The Housemaid (2025 film)

The Housemaid is a 2025 American erotic psychological thriller film co-produced and directed by Paul Feig from a screenplay by Rebecca Sonnenshine,^[5][6][7] based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Freida McFadden. The film stars Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Michele Morrone, and Elizabeth Perkins. Its plot follows a young woman with a troubled past (Sweeney) who becomes the live-in housekeeper for a wealthy family (Seyfried and Sklenar). Their seemingly perfect life unravels when she discovers their 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, 2025. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised Feig's direction and the performances of the cast (particularly Seyfried), as well as the film's plot twists and sense of fun.

Shortly after being released from prison for manslaughter, Millie Calloway becomes a live-in maid at the home of the wealthy Winchester family in Great Neck, Long Island after lying on her résumé. Her room is an attic room with a window that does not open, and locks from the outside. Nina Winchester, the mother and wife of the family, shows signs of mental illness. Millie learns from neighbors that Nina tried to end her own life by overdose, and her daughter Cecelia's life by drowning her, when Cecelia was a toddler.

Nina asks Millie to arrange a weekend in the city for Nina and her husband Andrew to see a Broadway play. Millie makes the arrangements, only for Nina to claim she did not ask her to do that. Nina is not free that weekend and the tickets are non-refundable, so Millie and Andrew secretly agree to go together. After enjoying the play, Millie realizes she has missed many angry texts from Nina. She goes into Andrew's room to show him the texts, and they end up sleeping together and spending the night together. When they return home, Nina finds a Playbill from the Broadway show, leading to a fight where Andrew asks Nina to leave. She does, and Andrew and Millie start living together as a couple.

It turns out that Nina is happy to be leaving, and explains in a letter to Cecelia what happened. Early into their relationship, after a fight over her not getting her hair colored as she had agreed to, Andrew tricked her into going into the attic storage room (which would later become Millie's bedroom) and then locked the door from the outside. Keeping her captive, Andrew demanded that, before he let her free, Nina pull one hundred strands of hair out of her scalp with the roots still attached. She was then left in the room with only three small bottles of water. When she finally did pull the hairs out, Andrew made her do it again, alleging one did not have the root attached. Andrew finally lets her go, bringing her a small, drugged bottle of water she drinks quickly before running to see Cecilia. Nina then passes out, and it is revealed that Andrew staged it to look like Nina tried to drown her daughter and then tried to kill herself by overdosing. Nina had to go to a mental health facility for treatment and was not allowed to leave until she falsely confessed. Nina had intentionally hired Millie knowing that Andrew would become attracted to her and leave Nina for her, and believed that Millie's prior manslaughter conviction meant she would be capable of protecting herself against him.

Back in the present, Millie is preparing breakfast when she accidentally breaks the china set she was using. Andrew reassures her that it is okay, and she cleans up the mess and puts all the broken china in a plastic bag. Andrew later locks Millie inside her room, telling her that she is being punished for not washing the broken china. He tells her she has to cut herself twenty one times, the same number of pieces the china was broken into, before she can be let out. After she does, Andrew comes in to let her out, but Millie stabs him in the neck. After a struggle, she locks him in the room before forcing him to rip out one of his teeth.

Meanwhile, Nina is preparing to leave for good, but goes back to the house to rescue Millie because of Cecelia's suggestion. Seeing a light on in the attic room and assuming that Millie is locked inside, she unlocks the door; Andrew attacks her and Millie, but Millie seems to escape. Andrew decides to kill Nina after she refuses to come back to him, but Millie appears and manages to push him over the edge of a spiral staircase, which kills him. Nina unscrews a lightbulb and drops it on him to make it look like an accident while changing a lightbulb.

Investigating the incident, policewoman Jessica Connors notices inconsistencies in Nina's story, but as the sister of Andrew's first fiancée, she chooses not to investigate any further. Millie later attends another housemaid interview. The woman interviewing her says she was recommended to her by Nina, and timidly plays with a knife set, revealing a bruise.

• Sydney Sweeney as Millie Calloway, a housemaid with a criminal record
• Amanda Seyfried as Nina Winchester, a wealthy woman who hires Millie
• Brandon Sklenar as Andrew Winchester, Nina's husband
• Michele Morrone as Enzo, an Italian groundskeeper
• Elizabeth Perkins as Evelyn Winchester, Andrew's mother^[8]
• Indiana Elle as Cecelia Winchester, Nina and Andrew's daughter
• Mark Grossman as Scott Crawford, Millie's first boyfriend
• Hannah Cruz as Lexi, Millie's friend
• Megan Ferguson as Jilianne
• Ellen Tamaki as Patrice
• Alexandra Seal as Jessica Connors, a policewoman
• Don DiPetta as Officer Jenkins
• Brian D. Cohen as Det. Smythe
• Lamar Baucom-Slaughter as Officer Stanley

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.^[9][10] Brandon Sklenar joined the cast that month, followed by Michele Morrone in December 2024.^[10][11] Elizabeth Perkins was also cast in the film.^[8]

Principal photography began on January 3, 2025, in New Jersey^[12][13] and wrapped in March 2025.^[14]

Theodore Shapiro composed the film's score, marking his eighth collaboration with Feig.^[15]

The Housemaid was released in the United States on December 19, 2025.^[8]

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.^[2] 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.^[16]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of 126 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."^[17] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[18] 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.^[16]

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."^[19] 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."^[6]

• The Housemaid at IMDb