The Invite earned a standing ovation that left Wilde tearing up. I Want Your Sex is dragging Gen Z’s relationship with sex on screen into the comment section.
Sundance loves a “main character” weekend. Someone the festival can hand a microphone, a spotlight, and a debate that spreads faster than anyone’s actual film distribution deal.
This year’s version is Olivia Wilde, because she showed up with two different kinds of heat at once.
While the internet was still chewing on the marketing gravity of I Want Your Sex, Wilde was also getting the kind of reception you can’t screenshot: a standing ovation for The Invite.
The Standing Ovation Lane
Wilde’s The Invite premiered at Sundance on Jan. 24, and PEOPLE reported the audience response was strong enough to leave her wiping away tears onstage.
The setup is intimate and brutal. The film stays with two couples at a dinner party. Wilde and Seth Rogen host, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton play the visiting couple, and the night turns into a slow excavation of grievances, insecurities, and relationship bargaining that nobody wants to say out loud.
In the post-screening Q&A, Wilde framed the emotional whiplash as the point. She talked about laughter making people vulnerable, then the story “gut-punching” them.
This is the version of the Wilde narrative that plays best here. A “comeback” premiere. A room full of critics. A crowd reaction that reads like validation, especially after the Don’t Worry Darling years of noise.
The Discourse Lane. Same Person, Different Movie
Now flip the channel.
Wilde is also starring in Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex. It premiered the night before at Park City’s Eccles Theatre, and the vibe swing is the point.
Araki described the film as the story of a young college grad who lands a job assisting a controversial art provocateur named Erika Tracy, played by Wilde. Cooper Hoffman plays him. The relationship upends his life. Araki called the ride “fun,” “colorful,” and “sexy.”
Araki also explained how the project evolved post-#MeToo. He didn’t want a story where a woman gets dragged into a patriarchal dynamic, even if “consensual,” so he flipped the gender roles.
Then he stapled the movie to the most reliable gasoline in 2026: Gen Z panic. He said he’d been absorbing stories about Gen Z not having sex or relationships, and that became a major theme.
Chase Sui Wonders, who plays Hoffman’s roommate, delivered the quote that did exactly what Sundance quotes are supposed to do. She said she doesn’t “love to see sex on screen,” called herself “a bit of a prude,” and described that as “decisively Gen Z.”
That’s the movie’s second marketing engine. The first was the title. The second is the argument.
Why the Two-Lane Weekend Works
This is why Wilde is the perfect Sundance “main character” right now.
The Invite is the prestige lane. A contained cast. A marriage in crisis. A festival-friendly chamber dramedy that lets critics praise craft and calibration.
I Want Your Sex is the chaos lane. A provocation that invites thinkpieces about whether people are prudes, whether intimacy is exploitation, and whether “sex positive” art is even allowed to be unserious anymore.
The real win for Wilde is that she gets to occupy both lanes without having to pick one. She can be the person receiving a standing ovation for a marital comedy and the person at the center of the internet’s ongoing argument about sex on screen.
That’s not a contradiction. That’s range. It’s also strategy, even when it’s accidental.
Because Sundance is the place where “a film premiered” is the least interesting part of the story. The interesting part is who the audience decided to talk about on the way out.
And right now, the audience has decided it’s Wilde.
Sundance gave Olivia Wilde two gifts in one weekend: applause you can’t buy, and discourse you can’t stop.
The only question now is which one follows her home.
