Lydia Lunch

Acting

Lydia Lunch

Born

1959-06-02 (67)

Place of birth

Rochester, New York, USA

Known for

Acting

Credits

73 titles

Lydia Lunch is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker, whose career was spawned by the New York no wave scene. Her work typically features provocative and confrontational noise music delivery, and has maintained an anti-commercial ethic, operating independently of major labels and distributors.

Known for

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things poster
5.8

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

2004

70 Years of Youth Revolt poster
7.2

A look back at the social movements, revolts and youth subcultures from the post-war period to the present day: after the World War II, the left-bank of Paris became a mecca for jazz and alternative living, youth culture was born with trailblazing American movies, and rock became the soundtrack to a generation that wanted to change everything.

70 Years of Youth Revolt

2020

Bye Bye Blondie poster
5.5

A love story of two women who meet up in their late forties and attempt to retrieve the romance they had in their youth.

Bye Bye Blondie

2012

Subway Riders poster
7.2

A psychotic saxophone player lures victims to deserted spots with his music and then guns them down.

Subway Riders

1981

L7: Pretend We're Dead poster
7.0

A real time journey witnessing the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the fierce feminist pioneers of American grunge punk: L7.

L7: Pretend We're Dead

2017

Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard poster
7.5

From myth to legend Rowland Howard appeared on the early Melbourne punk scene like a phantom out of Kafkaesque Prague or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A beautifully gaunt and gothic aristocrat, the unique distinctive fury of his guitar style shot him directly into the imagination of a generation. He was impeccable, the austerity of his artistry embodied in his finely wrought form, his obscure tastes and his intelligently wry wit. He radiated a searing personal integrity that never seemed to tarnish. Despite the trials and tribulations of his career, in an age of makeover and reinvention, Rowland Howard never ‘sold out’. With recent and moving interviews, archival interviews and other fascinating and original footage, AUTOLUMINESCENT traces the life of Rowland S Howard. Capturing moments with the man himself and intimate missives from those who knew him behind closed doors; words and images etch light into what has always been the mysterious dark.

Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard

2011

Film credits

2010s · 12 titles

Bye Bye Blondie poster
5.5

A love story of two women who meet up in their late forties and attempt to retrieve the romance they had in their youth.

Bye Bye Blondie

2012

L7: Pretend We're Dead poster
7.0

A real time journey witnessing the rise, fall, and ultimate redemption of the fierce feminist pioneers of American grunge punk: L7.

L7: Pretend We're Dead

2017

Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard poster
7.5

From myth to legend Rowland Howard appeared on the early Melbourne punk scene like a phantom out of Kafkaesque Prague or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A beautifully gaunt and gothic aristocrat, the unique distinctive fury of his guitar style shot him directly into the imagination of a generation. He was impeccable, the austerity of his artistry embodied in his finely wrought form, his obscure tastes and his intelligently wry wit. He radiated a searing personal integrity that never seemed to tarnish. Despite the trials and tribulations of his career, in an age of makeover and reinvention, Rowland Howard never ‘sold out’. With recent and moving interviews, archival interviews and other fascinating and original footage, AUTOLUMINESCENT traces the life of Rowland S Howard. Capturing moments with the man himself and intimate missives from those who knew him behind closed doors; words and images etch light into what has always been the mysterious dark.

Autoluminescent: Rowland S. Howard

2011

Godkiller: Walk Among Us poster
5.4

Even in a postapocalyptic future in which Earth has been colonized by aliens, humans need hearts to live, so when an orphan boy's sister needs a new one, he'll go to just about any length to get it in this "illustrated film" from Matt Pizzolo.

Godkiller: Walk Among Us

2010

Blank City poster
6.9

In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.

Blank City

2011

Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over poster
7.0

The first career-spanning documentary retrospective of Lydia Lunch's confrontational, acerbic and always electric artistry. As New York City's preeminent No Wave icon from the late 70's, Lunch has forged a lifetime of music and spoken word performance devoted to the utter right of any woman to indulge, seek pleasure, and to say "fuck you!" as loud as any man. In this time of endless attacks on women this is a rallying cry to acknowledge the only thing that is going to bring us together - ART...as the universal salve to all of our traumas.

Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over

2019

Spit and Ashes poster
3.0

Spit and Ashes is a reimagining of the historical violence waged against women by patriarchal forces in the name of religion, medicine and family. The High Priestess embodies the wild, sexual and grotesque - the un-tamable hunger of female desire and the ultimate threat to male power. The Midwife is the spirit of all women who sought knowledge and agency over their own bodies and paid for their agency with their lives. Through a series of erotic and brutal rituals these women come together to reclaim their bodies and prepare for the fight ahead.

Spit and Ashes

2019

Fake Orgasm poster
6.0

Lazlo Pearlman is a conceptual artist, an activist capable of dinamiting our prejudices about sex and identity. What it seems to be a reflexion about lies in our sexual lives suddenly turns out to be a sharp discourse about gender theory and the continuous evolution of our identitiy. Fake Orgasm, first part of an ambitious multidisciplinary project about sexuality and identity, hits our minds and forces a change of perspective to reconsider some concepts we've been educated with and grown up with.

Fake Orgasm

2010

Road Rant: A Week on the Road with Lydia Lunch poster
5.0

The X-rated cartoon animations of Emmy award winning director/animator Merrill Aldighieri add a comical edge to this intense documentary with Lydia Lunch, a second collaboration after their first success, ""The Gun is Loaded."" Highlights from 5 concerts are accompanied by a live music score performed by composer JOE BUDENHOLZER & horn player TERRY EDWARDS (from MADNESS) during their travels to MARSEILLE, LYON, EVREUX, & NANTES. Bonus clips include rare on-the road interview footage with Lydia and composer Joe B., and an exclusive reading done at the Père Lachaise Cemetary.

Road Rant: A Week on the Road with Lydia Lunch

2012

No artwork available
NR

Renowned artist Lydia Lunch joins architect Juan Azulay in an experimental performance broadcast live from the SCI-Arc Gallery.

Flood Stains

2010

No artwork available
NR

A documentary about The Troggs (performers of Wild Thing) and other Rock bands.

Wild Thing

2012

No artwork available
NR

Six days of shooting through the desert deathscape, Mojave motels with bug blankets and bone white rocks, future retro Reno motels with pink light bulbs where we shot in kimonos and 7 inch heels until the sun came up, exploring death valley dunes while being our own crew and stars, to dance in the ruins of Rhyolite in Nevada where thunder cracked the sky.

The Circular Ruins

2014

2000s · 14 titles

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things poster
5.8

Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things

2004

Kill Your Idols poster
7.4

A 2004 documentary on thirty years of alternative rock 'n roll in NYC.Documenting the history from the genuine authenticity of No Wave to the current generation of would be icons and true innovators seeing to represent New York City in the 21st century

Kill Your Idols

2004

Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism poster
4.8

Mutantes sheds light on a feminism that was little talked about in France. This documentary comprises of a series of interviews conducted in the USA, Paris and Barcelona, and documents from the archives about the political action of sex workers, queer activists and post-pornographic performances.

Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism

2009

The Hardcore Collection poster
NR

A fringe film collective of edge-dwelling New York nihilist punks and crazies whose main pathological protagonist triumvirate were voyeur smackhead Richard Kern, pouting artpunk Nick Zedd and damaged psychescream queen Lydia Lunch.

The Hardcore Collection

2000

No artwork available
10.0

the connections and energy flow between the various artists populating the 1980s sub-cultures of New York and Berlin. Features Jim Jarmusch, Lydia Lunch, Blixa Bargeld, Alex Hacke, Gudrun Gut, Nick Cave, and others. An important film. Bravo, Mr. Dreher.

No Wave - Underground '80: Berlin - New York

2009

No artwork available
NR

Her Noise was an exhibition which took place at South London Gallery in 2005 with satellite events at Tate Modern and Goethe-Institut, London. Her Noise gathered international artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. The exhibition included newly commissioned works by Kim Gordon & Jutta Koether, Hayley Newman, Kaffe Matthews, Christina Kubisch, Emma Hedditch and Marina Rosenfeld. A parallel ambition of the project was to investigate music and sound histories in relation to gender, and the curators set out to create a lasting resource in this area.

Her Noise - The Making Of

2006

NYC Foetus poster
6.0

A documentary about composer/producer/performer JG Thirlwell and his musical alter-egos, including Foetus, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia. Featuring interviews with Thirlwell, Matt Johnson (The The), Alex Hacke (Neubauten), Michael Gira (Swans), Richard Kern, Lydia Lunch and more.

NYC Foetus

2009

No artwork available
7.8

A full-length feature documentary produced in 2006 which serves as a companion piece to and is included on the DVD of the 2004 film KILL YOUR IDOLS.

Kill Your Idols: More.

2006

No artwork available
5.5

Part of "The Women in Music" series

Kiss My Grits: The Herstory of Women in Punk and Hard Rock

2001

Lydia Lunch: Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006 poster
NR

This fascinating and retrospective look at the music of the outspoken and multitalented Lydia Lunch represents every stage of her varied career, with featured songs such as "I Woke Up Screaming" from her Teenage Jesus and the Jerks days. Other songs spanning the decades in this collection include "Freud in Flop," "Sorry for Behaving So Badly," "Dead River," "Solo Mystico," "Summon," "Violence Is the Sport of God" and many more.

Lydia Lunch: Video Hysterie: 1978 - 2006

2008

No artwork available
4.5

Cam Archer revisits the life of child actor Jonathan Brandis who committed suicide in 2003. Lydia Lunch narrates this meditation on fame, the actor’s pressure to remain in the public eye and the surreal events in the lead up to his unexplained death.

American Fame Pt. 2: Forgetting Jonathan Brandis

2005

No artwork available
5.6

This documentary features interviews with Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), J Mascis (Dinosaur jr.), John John Jesse (Demonic Erotic painter), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), Jim Thirwell (Foetus), Lydia Lunch, Mike Watt (Minutemen), Richard Kern (Filmmaker), Ron Ashet

D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist

2002

No artwork available
NR

Guy Maddin flies to Kansas City, Missouri, in a vain attempt to save cinema as it continues to die from contempt and neglect.

Death of the Reel

2008

Llik Your Idols poster
4.6

Discover the New York underground scene during the 80s and throw yourself into an exciting, anarchic and repulsive world that you won't forget.

Llik Your Idols

2007

1990s · 8 titles

Die Haut - Sweat poster
NR

Die Haut filmed live at Tempodrom, Berlin, August 1992. Featuring guest vocalists Alexander Hacke, Anita Lane, Blixa Bargeld, Kid Congo Powers, Lydia Lunch and Nick Cave.

Die Haut - Sweat

1994

Baby Trouble Hole poster
NR

Malga Kubiak stars in her exploration of sex and self. One woman's love to her own body interlaced with maggots; mixes x-rated porn. Voyeuristically titillating this avant-garde study of horrors of sex.

Baby Trouble Hole

1996

No artwork available
NR

Beth B, in collaboration with legendary downtown performance artist/musician Lydia Lunch, creates a chilling yet poetic vision of despairing nihilism -- literally, a "meditation on death." In this noirishly rendered narrative, a woman negotiates the banalities of life.

Thanatopsis

1991

No artwork available
8.0

A scattershot documentary about punk rock film makers in New York, with contributions from Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Richard Kern, Beth B, Nick Zedd and many others. A love letter to the New York Underground.

No Age New York

1993

No artwork available
NR

Collection of live spoken word performances by Lydia Lunch.

Lydia Lunch: Malicious Intent

1994

Kiss Napoleon Goodbye poster
4.8

Punk icons Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins star in this cult drama about a pregnant pianist named Hedda whose marriage to husband Neal (Don Bajema) hits the skids with the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger.

Kiss Napoleon Goodbye

1990

Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York poster
NR

Haxan Films-produced documentary on Richard Kern's work around 1997. Footage from his photo sessions, interviews with Kern and his models, etc. Features associates such as Lydia Lunch, Beth B and more.

Richard Kern - Portrait: Live From New York

1997

Visiting Desire poster
4.2

Complete strangers meet in a room to act out their sexual desires.

Visiting Desire

1996

1980s · 17 titles

Subway Riders poster
7.2

A psychotic saxophone player lures victims to deserted spots with his music and then guns them down.

Subway Riders

1981

Mondo New York poster
4.9

A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M club, and a number of very interesting performance artists. These are just a few of the sights and sounds of New York that she encounters.

Mondo New York

1988

Submit to Me poster
5.2

Cinema of Transgression pioneers and participants (Lydia Lunch, Lung Leg, Nick Zedd, etc.) perform a series of acts as they submit to director Richard Kern's camera. Originally created for DTNY acid parties; Submit to Me was eventually edited down to 10 minutes and given an accompanying score.

Submit to Me

1985

Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread poster
6.5

Penn Jillette and Teller are called upon to display their unique brand of humor to save civilization from strange extraterrestrial beings who have invaded Earth and who, disgruntled and bored with the mundane nature of human life, threaten to blow up the planet unless someone gives them a good reason not to.

Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread

1987

Submit to Me Now poster
5.0

Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

Submit to Me Now

1987

Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets poster
5.0

Maria Beatty's documentary exploring the insights and influences of the American Beat Poets. The film conveys their consciousness and sensibility through interviews with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, among others. Also weaves in additional commentary from contemporary musicians, poets and writers such as Marianne Faithfull, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins. Also expands upon how the poets reached new levels of creativity and inspired social change.

Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets

1989

The Offenders poster
7.0

The Offenders is a raucous punk satire of the teenager-leaves-home genre. As in the detached and aloof manner of Andy Warhol's underground films, it tells an amusingly deadpan story centred on the kidnapping of a young woman named Laura and her abusive, controlling father. An out-of-control gang of punk hoodlums flesh out the cast.

The Offenders

1980

The Gun Is Loaded poster
5.0

At the end of the Reagan years, rocker and confrontational performance artist Lydia Lunch launches a broadside. From a formal podium, she attacks the white male power structure of the US. Next she takes on her parents. Then, the volume lowered and the background the streets of New York, she lets us know what she thinks of life, of herself, and of us, anyone who's watching or listening. Life is depression, despair, and death. She's the girl next door gone bad. And us? Compliant sheep. Lunch lays out a challenge.

The Gun Is Loaded

1989

Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends poster
6.9

Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends is a straight-to-video release by magicians Penn & Teller on Lorimar Home Video in 1987. The tape features seven different swindles or tricks that the home viewer can use to fool their friends. The tape was a companion piece to their best selling book of the same name. All of the tricks involve using a portion of the videotape.

Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends

1987

Dance of the Dead Children poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Dance of the Dead Children

1982

The Wild World of Lydia Lunch poster
5.0

Shot entirely in Ireland and England on film stolen by Nick Zedd, the movie offers a rare glimpse into the unique private world of Lydia Lunch; The footage "narrated" by a break-up cassette sent from Lunch to Zedd.

The Wild World of Lydia Lunch

1983

Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller poster
NR

A noir mostly set in a bathroom stall and stairwell. A private dick trapped in a tight spot. A narrator searching for a way out of the story.

Raw Nerves: A Lacanian Thriller

1980

Put More Blood Into the Music poster
7.8

PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.

Put More Blood Into the Music

1988

Vortex poster
5.7

A film noirish atmosphere is created to show detective Lunch (a popular underground musician and poet) plow her way through the plans of a corporate businessman who seeks government defense contracts through real "corporate wars" and the manipulation of politicians.

Vortex

1982

Barbecue Death Squad From Hell poster
7.0

Lydia Lunch and Penn & Teller jazz up the Jenkins' family picnic home movie, turning it into a backyard SOV slasher.

Barbecue Death Squad From Hell

1986

No artwork available
8.0

Lydia Lunch laments the difficulty of relationships in the wilds of Connemara, Ireland.

Like Dawn to Dust

1983

The Agony Is The Ecstacy poster
NR

Lydia Lunch live session 1982

The Agony Is The Ecstacy

1982

1970s · 7 titles

Black Box poster
5.4

An innocent youth is abducted and dragged down into a dystopian nightmare where teenage Lydia Lunch throws him into the Black Box.

Black Box

1979

Guerillère Talks poster
7.1

This experimental short consists of eight unedited rolls of super-8 film, each of which profiles an individual woman in real time. The women engage in everyday behaviour, such as playing pinball or reading a letter aloud.

Guerillère Talks

1978

Punking Out poster
6.0

The film documents the beginning of the punk rock movement in New York City at CBGB's, a punk night club, and the lifestyle that revolves around this scene. It presents a sometimes shocking look at the attitudes and motivations behind the movement through interviews with outspoken club-goers and band members of the Ramones, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys.

Punking Out

1978

No artwork available
NR

Filmed at CBGB’s, New York City at a Teenage Jesus & The Jerks concert on January 13th, 1978. The film shows the band members’ heads in slow motion over a live concert soundtrack.

Alien Portrait

1979

She Had Her Gun All Ready poster
7.6

Two women – one passive and resigned, the other aggressive and domineering – interact in various locations in New York city. The film explores the dynamic between them before ending with a showdown at the roller-coaster on Coney Island.

She Had Her Gun All Ready

1978

Beauty Becomes the Beast poster
7.5

Beauty Becomes the Beast describes a random access world mediated by TV images and shards of popular culture. The film features a powerful performance by Lydia Lunch regressing from adulthood to childhood, hinting at a sexually abusive past. It concerns itself with the position of woman as subject and the way women experience patriarchal law and the heterosexual order.

Beauty Becomes the Beast

1979

Rome '78 poster
6.4

Nares mocks up Ancient Rome by shooting in faux-classical sites including Tribeca's American Thread Building, where a decrepit penthouse loft with a peeling-paint dome serves as an echoey stand-in for the imperial palace. The latter location required ingenuity: Posing as potential renters, Nares and associates asked the manager to show them the apartment, then unlocked the windows on the way out; a few hours later, they broke back into the space, full cast and crew in tow, to shoot the necessary scenes.

Rome '78

1978

Series credits

Behind the camera

The Gun Is Loaded poster
5.0

At the end of the Reagan years, rocker and confrontational performance artist Lydia Lunch launches a broadside. From a formal podium, she attacks the white male power structure of the US. Next she takes on her parents. Then, the volume lowered and the background the streets of New York, she lets us know what she thinks of life, of herself, and of us, anyone who's watching or listening. Life is depression, despair, and death. She's the girl next door gone bad. And us? Compliant sheep. Lunch lays out a challenge.

The Gun Is Loaded

1989

No artwork available
NR

Beth B, in collaboration with legendary downtown performance artist/musician Lydia Lunch, creates a chilling yet poetic vision of despairing nihilism -- literally, a "meditation on death." In this noirishly rendered narrative, a woman negotiates the banalities of life.

Thanatopsis

1991

Road Rant: A Week on the Road with Lydia Lunch poster
5.0

The X-rated cartoon animations of Emmy award winning director/animator Merrill Aldighieri add a comical edge to this intense documentary with Lydia Lunch, a second collaboration after their first success, ""The Gun is Loaded."" Highlights from 5 concerts are accompanied by a live music score performed by composer JOE BUDENHOLZER & horn player TERRY EDWARDS (from MADNESS) during their travels to MARSEILLE, LYON, EVREUX, & NANTES. Bonus clips include rare on-the road interview footage with Lydia and composer Joe B., and an exclusive reading done at the Père Lachaise Cemetary.

Road Rant: A Week on the Road with Lydia Lunch

2012

No artwork available
NR

Collection of live spoken word performances by Lydia Lunch.

Lydia Lunch: Malicious Intent

1994

Kiss Napoleon Goodbye poster
4.8

Punk icons Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins star in this cult drama about a pregnant pianist named Hedda whose marriage to husband Neal (Don Bajema) hits the skids with the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger.

Kiss Napoleon Goodbye

1990

No artwork available
NR

Renowned artist Lydia Lunch joins architect Juan Azulay in an experimental performance broadcast live from the SCI-Arc Gallery.

Flood Stains

2010

The Agony Is The Ecstacy poster
NR

Lydia Lunch live session 1982

The Agony Is The Ecstacy

1982

No artwork available
NR

Poetic seductress Lydia Lunch describes the destructive nature of a broken human before partaking in physical abuse of grown men with her younger counterpart.

Kill Us All

2014

No artwork available
NR

Poetic seductress Lydia Lunch describes the destructive nature of a broken human before partaking in physical abuse of grown men with her younger counterpart.

Kill Us All

2014

Fingered poster
5.4

One of Richard Kern’s most ambitious works is Fingered (1986), whose sarcastic disclaimer says “although it is not our sole intention to shock, insult, or irritate, you have been warned that we are catering only to our own preferences.” The film came about following the criticism of Kern and Lydia Lunch's first collaborative venture: The Right Side of My Brain (1984).

Fingered

1986

The Right Side of My Brain poster
4.8

Lydia Lunch and Richard Kern's first collaborative effort, The Right Side of My Brain, is a glimpse into the world of unsatiable female lust, narrated by Lydia Lunch. The film was initially dismissed and dismayed by critics such as J. Hoberman, but the criticism of The Right Side of My Brain received only pushed the two to go one step further with Fingered (1986).

The Right Side of My Brain

1984