warner Bros. Pictures’ nascent specialty division, later christened Warner Bros. Clockwork, did not displace A24, which ultimately acquired U.S. distribution rights. Black Bear Pictures separately acquired U.K. rights from FilmNation Entertainment.

A24 gave the film a limited U.S. theatrical release on June 26, 2026. First-weekend screenings in Los Angeles and New York City were all sold out, with opening weekend box office totaling $379,104 according to Box Office Mojo. The film was also programmed in the main competition of the 73rd Sydney Film Festival.

The wide U.S. release opens July 10, 2026.

What the Critics Are Saying

The critical reception is the cleanest of Wilde’s career. On Rotten Tomatoes, 95% Rotten Tomatoes of 131 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8 out of 10. Metacritic assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100 from 38 critics, a result the aggregator labels “universal acclaim.”

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.

That is the Rotten Tomatoes consensus, captured by the aggregator.

The praise has clustered around three things: the writing, the cast, and the marriage-at-the-table premise. Owen Gleiberman of Variety called the film “marvelously entertaining” and compared it to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Adam Chitwood of TheWrap described it as “the great-great-grandchild” of the Albee adaptation and “endlessly relatable, sometimes uncomfortably so.” Glenn Garner of Deadline Hollywood wrote that the film “explores dynamics of sex and relationships with raw and endearing honesty.” David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter declared it “well worth RSVPing.” Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal called it “a wild fantasy built on a foundation of painful verisimilitude” and one of the best films of the year.

For a compact read on the spread:

• Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “marvelously entertaining”; compared to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
• Adam Chitwood, TheWrap: “the great-great-grandchild” of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”; “endlessly relatable, sometimes uncomfortably so”
• Benjamin Lee, The Guardian: 4 out of 5 stars; “a genuinely funny and uncommonly intelligent comedy for adults”
• Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 4 out of 5 stars; Rogen “on top of his game”
• Kate Erbland, IndieWire: B+; “a truly adult comedy with plenty to say and even more laughs to share”
• David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: “well worth RSVPing”
• Glenn Garner, Deadline Hollywood: “raw and endearing honesty”

The two Guardian four-star reviews are independent of each other. Benjamin Lee and Peter Bradshaw filed separately, and both anchored their reviews on the screenplay’s capacity to make marital friction funny without flattening it.

Where the Film Stumbles

No review is universal praise, and the dissent clusters on the same fault line. Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wrote that the characters’ “emotional twists don’t feel fully earned” and that the film “feels at times like a film that could have benefited from more control,” giving a fully negative assessment of the Dev Hynes score. Tim Grierson of Screen Daily called it an “uneven comedy-drama that ultimately has something fresh to say about sex, love and commitment,” a verdict that acknowledges the wobble rather than the failure.

Kate Erbland’s B+ at IndieWire cited “a bit of stumbling in the third act,” a note echoed by the Flickering Myth review’s observation that the film “struggles and falters as it strives for something deeper.” Kyle Smith, who placed the film among the year’s best, conceded that it is “essentially a play,” an honest trade-off for any four-actor, one-set chamber piece.

The common thread across the mixed reviews is the tonal shift from awkward-dinner comedy to heavier material in the third act, paired with a stageplay feel that the single-location premise cannot fully disguise. The film asks its audience to accept that one of the year’s most acclaimed comedies is also one of its most uncomfortable to watch, and a meaningful slice of the critical room finds that contract only partly honored.

The Verdict

What separates “The Invite” from “Don’t Worry Darling” is control. Where that film cracked under the weight of its ambitions, this one knows how small it is allowed to be, and the 35mm grain, the long takes of Joe and Angela picking at each other’s scabs, and Hynes’ anxious pulse all hold the room together because Wilde is leaning into the play instead of disguising it.

The film is currently in limited U.S. theatrical release ahead of its wide opening on July 10, 2026, with A24 holding U.S. distribution rights. The Sundance 2026 program entry for The Invite and the first official trailer lay out the basics, and the Sundance 2026 final Park City lineup places the premiere in its wider festival context. Rogen’s argument that critics hurt performers is the right companion read for anyone weighing the 95% score against the dissenting voices.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is “The Invite” about?

The Invite is a 2026 American comedy film directed by Olivia Wilde from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. It follows Joe and Angela, a long-married couple whose upstairs neighbors come down for dinner on the night the marriage finally cracks. The film is an English-language remake of Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish film “The People Upstairs” (“Sentimental”), the fifth remake of that film after adaptations in France, Italy, Switzerland, and South Korea.

Who stars in “The Invite”?

The film stars Seth Rogen as Joe, Olivia Wilde as Angela, Penélope Cruz as Pína, and Edward Norton as Hawk. It is the third feature directed by Wilde, after “Booksmart” (2019) and “Don’t Worry Darling” (2022).

When is “The Invite” released?

The Invite premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2026. A24 gave the film a limited U.S. theatrical release on June 26, 2026, with a wide U.S. release scheduled for July 10, 2026.

How long is “The Invite”?

The film runs 107 minutes.

What does Rotten Tomatoes say about “The Invite”?

On Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 131 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8 out of 10. Metacritic assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100 from 38 critics, a result the aggregator labels “universal acclaim.”