'Euphoria' Creator's Forgotten 108-Minute Cult Classic Thriller Is Finally on Streaming

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Published Mar 7, 2026, 4:00 PM EST

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

People who invested in Sam Levinson stock have always had Euphoria to count on, regardless of the volatility brought on by The Idol or Malcolm & Marie. They can expect solid returns when the show comes back for a long-awaited third season in a few weeks. However, the right time to invest in Levinson wasn't in 2019, after the first season of Euphoria captured the zeitgeist; it was a year earlier. In 2018, Levinson wrote and directed a movie that gave a clear look at what he was capable of and what the world could expect from him. The movie in question came with trigger warnings, quite literally. It addressed many of the same quasi-nihilistic themes that Levinson would go on to explore in more depth in Euphoria. Ahead of the show's return, Levinson's buzzy feature film has landed on a new streaming service where it's serving as the perfect appetizer.

The movie was designed to reflect the socio-political landscape of the United States during Donald Trump's first term, and it did so with the blunt force of a hammer to the head. It featured a talented cast of young actors, including Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Maude Apatow, alongside Colman Domingo, Bill Skarsgård, and Joel McHale. The film earned divisive reviews, with some appreciating its razor-sharp commentary while others criticized its exploitative elements. It emerged as a box office underperformer, grossing just $2 million domestically against a reported budget of $7 million. Tom Quinn, chief of the film's domestic distributor, Neon, expressed disappointment in its box-office performance, but praised Levinson for having "created a bold, visionary and ultimately cathartic response to the dumpster fire that is 2018."

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The film in question is Assassination Nation, which immediately became the talk of the town following a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie is now sitting at a "Certified Fresh" 74% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus reads, "Assassination Nation juggles exploitation and socially aware elements with mixed results, but genre fans may find it too stylish and viscerally energetic to ignore." The film divided audiences down the middle, with the veteran critic Mark Kermode describing it as "gleeful" and Nick Schager calling it "possibly the year's most obnoxious release."

Assassination Nation is now streaming on Paramount+. Euphoria will return to HBO in April. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.