Brad Pitt's Polarizing 2022 Flop With A Cult Following Is Coming To Netflix Very Soon

You know you're in for a ride when an elephant poops on the camera lens within the first 10 minutes of a three-hour prestige piece. That's not even the most outrageous thing that occurs in the opening moments of "Babylon," writer/director Damien Chazelle's baroque (make that go for broke) ode to the debauchery and excess that characterized Hollywood as it transitioned from silent cinema to "talkies" in the late 1920s. Indeed, anyone with so much as a passing interest in filmmaking history would do well to check out (or rewatch) Chazelle's costly 2022 flop when it heads to Netflix on December 7, 2025. As for everyone else? Well, keep reading.

While "Babylon" centers on a group of fictional individuals, it's heavily informed by the real-life history of Tinseltown. Brad Pitt, for instance, co-stars as Jack Conrad, a clear stand-in for the many silent film stars who struggled to adapt to the demands of acting in pictures with sound and found themselves being pushed out of the industry entirely. But as crucial as Jack is to the proceedings here, he's not really one of the leads. Instead, that honor goes to the likes of Diego Calva as Manuel "Manny" Torres, a Mexican immigrant who finds success by pretending to be from Spain; Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer, a Black trumpet player who is soon faced with the unpleasant truth about what it will take to get ahead in show business; and Margot Robbie as Nellie LaRoy, an acting prodigy whose working-class background suddenly becomes a major obstacle as she climbs the ladder of society.

As you've surely pieced together by now, "Babylon" is as much a story of assimilation and identity as one of Hollywood chaos. Is it any wonder that it's found a faithful cult fanbase?

If you've ever wondered what "Singin' in the Rain" would be like with a coke-snorting gangster played by Tobey Maguire, disturbing deaths, raucous parties, and all manner of bodily fluids being sprayed about, then "Babylon" is your answer. It's a deliberately gross fable that recognizes the paradox of Hollywood: It's a capitalistic machine that's been traditionally fueled by self-deception and white supremacy, yet it continues to churn out remarkably empathic works that speak to people across the divides of culture and time.

Unsurprisingly, however, audiences didn't exactly flock to "Babylon" when it hit theaters in late December 2022, especially with "Avatar: The Way of Water" playing in the auditorium next door. The movie failed to even match its (at least) $80 million budget at the box office, and it split critics something fierce, as a quick glimpse over its reviews on Rotten Tomatoes will show you. At the same time, for everyone who found the film exhaustingly nasty, there was someone like Stephen King, who called it "utterly brilliant — extravagant, over the top, hilarious, [and] thought-provoking" on social media, predicting that it will be "acclaimed as a classic in 20 years." Robbie similarly proclaimed that she loves "Babylon" in 2024, admitting that she's still kind of mystified that it wasn't widely celebrated right out the gate.

If nothing else, everyone seems to agree that "Babylon" contains elements of greatness, including the electrifyingly jazz-y score by Justin Hurwitz, the audacious whip-pans and stunning compositions by Chazelle's go-to cinematographer Linus Sandgren, and the bravura ending montage charting the very life cycle of film (which actually nods to "Singin' in the Rain" and "Avatar" directly). So, again, you should seek it out when it reaches Netflix and experience the bedlam for yourself.