Babygirl

Premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2024, where Nicole Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, Babygirl opened in Italian theaters on January 30, 2025 through Eagle Pictures, following A24's American holiday season release. Written and directed by Halina Reijn, the Dutch filmmaker previously behind Bodies Bodies Bodies, the film follows Romy Mathis, a tech company CEO played by Kidman, who begins a clandestine, unbalanced affair with Samuel, a young intern played by Harris Dickinson, in a game of dominance and submission that upends every professional power hierarchy. Antonio Banderas plays her husband and Sophie Wilde rounds out the cast.

Critics were split on the film's tone, some praised Reijn for the clarity with which she confronts mature female desire and the shame that so often accompanies it, others found the film more cautious than its premise promised. What remains beyond dispute is Kidman's performance, rendering with surgical precision the vulnerability of a woman chasing a need she can never openly name. The film grossed over 63 million dollars worldwide, a striking result for a low budget independent production, and pulled the erotic thriller back into the awards conversation, earning Kidman a Golden Globe nomination.

With its cool, wintry New York cinematography and Cristobal Tapia de Veer's hypnotic score, Babygirl proves mainstream cinema can still explore female desire without sanitizing or condemning it.