Margot Robbie’s Epic 10/10 R-Rated Movie Loved by Letterboxd Returns to Streaming

Margot Robbie’s spectacular Hollywood fever dream is getting another shot at finding the audience that eluded it in theaters. Damien Chazelle’s R-rated Babylon returned to Hulu on September 8, 2026, according to Hulu’s official September schedule, giving subscribers another chance to revisit the three-hour epic starring Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, and Jovan Adepo.

That streaming comeback feels particularly apt for a movie whose reputation has shifted dramatically since its disastrous theatrical run. Babylon currently sits at just 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, but its Letterboxd footprint tells a more affectionate story: the platform lists roughly 42,000 fans, countless five-star ratings, and recent viewers still calling it “underrated.” 

One June 2026 review went considerably further, awarding it “10/10 maybe even more.” Robbie herself has long suspected time might be kinder to the film. Looking back at its reception in 2024, she admitted (via The Independent), “I still can’t figure out why people hated it,” and wondered whether audiences would eventually regard its initial failure with the same disbelief reserved for other films later reclaimed as classics.

Babylon Finds Another Life on Hulu

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Set during Hollywood’s violent transition from silent cinema to synchronized sound, Babylon follows several strivers being lifted up and spat back out by the movie business. Robbie plays volatile newcomer Nellie LaRoy, Pitt is fading silent-screen idol Jack Conrad, and Calva’s Manny Torres claws his way from menial work toward studio power. Hulu describes the film as a story of “decadence, depravity and outrageous excess” among ambitious dreamers in 1920s Hollywood.

The scale is enormous, and so was the financial risk. Paramount released the 189-minute film in December 2022 with a reported production budget around $78 million. It ultimately earned only $15.7 million domestically and about $65.3 million worldwide, making its theatrical run an unmistakable disappointment (via Box Office Mojo). Yet Chazelle never designed Babylon as a tidy valentine to filmmaking. He called it both a “hate letter and a love letter” to Hollywood, with the industry portrayed as intoxicating, cruel, absurd, and capable of consuming the very people who keep it alive (per Uproxx).

Robbie saw that contradiction firsthand. Describing the production, she said the chaos visible onscreen mirrored the shoot itself, calling it (via Vanity Fair) “the best experience of my life.” Her Nellie was principally informed by silent-film icon Clara Bow, though Chazelle drew pieces from several actresses of the period.

Why Letterboxd Loves What Rotten Tomatoes Resisted

Credit: Paramount Pictures

The Rotten Tomatoes divide begins with excess. Its 57% Tomatometer comes from 363 reviews, while the Popcornmeter is an equally divided 53%. The critical consensus praises the craftsmanship and performances but argues that the movie’s sheer “muchness” can become exhausting. Letterboxd’s cinephile-heavy community often responds to those same qualities in exactly the opposite way. Recent reviews praise Justin Hurwitz’s thunderous score, Linus Sandgren’s cinematography, the enormous set pieces, and Chazelle’s willingness to make a movie about cinema that behaves like an overcaffeinated piece of cinema itself.

One 2026 reviewer described seeing it on a giant screen as an entirely different experience, while another called its cinematography extraordinary despite criticizing the ending. Its divisive finale may be the clearest example. Chazelle ends with a dizzying montage spanning generations of filmmaking, which he described (via /Film) as being about cinema’s “death and rebirth” and its strange ability to keep surviving every supposedly fatal technological shift. That unabashed love of movies can feel self-indulgent to skeptics and exhilarating to people already fluent in film history.

That is why Babylon makes more sense as a cult object than a consensus crowd-pleaser. Rotten Tomatoes records how sharply it split reviewers; Letterboxd captures the viewers who embraced the mess, spectacle, music, melancholy, and mad devotion to cinema. Robbie wondered whether people would eventually ask how Babylon failed in the first place. Its Hulu return gives another wave of viewers a chance to decide whether that rehabilitation has already begun.

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