Netflix Dropped Ladies First in 2026, and I Have Thoughts

Ladies First is messy, blunt, occasionally funny, and way more interesting than it has a right to be

I’ll be upfront. A Netflix movie about a sexist corporate guy who bumps his head and wakes up in a world run by women could go one of two ways. Sharp, clever satire with actual things to say. Or a sledgehammer with a message duct-taped to it.

Ladies First lands somewhere frustratingly in between, and honestly, that made it more interesting to watch than if it had just been bad.

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Damian, the charismatic, arrogant CEO of an ad agency who treats women like set dressing and genuinely cannot fathom why that’s a problem. Rosamund Pike plays Alex, a creative he promotes purely for optics.

He chases her out of the building after a disastrous pitch meeting, slips, hits his head, and wakes up in a parallel world where women hold all the power and men are the ones being talked over in boardrooms. The twist? The women in charge are exactly as insufferable as the men were.

TMJ Rating: 🍿🍿/5

What You Need to Know

The first half is deliberately rage-inducing.

Damian’s world is packed with casual sexism played for laughs that made me uncomfortable in ways I don’t think were entirely unintentional. The mirror world pulls the same jokes in reverse, and you’re meant to clock how equally stupid both look. It’s a blunt instrument of a premise, but the execution at least commits to both sides with equal contempt, which I respect more than if it had just picked a lane and stayed smug in it.

The Groundhog Day mechanics are familiar but functional. Richard E. Grant shows up as a pigeon-covered man who has apparently been stuck in the parallel world forever and delivers the film’s thesis statement directly to Damian’s face with zero subtlety.

I actually laughed at this because of how completely unashamed it is about spelling everything out. 80-something minutes with zero time for ambiguity.

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What Makes Ladies First Different

Sacha Baron Cohen and Rosamund Pike are the reasons to watch this. Their chemistry takes a while to build, but when it clicks, it genuinely clicks.

The moment Damian starts to see Alex rather than perform, seeing her is the film’s best stretch, and both of them sell it completely. Pike in particular is having an absolute blast as the mirror-world version of Damian’s worst qualities reflected back at him. The physicality, the delivery, the sheer commitment to being horrible in a specific and readable way. She’s fantastic.

The supporting cast is stacked with people doing a lot with very little. Fiona Shaw is going from receptionist to CEO across the two timelines. Charles Dance plays a man who went from boardroom power to being someone’s assistant, with full dignity intact throughout.

Emily Mortimer as Damian’s sister. Richard E. Grant narrating from under a layer of pigeon mess. These are talented people making blunt material hit harder than it deserves to.

The pacing is also genuinely solid. No scene outstays its welcome.

What Didn’t Work So Well 

The messaging is so loud that it occasionally drowns out the story. There’s a moment near the end where Damian essentially monologues his character arc directly at the audience, and the film just lets him do it.

The romance between him and Alex is rushed in ways that undercut what should be the emotional centrepiece. Their connection needed more room, and the runtime doesn’t allow for it.

The comedy also runs dry in the middle stretch. Once you’ve clocked the joke, the film keeps repeating it on a loop, hoping familiarity will substitute for escalation. It doesn’t. Some of the parallel world gags land on the first pass and feel tired by the third.

The film also says everything it has to say and then says it again out loud in case you missed it. It doesn’t trust its audience even slightly.

My Final Verdict

Blunt, flawed, occasionally genuinely funny, and carried entirely by a cast that deserves sharper material.

Ladies First is not the worst thing on Netflix by a long shot. It’s the kind of film you watch on a rainy Sunday and argue about afterwards, which might be exactly what it set out to do.

Would you rather have a film that screams its message at you or one that buries it so deep you miss it entirely? Tell me in the comments.