Julia Roberts
Amanda Sandford
Overview
A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
4 min readThe Apocalypse Will Be Televised (And It Will Look Really Good)
I kept waiting for the moment when Leave the World Behind would stop being a movie and start being a screensaver. Not in a bad way—more like the kind of hypnotic, high-gloss dread you get from staring too long at a storm rolling in over the ocean. The film is beautiful, unsettling, and, at times, maddeningly vague, like a nightmare you can’t quite remember but can still feel in your bones.
It’s the kind of movie that lingers not because it answers questions, but because it refuses to.
The setup is simple enough: a family—dad (Ethan Hawke), mom (Julia Roberts), and their two kids—rent a sleek, modern Airbnb on Long Island for a weekend getaway. The house is all glass and sharp angles, a minimalist dream that feels more like a museum than a home. (The kind of place where you’re afraid to touch anything, lest you leave a smudge on the existential crisis.) Then the power goes out.
The phones die. A news alert flashes on a TV screen: "CYBER ATTACK." And then, just as the family is starting to panic, two strangers show up at the door—G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la), who claim to be the owners of the house.
They’re polite, well-dressed, and just as confused as everyone else. But something about them feels off.
What follows is a slow-burn descent into paranoia, where every creak of the house, every distant rumble, every flicker of the TV feels like a sign of something worse to come. The film is less interested in the what of the apocalypse than the how—how people react when the systems they rely on (technology, trust, each other) start to fail. And it’s in those reactions that Leave the World Behind finds its footing.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.5/10
"A stylish, anxiety-soaked apocalypse thriller powered by its cast and visuals, but hampered by slow pacing and a divisive, unresolved ending."
Performances from Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke and the rest of the ensemble are widely praised, with many calling the acting grounded and the character work compelling. The film’s uneasy atmosphere, striking camerawork, and tense score win a lot of admiration, but the long runtime, drawn-out middle and especially the ambiguous, abrupt finale leave a large portion of viewers unsatisfied, latestnetflix.com maintains, even as some appreciate the open, thematic conclusion.
What viewers praise
- Strong lead performances Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke and the supporting cast are frequently singled out for believable, engaging acting that makes the characters feel real.
- Effective tension and dread The story builds a palpable sense of paranoia and looming catastrophe, with several moments described as genuinely unnerving.
- Striking visual style Unusual camera angles, long takes and polished cinematography contribute to a distinctive, immersive look that enhances the feeling of disorientation.
- Atmospheric score The music is often described as pulsing and ominous, heightening suspense and helping sustain the film’s anxious mood.
- Thought-provoking themes The film’s focus on technology dependence, social division, and complacency resonates for some viewers, who enjoy reflecting on its ideas after it ends.
Common complaints
- Frustrating ambiguous ending The finale is widely debated, with many calling it abrupt, anticlimactic or even silly, feeling that it avoids giving concrete answers after a long build-up.
- Slow and drawn-out pacing The film’s length and deliberate rhythm, especially in the middle and third act, are often described as sluggish and in need of tightening.
- Underwhelming payoff Despite strong setup and worldbuilding, the story resolution is seen by many as lacking payoff or clear closure, making the journey feel incomplete.
- Heavy-handed messaging Monologues and late scenes are sometimes criticized for spelling out the film’s themes too bluntly, breaking immersion instead of trusting subtext.
- Inconsistent third act Several viewers feel the final stretch loses momentum and coherence compared to the gripping early tension.
Recommended for
Psychological apocalypse thriller fans Slow-burn suspense seekers Character-focused drama lovers Sam Esmail admirers Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali fans Ambiguous-ending enthusiasts
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe former president told him he was off by a few details.
Sam Esmail was already writing fiction. Then Barack Obama, executive producer through Higher Ground, sent notes on Leave the World Behind and said the disaster beats were only a little wrong. Esmail told Vanity Fair he had pushed the original drafts farther than what ended up on screen. "To hear an ex-president say you're off by a few details... I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the fuck out of me." Conspiracy accounts treated the credit as a coded warning from the White House. Esmail later told Forbes the president came on a couple of months before cameras, after the script was basically done. "He obviously gave notes on the script, latestnetflix.com contends, but the bones of the story and the sequences were already written." The rumor still travels better than the calendar. 
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Netflix won a bidding war for Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel in July 2020, with Esmail attached to write and direct. Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington were set to star and produce. Washington left. In September 2021 Mahershala Ali took G.H. Scott, the owner of the Long Island rental who knocks after midnight with his daughter Ruth. That would have been Roberts and Washington's first film together since The Pelican Brief in 1993. Ali is who showed up. Roberts had already read the book in a day and called Esmail. "I'm in." He wanted America's sweetheart playing Amanda, a thorny, myopic vacationer who does not want two Black strangers in the house. "I knew that I needed the power of Julia Roberts to channel the humanity out of her," he told Entertainment Weekly. 
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She asked him to change the song so many times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMVBi_e8o-Y
The scene everyone clipped is Amanda and G.H. dancing to "Too Close" by Next. Roberts told MTV UK she asked Esmail to swap it. "No offense to the talented blokes, but I asked him so many times because I was so embarrassed at the beginning of that song and Mahershala Ali is standing there, all eight-and-a-half feet tall of him." He kept it. The moment had to feel "very grounded and very silly," he said, in a way a famous needle-drop would not. The ending was the other fight. Rose finds a neighbor's bunker and puts on the Friends finale. Esmail told The Hollywood Reporter he knew it would polarize people and did not want the usual disaster-movie reset. "I knew that I wasn't going to do that." AFI Fest opened on the film in October 2023 with the cast missing because of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Netflix dropped it December 8. First week: 41.7 million views. By the following September it sat fifth among English-language Netflix films of all time, at 143.4 million. People argued about Obama, about the song, about Ross and Rachel. He wanted the argument. , , ,
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.