---
title: "Euphoria"
year: 2019
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/euphoria"
fi1m_score: 65
critics_score: 74
critics_reviews: 8
published: "2026-09-17T18:43:51.756941+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T18:44:17.407236+00:00"
region: "US"
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."
---

# Euphoria (2019)

Created by Sam Levinson · MPA TV-MA · Drama

**Fi1m score: 65** · Critics 74 from 8 reviews

*In a sentence:* Every teenager in America is beautiful, high and lit like a perfume advert

> Sam Levinson’s series about a suburban American high school looks like nothing else on television, and Zendaya’s Rue, a seventeen-year-old addict just out of rehab, is the real thing. Around her, the show keeps mistaking shock for insight.

## Synopsis

Rue Bennett (Zendaya) is seventeen and home from rehab after an overdose, back at her suburban American high school with no intention of staying clean. Her mother has a drug test waiting; her friend Lexi Howard (Maude Apatow) supplies the clean urine. Her dealer Fezco O’Neill (Angus Cloud) sells to her anyway, with a child called Ashtray (Javon Walton) minding the till. At a house party on her first night back, quarterback Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) and his girlfriend Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie) stage a public fight, Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) arrives with Christopher McKay (Algee Smith), Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira) decides tonight is the night, and Rue meets Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), new in town.

## Review

Rue Bennett (Zendaya) is seventeen, back from rehab after an overdose, and has no intention of staying clean. She tells us so in the first minutes, in a voice so flat you could set a glass on it. Sam Levinson created the series and wrote and directed most of it, with Augustine Frizzell, Pippa Bianco and Jennifer Morrison taking episodes; Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin share the writing credit. It began on 16 June 2019 and now runs to three seasons of eight episodes each. It is the first eight we keep coming back to, and the first eight we are judging here.

Nothing else on television looks like it. Marcell Rév, one of five credited cinematographers, lights a house party in violets and pinks, puts glitter under every eye and sends the camera on long gliding walks through rooms full of people who do not know where to put their hands. A school corridor is lit like a nightclub, a bathroom like a chapel. Heidi Bivens’s costumes do half the character work, Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie) in sheer two-pieces, Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer) in colours nobody else in the building would risk. Labrinth’s music does the other half, choirs and synthesiser swelling under scenes that would be small without it. Jason Baldwin Stewart and the design team give every family a house as clean as a showroom.

Zendaya holds it together. The scenes that count are the small ones at home, a drug test waiting on the bathroom counter, an argument in a kitchen, and she plays them without a trace of the pop star she was before this. What got at us was simpler than any of the set pieces. Rue explains, in narration, that she did not take the pills to die; she took them because for a moment everything went quiet. She says it as a fact, not a plea, and it is the most honest line in the series. We believed her and we were frightened for her, which is more than most television about addiction manages.

Around her the cast is stronger than the writing. Schafer’s Jules is the one person Rue looks at rather than through, and their scenes lying on a bed talking about nothing are the best in the show. Angus Cloud’s Fezco O’Neill, a dealer who worries about his customer, has a slow, mumbled decency no script could have invented. Javon Walton’s Ashtray is a child who deals drugs with the manner of a shopkeeper. Jacob Elordi plays Nate Jacobs, the quarterback, as something coiled, and Eric Dane as his father Cal Jacobs makes clear where the coil came from. Demie is the funniest thing in it and knows it.

Then there is the telling. Every episode opens with Rue reading us a biography of one character, childhood to present, so that by the time they speak we already know what they mean. Levinson does not trust a face to do the work; he reads us the notes. The locker-room nudity, the phone screens and the dozens of bodies at the party are there to prove the show is unflinching, and it has proved it by the third episode and keeps proving it for five more. Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira) gets the strand that most wants credit for honesty and least earns it, and Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney) is written as the girl things happen to. Eight editors are credited, and some episodes drift while others race.

Teenage television has been here before, and the good versions understood that the audience was the age of the characters. This one is not for them; the 18 certificate is not a formality. It is for adults who want to be alarmed, and it gives them what they want with a skill that sometimes tips into salesmanship. We were exhausted by the sixth episode and, once or twice, angry at being exhausted. Then Rue and Jules would cycle home in the dark, Rév’s camera hanging back, Labrinth quiet for once, and we forgave it.

Watch the first episode alone, at night, without your phone. If it has not got to you by the party, the other seven will not either.

*Fi1m score 65, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Euphoria, and nearly all of them like it for the same reason: Zendaya. Her performance as Rue, a teenager in the grip of addiction, is singled out in every review, with several calling it revelatory or haunting, and Hunter Schafer draws praise alongside her. The look of the thing is the other point of agreement; critics find the hazy, drug-trip style intoxicating and think Levinson uses it to show what the characters are hiding rather than to decorate. Several credit the series with handling sex, drugs and trauma candidly rather than merely graphically.

The reservations cluster around whether the darkness is earned. Vulture finds the bleakness and nudity gratuitous and not always justified, IndieWire calls the relentlessness exhausting to the point of dulling the warning, and The Ringer thinks the show cannot decide whether it takes its teenagers seriously or sensationalises them. Others note uneven pacing and a chaotic opening. The spread is fairly wide, from enthusiastic to lukewarm, though nobody dismisses it outright.

### Reviews we read (8)

- **The Guardian** (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it one of the year's best new shows, praising its daring yet sensitive handling of teen issues like addiction, sexuality and trauma. They single out the intoxicating visual style, strong performances (especially Zendaya) and Levinson's direction for balancing graphic content with substance. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/14/euphoria-review-hbo-zendaya-drake)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Tim Goodman (85/100, inferred): The show unflinchingly portrays the harsh realities of teen life involving drugs, sex, and social media in a raw and accurate way. Zendaya delivers a revelatory performance as the drug-addicted Rue, supported by strong work from the cast and creator Sam Levinson. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/euphoria-review-1215681/)
- **Variety**, Caroline Framke (80/100, inferred): The series starts chaotically but gains focus and confidence, using the haze of drug trips effectively to reveal characters' facades. It offers a bracing, candid look at troubled teens with strong performances, particularly from Zendaya as the addict Rue. [Read](https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/euphoria-hbo-review-zendaya-1203235780/)
- **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (B-): The series is unrelenting in its depiction of dangerous teen behavior, resulting in an exhausting experience that dulls its impact as a warning. It features a haunting central performance from Zendaya but struggles to balance its collective darkness with any relief or humor. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/2019/06/euphoria-hbo-review-zendaya-series-1202146636/)
- **Vulture**, Matt Zoller Seitz (55/100, inferred): The show succeeds at building suspense and capturing a hazy, explicit vibe of Gen Z adolescence through strong performances, especially Zendaya as Rue, but feels gratuitous in its bleakness, nudity, and content without always justifying it. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/euphoria-hbo-review.html)
- **Den of Geek**, Patrick Sproull (80/100, inferred): Euphoria is a fantastic, character-driven series with authentic portrayals of teen trauma, addiction, and relationships, anchored by Zendaya's raw, vulnerable lead performance and precise world-building. It occasionally stumbles with uneven pacing but remains compelling and insightful. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/euphoria-review-a-gripping-binge-worthy-us-drama/)
- **Collider**, Haleigh Foutch (B-): The review finds Euphoria a provocative but uneven series that excels in visual style and some character insights while leaning too heavily on sensationalism and shock. It singles out Zendaya's strong work in family scenes and the show's unflinching take on addiction and recovery. [Read](https://collider.com/euphoria-review-zendaya/)
- **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (65/100, inferred): The show is an ode to teen sex and drug use that both fetishizes and seriously explores its subjects, while serving as a prime example of HBO’s effort to expand its audience. It features strong performances from Zendaya and Hunter Schafer but struggles with inconsistency between taking teens seriously and sensationalizing them. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2019/06/14/tv/euphoria-review-drugs-sex-hbo)

## Details

- **Created by:** Sam Levinson
- **Creator:** Sam Levinson
- **Director:** Sam Levinson, Jennifer Morrison, Augustine Frizzell, Pippa Bianco
- **Writer:** Sam Levinson, Ron Leshem, Daphna Levin
- **Teleplay:** Sam Levinson
- **Cinematography:** Marcell Rév, Drew Daniels, Adam Newport-Berra, André Chemetoff, Rina Yang
- **Editor:** Julio Perez IV, Aaron I. Butler, Nikola Boyanov, Aleshka Ferrero, Laura Zempel, Harry Yoon, Darrin Navarro, Andy Cruz
- **Music:** Labrinth, Hans Zimmer, Gustave Rudman
- **Production design:** François Audouy, Jason Baldwin Stewart, Michael Grasley, Kay Lee
- **Costume design:** Heidi Bivens, Natasha Newman-Thomas
- **Producer:** Harrison Kreiss, Kenneth Yu, Amy Schmidt
- **Cast:** Zendaya as Rue Bennett; Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn; Sydney Sweeney as Cassie Howard; Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs; Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez; Angus Cloud as Fezco O'Neill; Barbie Ferreira as Kat Hernandez; Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard
- **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA
- **Release (the US):** 16 June 2019
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjcfL8fbs7k

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming, uhd
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Apple TV: buy, sd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Skins* (2007), Fi1m 72: Bristol teenagers, cheaper and funnier, and written by people who remembered being one — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/skins.md)
- *Kids* (1995): Larry Clark’s New York day-in-the-life; the same shocks with no lighting budget at all
- *Christiane F.* (1981): West Berlin, heroin and a thirteen-year-old; the addiction story told without a single filter
- *My So-Called Life* (1994), Fi1m 87: Angela Chase narrates her adolescence too, and nobody needed to take their clothes off — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/my-so-called-life.md)
- *We Are Who We Are* (2020): Guadagnino’s army-base teenagers, drifting and dressed up, with the drama turned down

---
© 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/tv/euphoria