---
title: "Babygirl"
year: 2024
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/babygirl"
fi1m_id: "babygirl"
imdb_id: "tt30057084"
tmdb_id: 1097549
wikidata_id: "Q123861757"
fi1m_score: 73
critics_score: 79
critics_reviews: 19
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:56.255822+00:00"
region: "PH"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Babygirl (2024)

Directed by Halina Reijn · 1h 55m · Romance, Thriller

## Identity

Babygirl

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/babygirl
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** babygirl
- **IMDb ID:** tt30057084
- **TMDB ID:** 1097549
- **Wikidata ID:** Q123861757
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30057084/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1097549, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123861757

**Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 79 from 19 reviews

*In a sentence:* The intern gives the orders, the boss takes them, and it is funnier than either of them lets on

> Halina Reijn’s office affair is sharper, funnier and better acted than its genre usually manages, and Nicole Kidman has not been this exposed in years. It is also more careful than it wants you to think, and kinder than the genre has any habit of being.

## Synopsis

Romy (Nicole Kidman) runs a large company and is very good at it. She is married to Jacob (Antonio Banderas), has two daughters, and the sex in her marriage has never given her what she wants, which she has never told anyone. Samuel (Harris Dickinson) is one of the company’s new interns, much younger than her, and within days of meeting her he seems to have guessed something about her that she has never said aloud. An affair begins, on his terms rather than hers, while her assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde) and her elder daughter Isabel (Esther-Rose McGregor) notice more than she thinks. Halina Reijn writes and directs. 115 minutes, certificate 18.

## Review

Halina Reijn has made an erotic thriller in which nobody gets punished, and that is the whole idea. Romy (Nicole Kidman) is a chief executive, is married to Jacob (Antonio Banderas), has two daughters and has never got what she wants in bed, or said so. Samuel (Harris Dickinson) is an intern who soon tells her he thinks she likes being told what to do. The set-up belongs to *Fatal Attraction*. What Reijn does with it is funnier, kinder and better acted than that film’s descendants usually manage, and more careful than the trailer promises. It is a good film and a safe one.

Kidman is the reason to see it. Romy chairs meetings, performs confidence for a living and cannot say a true sentence about what she wants in her own bedroom. The scene that got at us is the first hotel room. Samuel tells her to get on the floor, and she does, and Kidman’s face goes from a woman performing embarrassment to a woman who has stopped performing anything. We were embarrassed for her, hands nearly over our eyes, and then we were not, and the switch happened without a cut. It is the least protected work she has done in a long time, and Reijn shoots it without a flicker of judgement.

Dickinson is just as good, in a part that is harder to see. Samuel is not a seducer with a plan; he is a young man testing whether the thing he has guessed about his boss is true, and Dickinson gives him a hesitation before each order, as if checking his own nerve. When he tests it in front of other people, we laughed, and then felt something we were less sure of, which is the effect the film is after. Banderas, as a husband quietly certain he is a good lover, plays a man who is wrong about himself without ever making him a fool.

Jasper Wolf shoots the offices in glass and grey, all reflections and nobody’s face quite in focus, and the hotel in a low amber that makes it look smaller than it is. Matthew Hannam cuts the sex short; it is talked about at length and shown briefly, and several scenes are over almost as they begin. Cristóbal Tapia de Veer’s score is the sound of a choir hyperventilating, breaths and gasps arranged into something like music, and it does more than anything else to tell us the film knows how absurd its people are being. Bart Mueller and Kurt Swanson dress Romy in cream and black tailoring that sits on her like armour and Samuel in a suit that looks borrowed.

The trouble is around the edges. The film has ideas about the workplace, about who is allowed to want what at work and who pays for it, and it points at them without saying much. Sophie Wilde’s Esme, Romy’s assistant, has a thread about ambition that arrives as a speech when it needed a scene. The middle hour repeats its route, office to hotel to kitchen to hotel, and we started counting the loops. Most of all, for a film about shame, every encounter arrives with its consent worked out in advance and its exits marked. A few critics have called it safe. We would say it is kind, and kindness costs a thriller something.

Reijn’s *Bodies Bodies Bodies* was a comedy hiding inside a slasher. This is a comedy hiding inside an erotic thriller, and it is smarter than the films it borrows from about who actually wants what. It is also gentler with everyone in it than those films ever were, and we were not always sure the gentleness was earned.

See it with someone you are prepared to argue with afterwards. The 18 certificate is earned by the talk rather than the flesh, and at 115 minutes it is over before the arguments are.

*Fi1m score 73, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Babygirl, and they like it for the same reasons. The praise goes first to Nicole Kidman, described again and again as fearless, vulnerable and in control of a performance that asks a great deal of her, and to Harris Dickinson, whose chemistry with her is singled out nearly everywhere. Reviewers also credit Reijn for treating the affair without shame or punishment, and for keeping the sex awkward and uncertain rather than expert.

The reservations cluster around what surrounds the bedroom: several critics find the workplace material and the ideas about power less convincing than the scenes of desire, and a few think the film safer than it pretends to be. The Guardian calls it expertly done but suspect at its core; The Wrap finds it genteel; Paste thinks it more reassuring than provocative. The spread is otherwise narrow, with one outright dissent, Collider, which finds it superficial and exploitative of Kidman.

## Straight answers

**Is Babygirl worth watching?**

*Babygirl* is worth watching for anyone who wants an erotic thriller that is funnier and kinder than the genre usually allows, and we scored it 73. Nicole Kidman gives her least protected performance in years and Harris Dickinson matches her. The middle hour repeats itself and the film points at its ideas about the workplace without saying much.

**How long is Babygirl, and what is it rated?**

*Babygirl* runs 1h 55m. It is a romance and thriller film.

**Where can I watch Babygirl in the Philippines?**

*Babygirl* is not on any streaming or rental service in the Philippines at the moment. It is available in 32 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Babygirl, and is it suitable for children?**

*Babygirl* carries an 18 certificate and is not suitable for children or younger teenagers. There is no violence to speak of and nothing frightening; the certificate is earned by frank talk about sex and a sustained affair between a boss and a much younger intern. The sex itself is shown briefly and discussed at length.

**How does Babygirl compare to Eyes Wide Shut?**

*Babygirl* is the warmer and funnier of the two, while [*Eyes Wide Shut*](https://film.one/film/eyes-wide-shut) is slower, colder and far less willing to comfort anyone in it. Both give Nicole Kidman a marriage in trouble, but Halina Reijn plays hers partly as comedy, where Stanley Kubrick keeps his painfully intimate and drawn out. Choose Reijn's film for an easier evening and Kubrick's if you have the patience it asks for.

**What should I watch after Babygirl?**

After *Babygirl*, try [*The Piano Teacher*](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher) (2001, Fi1m 82): Haneke and Huppert on the same subject with none of the reassurance. Then [*Belle de Jour*](https://film.one/film/belle-de-jour) (1967, Fi1m 86): Buñuel’s bored wife takes afternoons off; still the model for the double life; and [*Eyes Wide Shut*](https://film.one/film/eyes-wide-shut) (1999, Fi1m 81): Kidman’s other marriage in trouble, slower, colder and far less willing to comfort.

### Reviews we read (26)

- **The AV Club**, Anna McKibbin (A): The film brilliantly captures the feeling of falling in lust through a feature-length homage to the early rush of attraction and radically charged encounters. It singles out Reijn's empathy for every character and the relief and revelation in Kidman's expressions during sexual discovery without punishment or judgment. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/babygirl-review)
- **Empire**, Beth Webb (90/100, inferred): Reijn weaves a complex tapestry of desire, power and humour that avoids genre conventions. Kidman delivers a gutsy, no-holds-barred performance in a fiercely erotic, nuanced and raucously funny exploration of carnal desire. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/babygirl/)
- **The Independent** (85/100, inferred): The film is unabashedly and giddily sexy thanks to committed performances from Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. Reijn crafts a BDSM story full of fumbling uncertainty rather than assured expertise, letting the characters feel their way through desire. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/babygirl-nicole-kidman-review-b2676348.html)
- **Vulture** (85/100, inferred): It is the year’s hottest movie, an unabashedly indulgent adventure into self-discovery with giddy deliriousness and startlingly private eroticism. The review singles out Dickinson's magnetic presence and Kidman's shift from overachieving matron to someone shocked by her own desires. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/review-babygirl-might-just-be-the-years-hottest-movie.html)
- **Little White Lies**, Hannah Strong (3/4/4): Reijn delivers intelligent, elegant adult filmmaking that handles complex themes of desire, power and consent with nuance, empathy and candour; the strong chemistry between Kidman and Dickinson is singled out as stratospheric. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/babygirl)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Amy Nicholson (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it a thorny pleasure that tests sexual ethics and power dynamics through a hot, consent-focused age-gap affair, with empathy for the protagonist's complexities. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-12-24/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-antonio-banderas-harris-dickinson)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney (80/100, inferred): The film is a perverse, juicy erotic thriller about a woman coming to accept her full spectrum of desires without shame or judgment. It singles out the skilled navigation of tricky challenges by the actors, especially Kidman's physical and psychological fearlessness. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-harris-dickinson-antonio-banderas-halina-reijn-1235987888/)
- **The i Paper**, Christina Newland (80/100, inferred): Babygirl offers a subversive, sexy depiction of the messy and contradictory reality of female desire, flipping expected power dynamics in a BDSM affair. It is a fantastic, complex portrait that celebrates pure sexual enjoyment without neat feminist explanations. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/sex-feminist-babygirl-finally-3467126)
- **Time Out**, Phil de Semlyen (4/5): The film is a deliciously barbed yet wise and hopeful investigation of female sexual desire and power dynamics, succeeding with magnificent performances from Kidman and Dickinson that make the erotic elements fresh and committed. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/babygirl-review-2024)
- **Slant Magazine** (75/100, inferred): It is a true comedy of remarriage in spirit that puts the 'screw' in screwball, with honesty as the bedrock of carnal connection. The review singles out the mutual rule-making and embodied performances that synthesize contradictory roles without compartmentalizing them. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-harris-dickinson/)
- **IndieWire**, Ryan Lattanzio: Kidman is all raw nerve in a sexy provocation that makes no moral judgments and instead celebrates sex for what it is and can be. The review highlights the kinky, sex-positive S&M dramedy elements centered on debasement and desire. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-1235041886/)
- **Radio Times** (★★★★☆): It is a slick, professional piece of work that gets people talking, arguing and flirting about desire and consent, with strong turns from Kidman and Dickinson, though it stops short of fully exploring psychological extremes. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/app/babygirl-review-a-film-to-get-people-talking-arguing-and-flirting/)
- **Screen Daily**: The erotic drama works better in the bedroom than the boardroom, with excellent chemistry and performances from Kidman and Dickinson, but its larger ideas about workplace sexism and sexual shame do not burn as hot. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/babygirl-venice-review/5196697.article)
- **Sight and Sound**: The critic praises the film's witty exploration of female desire and subversive avoidance of moral punishment for the protagonist's kinks, highlighting the strong chemistry between leads and Kidman's committed performance. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/babygirl-nicole-kidman-harris-dickinson-sizzle-sly-playful-erotic-drama)
- **The Guardian**: Reijn’s film about a company executive’s carnal adventure with her intern is expertly done but suspect at its core, despite Kidman’s bold performance. It has useful things to say about inter-office dynamics and sexual desire but delivers them with clipped, perky professionalism and machine-tooled thrills. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/30/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-overwhelmed-by-lust-as-ceo-having-torrid-and-toxic-affair)
- **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (Critic's Pick): The critic praises Kidman's fearless performance in this erotic drama about a CEO's transgressive affair, highlighting its honest take on women's desires in a controlled corporate world. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-venice-film-festival-1236124700/)
- **The Playlist**, Rafa Sales Ross (A-): The film sizzles as a feminist rereading of the erotic thriller, with Kidman and Dickinson delivering brilliant, charged performances that explore desire, consent and generational dynamics without moral judgment. Reijn crafts some of the hottest sex scenes in recent major cinema while satirizing political correctness. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-harris-dickinson-sizzle-in-halina-reijns-erotic-drama-venice-20240830/)
- **Deadline**, Damon Wise (80/100, inferred): The review praises Kidman’s dedicated and vulnerable performance in this sexually charged story. Reijn creates an extraordinary atmosphere with frank exploration of female desire and power dynamics. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/08/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-movie-1236074089/)
- **/Film**, BJ Colangelo (8/10): An intelligent erotic exploration where Kidman is in complete control, delivering a vulnerable yet feral performance that highlights the pleasure of relinquishing power on her own terms. The film avoids formulaic traps of past erotic thrillers through its cerebral take on self-expression and fulfillment. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1720099/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-a24/)
- **Film Stories**, James Harvey (80/100, inferred): The critic finds it a very smart film uninterested in easy answers, using its central dynamic to explore power and sexual politics with confidence. Kidman and Dickinson deliver standout performances in a funny, entertaining take on thorny issues, despite some pacing problems in the second act. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/babygirl-review-hot-under-the-white-collar/)
- **NME**, Nick Levine (4/5): The critic finds the film a funny, fascinating erotic thriller with sharp, slippery writing that explores power dynamics more cleverly than Fifty Shades of Grey. Kidman and Dickinson deliver terrific, brave performances in a mix of audacious setpieces and provocative moments. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/film-reviews/babygirl-review-nicole-kidman-sex-50-shades-3827207)
- **The Skinny**, Anahit Behrooz (4/5): The critic calls the film audacious, sexy and deliciously smart, one of the most welcome recent entries in the erotic thriller canon. It excels at tangling power hierarchies and showing that desire and transgression go hand in hand. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/babygirl)
- **Eye for Film**, Andrew Robertson (75/100, inferred): Reijn's film is rewarding because it challenges its subjects and audience with a graphic, aware exploration of unmet needs and power imbalances. It balances strong performances and precise details with occasional hesitation around its sex-positive themes. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/babygirl-2024-film-review-by-andrew-robertson)
- **The Wrap** (65/100, inferred): The critic finds “Babygirl” a surprisingly genteel and safe take on kink, more commercial dom-com than edgy thriller. Kidman’s performance stands out for its vulnerability and control. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/babygirl-nicole-kidman-review/)
- **Collider**, Martin Tsai (3/10): The critic finds the film a noxious and superficial portrait of power struggles in an inappropriate relationship that fails to deliver nuance or humanity, exploiting Nicole Kidman more than expected and lacking the depth of comparable works by Catherine Breillat. [Read](https://collider.com/babygirl-movie-review/)
- **Paste**, Jesse Hassenger (5.8): The critic praises Nicole Kidman's fearless and technically skilled performance as a high-powered CEO exploring submissive desires, highlighting strong early scenes depicting sexual incompatibilities in her marriage. However, the film is criticized as ultimately basic and melodramatic, more interested in instruction and reassurance than in genuinely provocative exploration of kinks. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/nicole-kidman/babygirl-movie-review-2024-nicole-kidman-harris-dickinson)

## Details

- **Director:** Halina Reijn
- **Director:** Halina Reijn
- **Writer:** Halina Reijn
- **Cinematography:** Jasper Wolf
- **Editor:** Matthew Hannam
- **Music:** Cristóbal Tapia de Veer
- **Production design:** Stephen H. Carter
- **Costume design:** Bart Mueller, Kurt Swanson
- **Producer:** David Hinojosa, Halina Reijn, Julia Oh
- **Cast:** Nicole Kidman as Romy; Harris Dickinson as Samuel; Antonio Banderas as Jacob; Esther-Rose McGregor as Isabel; Sophie Wilde as Esme; Vaughan Reilly as Nora; Victor Slezak as Mr. Missel; Leslie Silva as Hazel
- **Runtime:** 1h 55m
- **First release (Italy):** 30 August 2024
- **Genres:** Romance, Thriller
- **Budget:** $20 million
- **Box office:** $61 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XXoNB0lVGo

## Where to watch in the Philippines

Not streaming, renting or buying in the Philippines at the last check.

Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IN, IT, JP, KR, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Golden Globes 2025: Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Secretary* (2002): The office kink film Reijn is answering, sweeter and stranger than its reputation.
- *The Piano Teacher* (2001), Fi1m 82: Haneke and Huppert on the same subject with none of the reassurance. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-piano-teacher.md)
- *Belle de Jour* (1967), Fi1m 86: Buñuel’s bored wife takes afternoons off; still the model for the double life. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/belle-de-jour.md)
- *Eyes Wide Shut* (1999), Fi1m 81: Kidman’s other marriage in trouble, slower, colder and far less willing to comfort. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/eyes-wide-shut.md)
- *Sanctuary* (2022): Two people, one hotel room, a contract about who is in charge; funnier than it sounds.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/babygirl