If you missed The Invite during its theatrical run, you will not have to wait much longer to find out why Olivia Wilde’s latest movie has become one of the most talked-about comedies of the summer.
A24’s relationship comedy will arrive on digital platforms on August 11, 2026, less than five weeks after expanding nationwide in theaters. The move gives audiences another chance to catch the film at home while it is still generating strong word of mouth from its theatrical release.
And this is one of those movies where the less you know about where the evening eventually goes, the better.
Directed by Wilde, The Invite begins with an almost painfully ordinary situation. Joe and Angela, played by Seth Rogen and Wilde, are married but clearly no longer operating on the same wavelength. There is frustration between them, plenty left unsaid and the unmistakable feeling that both have gotten far too comfortable being unhappy.
Then they invite the couple who lives upstairs over for dinner.
That would be Hawk and Piña, played by Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz. They arrive carrying the confidence of two people who seem considerably more comfortable with themselves, their marriage and just about everything else.
What follows is essentially four people, one apartment and an increasingly dangerous amount of honesty.
The Invite Found A Big Audience With A Very Small Story
There is something refreshing about seeing a summer movie that does not need a collapsing city, a superhero cameo or several hundred million dollars worth of visual effects to create tension.
The Invite mostly needs four chairs and the right four actors.
The screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones turns the dinner into a slow-moving emotional car crash. One uncomfortable admission leads to another. Casual questions become arguments. Jokes land a little too close to the truth. By the time everyone realizes the evening has gone completely off the rails, there is no polite excuse left that can save them.
The film is an adaptation of Cesc Gay’s Spanish movie Sentimental, itself based on his stage play Los vecinos de arriba. McCormack and Jones retain the pressure-cooker setup while allowing the American version to develop its own rhythm and personality.
That simplicity puts almost everything on the cast, which turns out to be exactly where The Invite wants the attention.
Rogen is particularly well suited to Joe because his natural humor makes the character’s insecurity funny until it suddenly is not. He can make an awkward reaction land as a punchline and then, a few moments later, reveal how much resentment has been hiding underneath it.
Wilde gives Angela an equally complicated edge. She is frustrated with her marriage but not written as someone who has already emotionally checked out. There is still something between Angela and Joe, which makes watching them poke at each other’s weaknesses much more uncomfortable.
Then Norton and Cruz walk in and completely disrupt the balance.
Hawk and Piña initially appear to have figured out everything Joe and Angela have not. They are open with each other, confident about what they want and far less embarrassed by the complicated realities of a long-term relationship.
Of course, nobody survives a movie like this by being as emotionally healthy as they first appear.
A Strong Critical Response Helped The Movie Stand Out
The Invite premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival before beginning its theatrical rollout in June and expanding nationwide on July 10. The movie quickly emerged as one of the better-reviewed comedies of the year.
As of early August, the film holds a 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers frequently praising the chemistry of the four leads and Wilde’s ability to keep a largely single-location story visually and emotionally alive.
That reception is notable because The Invite does not feel designed to please everybody.
The movie is interested in sex, marriage, jealousy, boredom and the quiet ways couples learn how to irritate one another after spending years together. It is willing to make its characters selfish or embarrassing without turning them into villains.
More importantly, the movie understands something a lot of relationship comedies forget: people can love each other and still be absolutely terrible at being married to each other.
There is no moustache-twirling bad guy sitting at the dinner table. Nobody arrives secretly plotting to destroy somebody else’s marriage. The trouble comes from people saying things they probably should have said years earlier, only now they are saying them in front of company after several drinks.
That makes the comedy sting a little more.
It also makes The Invite especially well suited for home viewing. Watching four adults make increasingly questionable decisions from the safety of your couch is considerably easier than being trapped at the dinner table with them.
August 11 Is A Digital Release, Not The HBO Max Premiere
There is one distinction worth making for anyone planning to watch the movie at home.
The August 11 date is for the film’s digital release. It should not be confused with the movie’s eventual arrival on a subscription streaming service.
A24 has not announced an HBO Max premiere date for The Invite as of August 7.
Because A24 has a Pay-1 output agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio’s movies eventually make their way to HBO Max after their theatrical and premium digital windows. Previous release patterns have led to estimates that The Invite could reach HBO Max later this year, potentially around November, but that remains an estimate rather than a confirmed date.
Anyone who wants to see the film sooner will therefore have the digital option beginning August 11 rather than waiting for the subscription-streaming window.
Olivia Wilde Continues To Take Interesting Swings As A Director
Part of what makes The Invite interesting is how different it feels from Wilde’s previous movies behind the camera.
Her 2019 directorial debut, Booksmart, was a fast-moving high school comedy built around the friendship between two teenagers realizing they may have spent too much of their lives following the rules.
She followed that with the far more ambitious and divisive Don’t Worry Darling, a glossy psychological thriller that arrived surrounded by almost as much conversation about its production as the actual movie.
The Invite strips much of that scale away.
There is nowhere for the actors to hide here. No giant mystery to unravel. No elaborate world-building. No action sequence waiting to change the subject when a conversation becomes uncomfortable.
The movie has to survive on dialogue, performance and the audience’s growing realization that everyone at the table is carrying around information that probably should not be shared during dinner.
Wilde seems more comfortable with that intimacy than might have been expected after Don’t Worry Darling. Instead of constantly searching for a bigger visual moment, she lets reactions become the spectacle.
Sometimes Norton staring across a room after somebody says the wrong thing is enough.
The Perfect Movie For Anyone Who Has Ever Regretted Inviting Someone Over
There is an entire category of comedy built around social situations that become impossible to escape.
The Invite understands the specific horror of realizing that your evening has crossed the point where everyone can politely pretend nothing strange is happening.
You cannot leave because it is your apartment. You cannot ask your guests to leave without acknowledging why you want them gone. And you definitely cannot take back something your spouse just admitted in front of two people you barely know.
So everyone stays.
And things get worse.
That is where the movie finds much of its humor, but it also keeps enough affection for its characters to stop the night from becoming a simple exercise in humiliation.
Joe, Angela, Hawk and Piña are ridiculous at different moments. They are also recognizable. Their problems may become heightened for comedy, but the underlying fears — getting older, losing attraction, wondering if a partner still sees you the same way and quietly comparing your relationship with somebody else’s — are painfully ordinary.
That combination is why The Invite has managed to stand out during a summer crowded with significantly larger movies.
Sometimes four talented actors saying exactly the wrong things at exactly the right time is enough.
For anyone who did not receive the theatrical invitation, the second one arrives August 11 when The Invite becomes available digitally.
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