The Housemaid (2025 film)

2025 film by Paul Feig

8 min read

The Housemaid is a 2025 American erotic psychological thriller film directed by Paul Feig. It is based on the 2022 novel by Freida McFadden, and stars Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, and Brandon Sklenar. In the film, Millie Calloway, a young woman with a troubled past, becomes the live-in maid for a wealthy family whose household hides dark secrets.

The Housemaid premiered at the Axa Equitable Center in New York City on December 2, 2025, and was released in the United States by Lionsgate on December 19. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $385 million on a budget of $35 million. A sequel is in development, with Feig and Sweeney set to return.

Plot

On parole for manslaughter, Millie Calloway is hired by Nina Winchester as a live-in maid. She joins Nina's wealthy husband Andrew and daughter Cece at their home in Great Neck, Long Island and is given an attic bedroom that can be locked from the outside. Millie is desperate to keep her job as a term of her parole. She learns that in the past, Nina was institutionalized for trying to drown Cece and for attempting suicide by overdose.

At Nina's behest, Millie books Broadway musical tickets and a hotel for the Winchesters; however, Nina then denies having given her these instructions. While Nina takes Cece to ballet camp, Andrew and Millie secretly attend the show, enjoy dinner together, and check into the hotel. Receiving a flood of angry texts from Nina, Millie is comforted by Andrew. The two have sex. They return home, and Millie realizes Nina knows she spent ten years in prison for killing a rapist classmate in high school.

Nina finds the musical's playbill and threatens Millie, but Andrew defends her and demands that Nina leave. Andrew and Millie continue their romance. Millie decides to serve Andrew breakfast in an heirloom china plate from his mother, but the presence of Enzo, the groundskeeper, outside the door frightens her and causes her to drop and break the plate. Andrew fires Enzo and tells Millie to pick up the pieces and give them to him. That night, Andrew asks why she did not wash the broken pieces of the plate; Millie states that she did not want to cut herself. He later brings Millie to the attic room, gets her drunk, and locks her inside.

Nina picks up Cece from camp and explains the truth about her marriage in a letter to her daughter. She fell for Andrew while raising Cece as a young single mother. Early in their marriage, he revealed himself to be horrifically controlling. Andrew requested Nina to dye her brunette locks blonde. When she forgot to do so, he locked her in the attic room until she pulled out one hundred hairs from her scalp; he forced her to do it again after claiming that one strand was missing a follicle. He then drugged her, framed her for attempting to kill Cece and herself, and continued to torment her with confinement in the psychiatric hospital and the attic. When Nina told the truth about her situation, no one except Enzo believed her. Determined to escape Andrew's abuse, Nina hired Millie. She accurately predicted that Andrew would leave her for Millie and believed that Millie could protect herself.

As punishment for breaking the china, Andrew gives Millie a shard and demands that she cut her stomach once for each of the twenty-one pieces of the plate. After doing so, Millie stabs him with a cheese knife hidden for her by Nina and locks him in the attic room. Ordering him to pull out one of his front teeth with pliers, Millie forces him to comply by threatening to set fire to the attic. When Cece suggests that Nina save Millie, Nina sneaks into the house and unlocks the attic door, believing that Millie is still inside. Andrew attacks Millie and Nina, but Millie seemingly escapes. Andrew then attempts to resume his relationship with Nina. Nina says she would rather die than spend another day with him. Andrew attacks Nina, saying that it would be his pleasure to kill her. Millie reappears and pushes Andrew off the staircase to his death. Nina drops a lightbulb, hoping to make it appear that Andrew fell while attempting to install the lightbulb in the chandelier.

A policewoman notices that the evidence casts doubt on Nina's explanation for Andrew's death. The policewoman mentions that her sister was once engaged to Andrew. Strongly implying that she is aware of Andrew’s true nature, she rules his death an accident. After Andrew's funeral (where he is eulogized as a pillar of the community), Nina gives Millie a $100,000 check before leaving with Cece to start a new life. Nina recommends Millie's services to a friend. The friend implies that her husband is abusive. Millie asks when she can start.

Cast

Production

The film is directed by Paul Feig and produced by Feig, Todd Lieberman, and Laura Fischer for Hidden Pictures. Sonnenshine's screenplay is based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Freida McFadden. In October 2024, Sweeney and Seyfried joined as leading actresses and executive producers alongside McFadden and Alex Young. Seyfried was not aware she was credited as an executive producer until three weeks into production; she claimed that this credit was a “vanity credit” negotiated by her agent and stated that she “didn’t do shit to make that movie”. Brandon Sklenar joined the cast that month, followed by Michele Morrone in December 2024. Elizabeth Perkins was also cast in the film.

Filming

Principal photography began on January 3, 2025, in New Jersey and wrapped in March 2025.

Music

Theodore Shapiro composed the film's score, marking his eighth collaboration with Feig.

Release and reception

The Housemaid premiered at the Axa Equitable Center on December 2, 2025, and was released in the United States on December 19, 2025.

Home media

The film was released on VOD on February 3, 2026, and will be released on DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray on March 17, 2026.

Box office

As of February 24, 2026, The Housemaid has grossed $126.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $259.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $385.3 million.

In the United States and Canada, The Housemaid was released alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, and David, and was projected to gross $20–25 million from 3,015 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $8 million on its first day, including $2.3 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $19 million, finishing in third behind Fire and Ash and David. It held well in its second weekend, dropping just 19.5% to $15.3 million and finishing in fourth. The film made $15.1 million, $10.1 million, and $8.5 million in its third, fourth, and fifth weekends.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of 197 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "A sly throwback to the lurid thrillers that used to dominate multiplexes, The Housemaid cleans up nicely thanks to its wicked sense of fun and a delightfully unnerving performance from Amanda Seyfried." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an 84% overall positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend the film.

TheWrap's William Bibbiani gave the film a positive review and wrote, "The Housemaid has its twists, and you'll probably see some of them coming a mile off, even if you don't know exactly how the secrets will be revealed or what form the danger will take. On more than one occasion, the twist is that The Housemaid is even weirder and funnier than you expect — and that's a welcome surprise." Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph gave a four stars rating out of five for the film, stating, "This is a full-tilt throwback to "erotic thriller" tropes from the 1990s." Kyle Smith of The Wall Street Journal wrote, "The Housemaid is a delightful hall of mirrors in which reality turns out to be subject to infinite modification." Marta Medina del Valle of El Confidencial rated the "post-postmodern artifact" 4 out of 5 stars, declaring it the "best worst movie" of recent times.

In a negative review for Slant Magazine, Anzhe Zhang wrote, "The Housemaid's twist is a doozy, but it falls just short of being a deconstruction of tradwife values."

Accolades

Sequel

In January 2026, Lionsgate announced that a sequel had been greenlit, with Feig, Sweeney and Morrone returning. The sequel is set to be an adaptation of The Housemaid's Secret, the second book in The Housemaid series by Freida McFadden.