Bruce LaBruce

Directing

Bruce LaBruce

Born 1964-01-03 · Tiverton, Ontario, Canada

Bruce LaBruce is an internationally acclaimed Canadian filmmaker, photographer, writer, and artist based in Toronto. Along with a number of short films, he has written and directed nine feature films, including Gerontophilia, which won the Grand Prix at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal in 2013, and Pierrot Lunaire, which won the Teddy Award Special Jury Prize at the Berlinale in 2014. Most recently, LaBruce has been honoured with film retrospectives at both TIFF/Bell Lightbox 2014, and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, 2015. The MoMA retrospective featured all nine of LaBruce’s features as well as a program of short films. All of the films have now become part of MoMA’s permanent film collection. His films explore themes of sexual and interpersonal transgression against cultural norms, frequently blending the artistic and production techniques of independent film with gay pornography.

Acting credits

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing poster
5.3

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing

2019

Hustler White poster
5.5

Reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, the action is transposed from the silver screen's old backlots to contemporary male prostitution and the pornographic industry.

Hustler White

1996

Boris Without Beatrice poster
6.5

Living somewhere in present-day Quebec, Boris Malinowski has achieved all his goals. A freethinker, open-minded and proud, he also displays a certain arrogance when it comes to his successes. For some time now, his wife Béatrice, a Canadian government minister, has been bedridden, suffering from a mysterious depression. To escape from his wife’s agony, Boris begins a relationship with a colleague, Helga, and gets close to Klara, a young woman who works as a maid in Boris’s home. The sudden appearance of a stranger in his life forces Boris to come face-to-face with the world, with everything he takes for granted, with all his certainties.

Boris Without Beatrice

2016

Bowels of Hell poster
4.3

Malu is organising a gender-reveal party for a pregnant influencer – while dealing with her own grief, her persistent constipation problems and her adolescent transgender child (who disapproves of her job commission). At the condominium where Malu lives, some strange phenomena are unleashed in the home’s most private zone: the bathroom.

Bowels of Hell

2026

The Material Boy poster
NR

An Italo-American teenaged girl in Michigan, with a Catholic family, becomes pregnant. To avoid both a scandal and an abortion, she secretly gives birth to a boy in hospital, which is run by nuns. They establish a false identity for him and arrange to have him brought up in Argentina. At the age of 18, the boy discovers that his biological mother is Madonna Ciccone, who, after giving him up, became the iconic international pop-culture mega-star.

The Material Boy

2015

No artwork available
10.0

Deep dark sick folk on their way down to the bottom.

Way Down

2005

Boy / Girl poster
5.5

In LaBruce’s first short experimental super 8 film, a loose narrative is constructed out of a variety of film clips, some shot on location by the filmmaker, some found footage, and some shot off the television screen. A woman with long red hair (G.B. Jones) sits on a window sill and looks down with her binoculars at the street below. Meanwhile, Mary Tyler Moore escapes from an aggressive man and runs to the park. Boy/Girl is a documentation of a period of time when filmmaker LaBruce lived in a crummy, squat-like building at Queen and Parliament Streets in Toronto with the all-girl punk band, Fifth Column.

Boy / Girl

1987

Gaze poster
1.0

An exploration of twenty artists and their bodies of work.

Gaze

2010

No Skin Off My Ass poster
6.6

A lonely hairdresser watches the title sequence of "That Cold Day in the Park" then visits a local park to invite a down-and-out skinhead to his apartment. He draws the silent man a bath and talks to him as he soaks. He locks his guest in a bedroom. Next day, the skinhead leaves through the window and visits his sister, who's making a film called "Sisters of the SLA." He helps with a screen-test. The hairdresser has dreams and fantasies involving the skinhead, the skinhead returns to visit him, and then the filmmaker pays a call on the two men, exposing her brother as faking his silence and pretending a lack of sexual interest. Fantasies can come true.

No Skin Off My Ass

1991

Psycho Path poster
7.2

Documentary on the making of Gus Van Sant's "Psycho." Featured at the Berlin Film Festival, 2000.

Psycho Path

1999

The Troublemakers poster
7.0

The lives of four down-on-their-luck characters. Surrounded by the vestiges of conspicuous consumption, they struggle to survive outside of society, fashioning their own aesthetics of poverty and devising strategies to navigate a surveillance society, evading or performing for cameras everywhere.

The Troublemakers

1990

Prejudice and Pride: Swedish Film Queer poster
6.0

A journey through Swedish queer film history.

Prejudice and Pride: Swedish Film Queer

2022

Super 8½ poster
6.0

A down-on-his-luck adult film star sees a chance to make a comeback via a lesbian documentary film-maker, but she is exploiting him to get financial backing for her pet project.

Super 8½

1994

The Advocate for Fagdom poster
6.0

The Advocate for Fagdom unites the puzzle pieces one by one. Testimonies are combined with rare archive images. Art galeries present movie extracts that are succeeded by images shot on location. And the other way round. Writers, film makers, art galeries owners, actors and actresses, photographers, producers, friends and loved ones all join in a game of interpretation, analysis or simple anecdotes. John Waters, Bruce Benderson, Harmony Korine, Gus Van Sant, Richard Kern, Rick Castro and others deliver their impressions, theories and confessions. Everything blends into the fascinating portrait of a singular person blessed with singular talents. A complex personality at war not with a system but all systems. The portrait of a man constantly moving between his punk attitude and extreme sensibility.

The Advocate for Fagdom

2011

No artwork available
NR

The second installment of Australian maverick filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft's adaptation of the poem by W.B. Yeats continues to delve into the underbelly of occultism, physics, and political paranoia, as it travels over multiple continents, and across the lives of an eclectic group of characters, none of whom will remain unscathed from the impending apocalypse... and some of whom work to hasten the arrival of the chaos...

The Second Coming: Volume 2

2016

Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution poster
7.0

A documentary on Queercore, the cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities.

Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution

2017

The Yo-Yo Gang poster
2.9

Amid girl fights, girl on girl sex and boy on boy sex, and a measure of BDSM, the YoYo gang battles the Skateboard Bitches.

The Yo-Yo Gang

1992

Hayseed poster
3.7

In this Canadian Candide update, orphan Gordie (Jamie Shannon) lives with his hippie aunts at a quiet Porridge Glenn farm. When his beagle Speedoh is lost, a call from a psychic suggests a search in Toronto, where hayseed meets hooker wannabe Heidi (Sarain Boylan). She introduces him to two past-porn performers (Shelly Mars, Scott Thompson), the former stars of "Who's Afraid of Vagina Woolf?" Hick Gordie seems destined for street hustling and boogie nights after encountering a gay band that raises AIDS-research money by selling Gordie off to a sleazeball pimp (Alex Karzis). At this juncture, however, Heidi hatches a plan to reunite Gordie and Speedoh.

Hayseed

1997

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

Pierrot Lunaire poster
5.3

Invited by the conductor Premil Petrovic to stage Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, a musical theater work from 1912 based on the poems of Albert Giraud, LaBruce transposed a strange and tragic episode of true crime onto the composition. Complementing the original atonal score is a narrative about a trans man who is outed by his girlfriend’s father and forbidden from seeing the young woman again. Crestfallen, the protagonist decides to prove the fact of his manhood by castrating a taxi driver and then revealing his newly transplanted member to the two of them. This story, which for LaBruce “serves as a kind of allegory for all gender radicals and outcasts driven to extremes by the disapproval and hostility of the dominant order,” is rendered in a visual style that nods to the era of Schoenberg’s melodrama. LaBruce cheekily appropriates the formal vocabulary of silent cinema with black-and-white photography, irises, and intertitles like “A cock, a cock, my kingdom for a cock!”

Pierrot Lunaire

2014

Dr. Chris Teen Sex Surrogate poster
NR

Fonda LaBruce and Vaginal Davis are a drag queen lesbian couple experiencing bed death. They call in therapist (Dr. Chris Teen) to help them get out of their sexual rut.

Dr. Chris Teen Sex Surrogate

1994

No artwork available
6.0

A hip and savvy look at sex, sexuality, gender and pop culture.

The Blue Hermaphrodite

No artwork available
7.3

Curmudgeon. Contrarian. Misanthrope. Naysayer. For all the people interviewed in this film, someone has used one of the above words to describe them. What have they done to deserve such labels? Everywhere these men and women go, something is being celebrated; they don’t get what all the celebration is about and they’re compelled to question it.

I, Curmudgeon

2004

Sagat poster
2.0

Go deep inside one of the most recognizable gay porn stars of all time. This exciting doc takes you behind-the-scenes to get a glimpse at the real life of François Sagat.

Sagat

2011

Behind the camera

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing poster
5.3

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.

30/30 Vision: Three Decades of Strand Releasing

2019

No artwork available
NR

An enigmatic, fluid actor embodies a mythical figure tied to Virgil's egg, blurring reality and fiction as he recreates a film about his own life, an homage to Patroni Griffi's Il Mare. Through encounters, passions, and visions evoking ancient cults and legends, the work becomes a sensual, unsettling tribute to Naples and its magical-literary heritage.

Egg

2026

No artwork available
NR

An enigmatic, fluid actor embodies a mythical figure tied to Virgil's egg, blurring reality and fiction as he recreates a film about his own life, an homage to Patroni Griffi's Il Mare. Through encounters, passions, and visions evoking ancient cults and legends, the work becomes a sensual, unsettling tribute to Naples and its magical-literary heritage.

Egg

2026

The Visitor poster
4.4

London, today. A refugee washes up naked in a suitcase on the bank of the Thames. The enigmatic, sexually fluid stranger introduces himself to a bourgeois, upper-class family, who invite him to stay on as an employee. The Visitor soon seduces each member in a series of explicit sexual encounters. He will turn their world upside down as they can redefine themselves in new, radical ways.

The Visitor

2024

The Visitor poster
4.4

London, today. A refugee washes up naked in a suitcase on the bank of the Thames. The enigmatic, sexually fluid stranger introduces himself to a bourgeois, upper-class family, who invite him to stay on as an employee. The Visitor soon seduces each member in a series of explicit sexual encounters. He will turn their world upside down as they can redefine themselves in new, radical ways.

The Visitor

2024

Hustler White poster
5.5

Reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, the action is transposed from the silver screen's old backlots to contemporary male prostitution and the pornographic industry.

Hustler White

1996

Hustler White poster
5.5

Reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, the action is transposed from the silver screen's old backlots to contemporary male prostitution and the pornographic industry.

Hustler White

1996

Hustler White poster
5.5

Reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, the action is transposed from the silver screen's old backlots to contemporary male prostitution and the pornographic industry.

Hustler White

1996

Défense de fumer poster
NR

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not in this case.

Défense de fumer

2014

Défense de fumer poster
NR

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not in this case.

Défense de fumer

2014

Défense de fumer poster
NR

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not in this case.

Défense de fumer

2014

No artwork available
NR

Two celebrities (Gaspar Noe and Harmony Korine) meet for the first time to spend an evening in each others and the camera’s company.

Into the Night With Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noe

2010

The Raspberry Reich poster
5.6

Gudrun has modeled her amateur German terrorist group after the 1970s Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang). She attempts to imitate her heroes by kidnapping the son of a wealthy industrialist and hopes to negotiate leftist demands from the father. When Gudrun’s not spouting leftist verses (including during a hilariously brilliant fuck session), she’s trying to convince her all-male gang to abandon their heterosexuality, which she believes is the result of mass delusion.

The Raspberry Reich

2004

The Raspberry Reich poster
5.6

Gudrun has modeled her amateur German terrorist group after the 1970s Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang). She attempts to imitate her heroes by kidnapping the son of a wealthy industrialist and hopes to negotiate leftist demands from the father. When Gudrun’s not spouting leftist verses (including during a hilariously brilliant fuck session), she’s trying to convince her all-male gang to abandon their heterosexuality, which she believes is the result of mass delusion.

The Raspberry Reich

2004

Boy / Girl poster
5.5

In LaBruce’s first short experimental super 8 film, a loose narrative is constructed out of a variety of film clips, some shot on location by the filmmaker, some found footage, and some shot off the television screen. A woman with long red hair (G.B. Jones) sits on a window sill and looks down with her binoculars at the street below. Meanwhile, Mary Tyler Moore escapes from an aggressive man and runs to the park. Boy/Girl is a documentation of a period of time when filmmaker LaBruce lived in a crummy, squat-like building at Queen and Parliament Streets in Toronto with the all-girl punk band, Fifth Column.

Boy / Girl

1987

Boy / Girl poster
5.5

In LaBruce’s first short experimental super 8 film, a loose narrative is constructed out of a variety of film clips, some shot on location by the filmmaker, some found footage, and some shot off the television screen. A woman with long red hair (G.B. Jones) sits on a window sill and looks down with her binoculars at the street below. Meanwhile, Mary Tyler Moore escapes from an aggressive man and runs to the park. Boy/Girl is a documentation of a period of time when filmmaker LaBruce lived in a crummy, squat-like building at Queen and Parliament Streets in Toronto with the all-girl punk band, Fifth Column.

Boy / Girl

1987

No Skin Off My Ass poster
6.6

A lonely hairdresser watches the title sequence of "That Cold Day in the Park" then visits a local park to invite a down-and-out skinhead to his apartment. He draws the silent man a bath and talks to him as he soaks. He locks his guest in a bedroom. Next day, the skinhead leaves through the window and visits his sister, who's making a film called "Sisters of the SLA." He helps with a screen-test. The hairdresser has dreams and fantasies involving the skinhead, the skinhead returns to visit him, and then the filmmaker pays a call on the two men, exposing her brother as faking his silence and pretending a lack of sexual interest. Fantasies can come true.

No Skin Off My Ass

1991

No Skin Off My Ass poster
6.6

A lonely hairdresser watches the title sequence of "That Cold Day in the Park" then visits a local park to invite a down-and-out skinhead to his apartment. He draws the silent man a bath and talks to him as he soaks. He locks his guest in a bedroom. Next day, the skinhead leaves through the window and visits his sister, who's making a film called "Sisters of the SLA." He helps with a screen-test. The hairdresser has dreams and fantasies involving the skinhead, the skinhead returns to visit him, and then the filmmaker pays a call on the two men, exposing her brother as faking his silence and pretending a lack of sexual interest. Fantasies can come true.

No Skin Off My Ass

1991

No artwork available
NR

Set in a not-so-distant future, it follows two iconic aging actresses who reunite on a film shoot that mirrors and reignites their decaying romance. Source: https://variety.com/2026/film/global/alliance-4-development-bruce-labruce-monica-bellucci-1236828965/

Third Take

No artwork available
NR

Set in a not-so-distant future, it follows two iconic aging actresses who reunite on a film shoot that mirrors and reignites their decaying romance. Source: https://variety.com/2026/film/global/alliance-4-development-bruce-labruce-monica-bellucci-1236828965/

Third Take

Saint-Narcisse poster
5.6

Dominic’s fetish is… himself. Nothing turns him on more than his own reflection. That’s why discovering that he has a twin brother, raised in a remote monastery by a depraved priest, causes him major consternation. Fate brings the two young men back together again, and their fraternal relationship is torn between sex, revenge and redemption.

Saint-Narcisse

2021

Saint-Narcisse poster
5.6

Dominic’s fetish is… himself. Nothing turns him on more than his own reflection. That’s why discovering that he has a twin brother, raised in a remote monastery by a depraved priest, causes him major consternation. Fate brings the two young men back together again, and their fraternal relationship is torn between sex, revenge and redemption.

Saint-Narcisse

2021

Gerontophilia poster
6.0

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.

Gerontophilia

2013

Gerontophilia poster
6.0

Lake is in a straight relationship with Desiree but finds himself becoming attracted to men at the pool. When he cannot control his desires any longer, he starts working at an adult home and begins a relationship with a much, much older man.

Gerontophilia

2013