Olivia Wilde’s new film The Invite premiered at Sundance and arrived with brisk early acclaim: the dark comedy currently holds a 91% Tomatometer score based on 35 reviews and will reach U.S. audiences in a limited theatrical release from A24 on June 26, 2026.
That numerical backing is matched by a chorus of critics who singled out the film’s appetite for both laughs and emotional bite. Rolling Stone’s David Fear said the film "manages to avoid being either stagy or stodgy." Johnny Oleksinski called it "a sophisticated, snappy, seductive and stupendously funny film." Adam Chitwood labeled it "an uproarious, deeply felt and impeccably crafted chamber piece," and Nick Schager wrote that The Invite is "a hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait." Owen Gleiberman found it leaves viewers in "a state of rapt immersion and delight," while Benjamin Lee said "a genuinely funny and uncommonly intelligent comedy for adults" was overdue. Kate Erbland praised Wilde’s performance, comparing her to Lucille Ball for her "elasticity."
The Invite, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack from a 2020 Spanish film, runs one hour and 47 minutes, carries an R rating and stars Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton. At its core the picture is compact and furious: Joe and Angela’s marriage is hanging by a thread when they invite their mysterious upstairs neighbors over for dinner and uncomfortable truths begin surfacing.
Context matters here: The Invite is Wilde’s follow-up to Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling, and it closed the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival after its Sundance launch. A trailer released by A24 has already circulated ahead of the June 26 opening, fuelling the festival momentum and the early Rotten Tomatoes snapshot that now sits at 91% from 35 reviews.
The coverage is not uniformly celebratory. Film critic Bilge Ebiri argued that the characters sometimes "never come across as real people," a critique that sits uneasily beside praise for the film’s craft and its performers. That contradiction highlights the film’s tightrope: a chamber piece that depends on heightened dialogue and theatrical set pieces can feel exhilarating to some viewers and, to others, like an exercise in style over lived-in truth.
Those tensions are precisely what makes the film newsworthy now. It is rare for a director who also appears onscreen to marshal a cast that includes high-profile names and to do so in a work that has won near-unanimous early thumbs-up. David Rooney went so far as to say the film "should silence the doubters" about Wilde’s directing abilities — a verdict echoed by many of the festival write-ups that praised the blend of black humor and emotional stakes.
The immediate question for audiences and studio observers is whether the festival glow will survive the jump to cinemas. The Invite’s one hour and 47 minutes packs a deliberate, theatrical energy that critics have celebrated; it will either translate to a wider adult audience hungry for smart, R-rated comedy or remain a critical favorite with modest box-office traction. What is clear from the reviews is that the film has already altered the conversation around Wilde: between the Tomatometer score, the string of high-profile endorsements, and A24’s June 26 release plan, The Invite arrives positioned to do exactly what Rooney suggested — to quiet lingering doubts and stake a claim for Wilde as a director of shape, nerve and comic reach.
