Film

The Dinner Party

Other titles called The Dinner Party: the 2023 film.

A playwright and his wife are invited to dinner by wealthy patrons who promise to fund his Broadway show. What unfolds is a taut, claustrophobic thriller about power, manipulation, and the price of ambition. It trades jump scares for psychological dread and watches how desperation can make us complicit in our own undoing.

TMDb rating2.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow-burn horror where dread builds through polite conversation and a host's too-perfect manners, and you enjoy a thriller that makes you squirm at the social games people play.

Skip it if you want jump scares, gore or a fast pace, since this one moves at a deliberate dinner-table tempo and leans on talk and unease rather than shocks.

What it asks of you: It asks for a steady hour and a half of patience, sitting through long stretches of conversation before the tension tightens into something harder to sit still for.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Squid Game2021

A masterclass in using social settings as pressure cookers. Strangers are forced into games where the stakes escalate impossibly. Like The Dinner Party, it explores how quickly civility collapses when survival is on the line.

But It's bleak, relentless, and sometimes the emotional manipulation feels calculated. Some find it exhausting rather than gripping.

Squid Game poster

Parasite2019

Bong Joon-ho mines genuine horror from class anxiety and social performance. A family insinuates itself into a wealthy household; watch the temperature of every scene shift as power dynamics crack open.

But It's deliberately paced and asks a lot of patience. The tonal shifts between dark comedy and genuine violence may feel jarring.

Parasite poster

Ready or Not2019

A bride crashes a family's twisted hunting-for-sport tradition on her wedding night. Sharp, funny, and genuinely suspenseful—it has The Dinner Party's DNA of wealthy people with terrible rules in a confined space.

But It leans into dark comedy, which some find undercuts the stakes. The finale divides audiences on whether the tone lands.

Ready or Not poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Dinner Party

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Videodrome1983

Both trap their protagonist in a scenario where the line between victim and willing participant dissolves completely.

A media executive becomes obsessed with a violent broadcast. Cronenberg's film is about consumption and corruption—how we're changed by what we watch and what we want to keep watching. That's what The Dinner Party is really examining too: complicity through desire.

But It's deliberately disorienting, visceral, and genuinely gross. The logic is dreamlike; if you need plot to make rational sense, it will frustrate you.

Videodrome poster
More like this (8)

The Invisible Guest2017

A man accused of murder meets with his lawyer to construct an alibi. Entirely set in a room, it's a masterpiece of conversation as weapon—every line serves a purpose, every truth is a trap.

But It's Spanish-language and subtitled. The plot demands close attention; phone scrolling will leave you lost.

The Invisible Guest poster

You're Next2013

A family dinner descends into home-invasion horror. It subverts every expectation of the genre and finds dark humour in the gap between how people think they'll act and how they actually do.

But The violence is graphic. Some find the tonal swings—from genuine threat to comedy—alienating rather than fun.

You're Next poster

Carnage2011

Two couples meet after their children fight. Yasmina Reza's play translates perfectly: contained, verbal, and a masterwork in how quickly civility becomes a weapon. Polanski directs with surgical precision.

But Almost nothing happens. If you want plot momentum, this is four people in a room arguing, brilliantly, for ninety minutes.

Carnage poster

The Banshees of Inisherin2022

Two aging friends on a remote island face a sudden severance. Blending dark comedy with genuine melancholy, it's a portrait of how people hold each other hostage with history and unspoken grievance.

But It's slow and weighted toward mood over momentum. The ending is oblique and may feel incomplete to some viewers.

The Banshees of Inisherin poster

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

A surgeon's debt to the father of a dead boy surfaces when the boy's son appears in his life. Yorgos Lanthimos strips away comfort; every scene crackles with unease and mythic inevitability.

But It's wilfully strange and cold. The pacing is intentionally unnatural; many find it clinical and punishing rather than engaging.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer poster

Funny Games2008

Two young men invade a family's vacation home and force them into psychological games. Haneke's provocation: a film about violence that won't let you enjoy it. Genuinely unsettling in its refusal to comfort.

But It's bleak, graphic, and feels designed to alienate. Many viewers find it punishing and joyless in ways that feel pretentious.

Funny Games poster

Theatre of Blood1973

Both are about theatre as weapon—the host orchestrating a captive performance for captive watchers, with real stakes underneath the manners.

A Shakespearean actor murders the critics who destroyed him using the playwright's own deaths as templates. It's a gorgeous, blackly funny revenge film about performance, humiliation, and the hunger for a captive audience—the inverse of The Dinner Party's power dynamic.

But It's a 1973 cult film; the pacing is leisurely and the special effects are stage-managed. If you want modern editing and visceral impact, it won't deliver.

Theatre of Blood poster

The Platform2019

Both use a single meal—the ritual of eating together—as the arena where power and desperation show their true face.

Inmates in a vertical prison share meals from a platform that descends through the levels. Spanish sci-fi that uses a dinner table as its entire moral engine. Blunt, explicit, and a brilliant metaphor for resource and hierarchy.

But It's graphically violent and the message is heavy-handed. Some find the allegory exhausting; it doesn't leave much room for ambiguity.

The Platform poster

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