Margot Robbie's Epic 3-Hour Misunderstood Box Office Bomb Has A New Streaming Home & It's A Must Watch

Published Sep 10, 2026, 3:55 PM EDT

Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant,  CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.
 

Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.

He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.

To learn more, visit his website at shawnlealos.net.

Margot Robbie remains one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses, but when she appeared in a 2022 prestige movie, it ended up bombing at the box office and received polarizing reviews. Robbie has enjoyed an interesting career, with her earliest breakout coming in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013, before she got her biggest role in 2016 when she was cast as Harley Quinn in the DCEU.

Robbie has since eclipsed her role as Harley Quinn, with her biggest movie coming in 2023 when she played the title character in Barbie. In 2026, she proved her status with the successful historical romance Wuthering Heights, while also working with directors as acclaimed as Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson throughout her career. While she has enjoyed considerable success, she was involved in one notable flop in 2022.

That was the year Robbie starred in Babylon, directed by Damien Chazelle, the Oscar-winning director of the 2016 musical La La Land. While La La Land is a love letter to the Golden Age Hollywood musicals, Babylon is a movie that seems like both a love letter to Hollywood and a scathing drama about the horrors of the movie world. The best news is that Babylon is now streaming on Hulu.

Margot Robbie Gives One Of Her Best Performances In Babylon

Babylon is about the transition from the silent era of movies to the sound age, with the first talkies arriving and Hollywood finding new stars while former silent era stars find themselves lost in the new world. The movie follows several characters in different parts of the movie industry, with the character the audience follows being a Mexican immigrant named Manny (Diego Calva), who works on several movies and sees the highs and lows of Hollywood.

Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy, a young woman who wants to be a star and is introduced at the start of the film at a hedonistic party full of drugs, alcohol, and debauchery. When an actress at the party overdoses, a producer sees Nellie flamboyantly dancing and immediately chooses her to replace the actress who has overdosed in the film the producer is making. This leads to Nellie's rise and fall.

Robbie is spectacular in her performance in Babylon. She starts out as a high-strung personality, which is what got her noticed. When she proves she can cry on command, it is an even bigger moment that secures Nellie roles in more movies, and she becomes one of Hollywood's biggest stars. However, as with most of the characters in this movie, stardom comes with downfalls, and her ending is tragic.

While Babylon was a box office flop, critics took notice. Some critics' organizations considered it one of the worst movies of the year, while others listed it in their top 10 lists. The Golden Globes gave Babylon five nominations, including one for Robbie. The Critics' Choice Movie Awards also nominated Robbie for Best Actress, while the Oscars gave the movie three nominations.

Babylon Deserved So Much Better At The Box Office

The biggest thing that critics hated most about Babylon was the ending. The movie sees the collapse of people's careers, the death of young stars who couldn't handle the spotlight, and the dark underbelly of Hollywood that shows it ruins as many lives as it creates careers. However, the movie ends with Manny watching a movie, and then there are clips from past masterpieces with Manny smiling.

It seems the message here is that all the lost loves, the young deaths, and the horrible moments were worth it because the world received great movies as a result. Critics rightfully pointed out this confusing message, which hurt the movie at the box office. It didn't help that people who loved the positive message from La La Land were turned off by the darkness of Babylon.

Bablyon as a whole was a spectacular film, with great performances from top to bottom, and it tells a dark, honest story about the dangers of celebrity and fame. Chazelle wanted to tell a story that showed his love for movies, while never shying away from telling the truth about Hollywood's dark underbelly. Babylon is a daring movie with great performances and deserves a better reputation.