The film stars an ensemble cast led by Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean (in her final film role), Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Burić, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly [fr], Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, Sunnyi Melles, and Woody Harrelson.

It grossed over $32.8 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised Östlund's direction and screenplay, as well as the performances of the cast (particularly de Leon).

Among the wealthy guests are the Russian oligarch Dimitry and his wife Vera; the elderly couple Clementine and Winston, who have made their fortune manufacturing grenades and other weapons; Therese, a wheelchair user only capable of speaking a single phrase in German following a stroke; and Jarmo, a lonely tech millionaire who flirts with Yaya.

He said the film was to be called Triangle of Sadness, a "wild" satire set against the world of fashion and the uber-rich, with "appearance as capital" and "beauty as currency" as the underlying themes.

Casting took place from August to November 2018 in Berlin, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles and Gothenburg,[10] and continued in Moscow in March 2019.

[19] Neon acquired North American distribution rights for $8 million,[20][21] winning a bidding war with A24, Searchlight Pictures/Hulu, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Classics.

[23] By 9 March 2023, according to Samba TV, it had been streamed on Hulu in 250,000 households in the United States since the announcements, with JustWatch also reporting it to be, by 21 February, the second most-streamed Best Picture nominee in Canada, behind The Fabelmans.

[27] In the United States, Triangle of Sadness opened in 10 locations in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco to a debut of $210,074, for a per theater average of $21,007.

The website's consensus reads: "Triangle of Sadness lacks the sharp edges of Östlund's earlier work, but this blackly humorous swipe at the obscenely affluent has its own rewards.

[33] Alysha Prasad of One Room With A View called it "Utterly unhinged in the best way possible, guaranteed to elicit enough laughter to make your stomach ache, while also leaving you with plenty to think about afterwards.

"[35] Aaron Neuwirth of We Live Entertainment described it as containing "what’s likely the grossest set piece I’ve seen in a movie awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

"[36] Gabi Zeitsman of Channel 24 (South Africa) commented, "if you loved White Lotus and satire aimed at the beautiful and rich, this is a definite must-watch.

The fact that it won the Palme d'Or is in itself almost satirical..."[37] "Don't go in expecting art-house intellectualism," wrote Kyle Smith of the Wall Street Journal, "The movie is as loaded with fun as it is with social implications.

"[39] Kevin Maher of The Times detected more nuance in the film, however, stating: "Yes, the metaphor can seem very on-the-nose: the super rich, in this economic climate especially, are obscene and repulsive!

"[40] Richard Brody, in a critical review for The New Yorker, described Triangle of Sadness as "a movie of targeted demagogy that pitches its facile political stances to the preconceptions of the art-house audience; far from deepening those ideas or challenging those assumptions, it flatters the like-minded viewership while swaggering with the filmmaker’s presumption of freethinking, subversive audacity."

However, Brody commended the cast performances—particularly Dean's, of which he wrote: "If nothing else, the movie would have assured her stardom; there’s no telling how many characters and films her death foreclosed before their conception.

"[41] Armond White, in a critical review for National Review, talks about the substitution of concepts in Triangle of Sadness: "Östlund extends his Euro-Marxism into a second-rate allegory about third-world exploitation: An insulting subplot features the ship's Filipino toilet manager (Dolly De Leon) turning the tables on the rich, feckless whites, yet emulating their decadence (Parasite, Part II).

Östlund bungles the political, spiritual, and moral lessons of such classics about chaos as Luis Buñuel's Exterminating Angel, Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Godard's Weekend.