Entertainment
5 Steamy Thrillers To Watch if You Love ‘The Housemaid’
There’s a case to be made for Paul Feig‘s The Housemaid being the biggest box-office surprise of 2025. Released just before Christmas as an alternative to Avatar: Fire and Ash (which, notably, underperformed relative to expectations), the erotic psychological thriller proved to be a monumental sleeper hit, grossing just shy of $400 million against a $35 million budget.
Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar star in the picture based on Freida McFadden‘s book about a pretty young ex-con who takes a job as a live-in house cleaner for a yuppie New York family harboring wild, dark secrets. Now available on digital platforms as well as a Blu-ray packed with bonus features including two commentary tracks and deleted scenes, The Housemaid is fairly ridiculous, especially in its final act, but it’s propped up by its impossibly attractive leading cast and a ripper of a performance from Seyfried. Its runaway, attention-grabbing success makes one wonder if, perhaps, the steamy thriller subgenre might be making a comeback. The following erotic thrillers, aimed squarely at adult audiences, are likely to appeal to you if you’re among those who’ve made The Housemaid such an astonishing financial success.
‘Wild Things’ (1998)
Director John McNaughton has received critical praise and controversy in about equal measure throughout his career, originally and most famously regarding his 1986 chiller Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a groundbreaking picture about what kinds of minds and social connections could be behind murder. It’s a brilliant, disturbing look at a topic that’s usually dumbed down and glossy in fiction. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was in a much-publicized push-pull with the MPAA before eventually getting released in multiple cuts.
Wild Things is similarly infamous, one of the most sexually explicit proper Hollywood movies of its era. Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell and Denise Richards are all terrific in a darkly funny noir thriller about an uncomfortably hot Florida guidance counselor who’s accused of rape by two of his students, one who lives in a trailer park and one of whom is local yuppie royalty. Nothing is as it seems, and where The Housemaid hinges on one major plot twist, Wild Things is defined by too many to count. Bill Murray is hilarious here as a skeezy lawyer who’s never without his prop neck brace. This subject matter, especially involving high school students, is undeniably edgy even by today’s standards—on paper, it may seem outright tasteless—but Wild Things is a shrewd, character-focused balancing act that’s designed purely to surprise and entertain, succeeding handsomely.
‘Cruel Intentions’ (1999)
The classic French novel Dangerous Liaisons has served as the basis for many memorable adaptations (most recently, an international series on HBO Max mere months ago), but the most ubiquitous throughout pop culture at this point is likely this teen romance starring a who’s who of young Hollywood at the dawn of the new millennium. Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair headline a drama about horny, bored rich New York teens who plan seductions and conquests to entertain themselves.
Cruel Intentions is darkly comedic navel-gazing, but it works surprisingly well thanks to excellent performances all around, and an unusual, appealing mixture of cynicism and earnestness that can’t be bottled. This bona fide cult classic has received numerous direct-to-video sequels and a TV reboot. All of these failed miserably to capture the alchemy that’s made Cruel Intentions endure, so it’s best if the follow-ups stop. Just stop.
‘Color of Night’ (1994)
I’m about to recommend a terrible movie to you. The erotic thriller subgenre reached its absolute zenith in popularity and exposure in the early ’90s, and many of these movies were terrible. Psycho slasher Color of Night is terrible in a way that’s fascinating, a trainwreck that’s come to be embraced by audiences. Bruce Willis stars as a psychologist, traumatized following a client’s suicide, who starts attending a group therapy where bodies begin piling up.
Color of Night received a lot of controversy, and an NC-17 rating, due to extensive nude scenes between Willis and co-star Jane March. It’s a riotously inaccurate depiction of mental health struggles and treatment, and the big twist is so obvious it’s quite literally in front of your eyes the entire running time. Roger Ebert summed it up pretty perfectly in saying the film approaches badness from so many directions that one really must admire its imagination.” There’s never a dull moment. It’s like Agatha Christie by way of softcore, shot like an Italian giallo. It’s an experience.
‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)
Eyes Wide Shut and The Housemaid are alike in some ways, and couldn’t be more different in others. They’re both high-profile, uncommonly sex-driven studio films featuring A-list cast members. But where The Housemaid is content to be pulpy, frothy and ultimately rather mindless fun, Eyes Wide Shut is the magnum opus of a master, and designed to stay in your head forever.
With a production period of around 400 days, Eyes Wide Shut still holds the record for longest film shoot in history. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman star in Stanley Kubrick‘s final film, about a rich New York doctor struggling in marriage who goes down a rabbit hole of elitist depravity one Christmas season night. Eyes Wide shut is so slow-paced that many are likely to dismiss it as boring, but it’s an extraordinary, oddly terrifying slow-burn that’s more relevant than ever now that society at large has been made aware of just how abhorrent the sex practices of the hyper-rich can be in reality.
‘Dressed to Kill’ (1980)
An overt student of Hitchcock and a New Hollywood innovator in his own right, Brian De Palma is one of the undisputed masters of the erotic thriller genre. Though other films like Body Double and Femme Fatale are definitely worth checking out as well, the De Palma film that’s most in line with The Housemaid is 1980’s Dressed to Kill, a slasher mystery with wall-to-wall Hitchcock references, most notably Psycho with plenty of Vertigo accents.
Angie Dickinson stars as a bored and sexually frustrated housewife who vents about her displeasure to a psychotherapist played by Michael Caine. Nancy Allen co-stars as a call girl who’s the prime suspect in a murder she didn’t commit. Dressed to Kill is visually arresting in the way that the best Brian De Palma outfits are, with a beautiful Pino Donaggio score that evokes Bernard Herrmann. It’s politically incorrect or whatever by today’s standards, but in a fun way. This isn’t a De Palma masterpiece like Carrie, Scarface, or The Untouchables, but it’s a twisted pleasure that holds up nearly half a century later.
‘The Housemaid’ is now available on digital platforms, and hits Blu-ray March 17.
The Housemaid
- Release Date
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December 19, 2025
- Runtime
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131 Minutes
- Director
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Paul Feig
- Writers
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Rebecca Sonnenshine, Freida McFadden
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