
Directing
Todd Haynes
Born
1961-01-02 (65)
Place of birth
Los Angeles, California, USA
Known for
Directing
Credits
62 titles
Todd Haynes (/heɪnz/; born January 2, 1961; Los Angeles) is an American filmmaker. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender roles. Haynes first gained public attention with his controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), which chronicles singer Karen Carpenter's life and death, using Barbie dolls as actors. Superstar became a cult classic. Haynes's feature directorial debut, Poison (1991), a provocative exploration of AIDS-era queer perceptions and subversions, established him as a figure of a new transgressive cinema. Poison won the Sundance Film Festival'…
Known for
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Marcians
2017
6.6Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
May December
2023
7.5A tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything — his future, his family, and his own life — to expose the truth.
Dark Waters
2019
6.5Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself.
I'm Not There
2007
2.9THR’s famed Roundtables are reimagined for broadcast and offer a fresh perspective on a classic, showcasing the collective brilliance of the entertainment industry's finest and funniest minds as never before.
Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter
2023
7.5In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.
Carol
2015
Film credits
2020s · 4 titles
NRAn archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of iconic, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer.
Barbara Forever
2026
NRA documentary short about Portland’s iconic Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness video store.
All We Do Is Watch Movies
2026
8.0An investigative portrait of the master of cinematic melodrama, Douglas Sirk. His life was the ultimate melodrama, from which all his films were inspired. Through the testimonies of those closest to him and the unpublished accounts in his wife's diary, we get closer to this man surrounded by mystery.
Douglas Sirk – Hope as in Despair
2022
NRFounded by Richard Linklater in 1985 as a screening series dedicated to bringing experimental and art cinema to the city of Austin, Texas, the Austin Film Society has grown into a cornerstone of the city's creative community - while remaining true to its edgy, eclectic roots.
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
2023
2010s · 3 titles
10.0Equal parts personal essay, intense rumination, and playful satire, this movie laments the death of the American Video Store while it searches for the missing human element in today's digital landscape.
At the Video Store
2019
This piece examines real-life Rob Bilott’s sacrifices to take down a powerful corporation and how a single individual can impact an entire community. Cast and filmmakers discuss the importance of telling this story and empowering whistle-blowers.
Dark Waters: The Cost of Being a Hero
2019
6.0Actors Anne Dorval, Suzanne Clément, Monia Chokri, Gaspard Ulliel, Vincent Cassel, Niels Schneider and Melvil Poupaud discuss working with the young Canadian director Xavier Dolan, who has conquered the hearts of both cinema lovers and prestigious festival juries with his films. To French actress Nathalie Baye, he seems very experienced despite his young age, while Cannes Director Thierry Frémaux says he may be insolent, but everyone agrees he is passionate, creative, a perfectionist and... in a hurry.
Xavier Dolan: Bound to Impossible
2016
2000s · 7 titles
5.4A chronological look at films by, for, or about gays and lesbians in the United States, from 1947 to 2005, Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" to "Brokeback Mountain". Talking heads, anchored by critic and scholar B. Ruby Rich, are interspersed with an advancing timeline and with clips from two dozen films. The narrative groups the pictures around various firsts, movements, and triumphs: experimental films, indie films, sex on screen, outlaw culture and bad guys, lesbian lovers, films about AIDS and dying, emergence of romantic comedy, transgender films, films about diversity and various cultures, documentaries and then mainstream Hollywood drama. What might come next?
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
2006
Behind the scenes of Todd Haynes' 2002 film Far from Heaven.
Far from Heaven: "Making of"
2003
Todd Haynes, who considers Max Ophuls’ THE RECKLESS MOMENT (1949) one of his ten favorite films of all time, gives a wonderful 22 minute introduction of the film, titled "Maternal Overdrive," a term he uses to describe the state of the protagonist, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett).
Maternal Overdrive
2006
6.1Features conversations with ten of the world's greatest living directors: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Liliana Cavani, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles. The film documents Ismailos' voyage of discovering the creative personalities behind the camera.
Great Directors
2009
NRFilmmaker Todd Haynes talks about Max Ophuls' 1952 film Le Plaisir.
Infinite Pleasure: Todd Haynes on Max Ophuls' Le Plaisir
2006
Jennifer Montgomery tracks down three old friends (Joe Westmoreland, Lisa Cholodenko, and Todd Haynes) who borrowed and never returned pieces of her super-8 film equipment.
Notes on the Death of Kodachrome
2007
NRIn his film "Far From Heaven", Todd Haynes refers very respectfully to Douglas Sirk's "All that Heaven Allows". Fassbinder was also strongly influenced by Sirk's work. Haynes now explains this double fascination.
Eine Zärtlichkeit wie bei Sirk - Todd Haynes über Fassbinder und das Melodram
2006
1990s · 2 titles
5.7Teenagers Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb share a dangerous sexual bond and an amoral outlook on life. They spend afternoons breaking into storefronts and engaging in petty crimes, until the calculating Nathan ups the ante by kidnapping, and murdering, a young boy.
Swoon
1992
5.8A group portrait of filmmakers attend the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Featuring Matthew Harrison, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes, Greg Araki, Abel Ferrara, Atom Egoyan, James Gray, Robert Redford, Haskell Wexler, among many others. Co-directed by Amy Hobby. [Filmed in Pixelvision and blown-up to evocatively grainy 16mm.]
At Sundance
1995
1980s · 4 titles
7.0The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
1987
NRThe parents of an adult infant named "Child", played by Todd Haynes, attempt to expel him from their home, by casting magical spell seen in a television documentary about Malaysian rites of passage.
Natural History
1989
4.0The violent love between poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.
Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud
1985
This bizarre parody of the animated religious children’s show Davey and Goliath uses actors but looks like Claymation because of the stop motion, distorted voices, giant prosthetic ears and hair and sets that make Pee-Wee’s Playhouse look realistic. Davey’s father whips him with a belt for saying that he saw a bear, though he really did see a bear, while his sister looks on in glee. His dog Goliath, actually a leopard-skin footrest with a grotesque tail, tries to help but gets whipped too. Oedipal dream sequences and Davey’s revenge are also highlights in this unforgettable and darkly hilarious suburban nightmare.
He Was Once
1989
Series credits
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Marcians
2017
2.9THR’s famed Roundtables are reimagined for broadcast and offer a fresh perspective on a classic, showcasing the collective brilliance of the entertainment industry's finest and funniest minds as never before.
Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter
2023
SexTV is a Canadian documentary television series which explores many issues about human sexuality. The show premiered in 1998 and spun off a television channel called SexTV: The Channel in 2001. The series uses two Leonard Cohen songs, "Everybody Knows" and "Ain't No Cure for Love", as theme music.
SexTV
1998
Behind the camera
6.6Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
May December
2023
7.5A tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything — his future, his family, and his own life — to expose the truth.
Dark Waters
2019
6.5Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself.
I'm Not There
2007
6.5Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself.
I'm Not There
2007
7.5In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.
Carol
2015
7.1In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.
Far from Heaven
2002
7.1In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.
Far from Heaven
2002
6.1The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Wonderstruck
2017
7.0Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
Safe
1995
7.0Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.
Safe
1995
6.9Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
Velvet Goldmine
1998
6.9Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
Velvet Goldmine
1998
6.0A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.
Poison
1991
6.0A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.
Poison
1991
6.8Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
The Velvet Underground
2021
6.8Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
The Velvet Underground
2021
6.8Experience the iconic rock band's legacy in the first major documentary to tell their story. Directed with the era’s avant-garde spirit by Todd Haynes, this kaleidoscopic oral history combines exclusive interviews with dazzling archival footage.
The Velvet Underground
2021
7.1This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.
Six by Sondheim
2013
7.0The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
1987
7.0The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
1987
7.0The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
1987
7.0A state employee tasked with photographing road conditions tracks a mysterious man (played by Steve Buscemi) who leaves suspiciously large garbage bags along a snowy country road.
Tommy's
1985
6.1A six-year-old boy in pre-hippie 1960s United States endures ridicule from his schoolmates and worry from his father over his fixation with a TV star named Dottie.
Dottie Gets Spanked
1993
6.1A six-year-old boy in pre-hippie 1960s United States endures ridicule from his schoolmates and worry from his father over his fixation with a TV star named Dottie.
Dottie Gets Spanked
1993
NRThe only black American family in Maine has a son, a blind bodybuilder, who falls in love with a white "mer-boy."
Anemone Me
1990
Richard Rent, a volatile LAPD cop, and Joe Thomas, a boarding schoolteacher, become targets of the city’s corrupt political machine and are forced to flee to Mexico. In the humid jungles of the country’s Pacific coast, an unexpected affair unfolds. As passion turns to reckoning, both men must confront the violence they fled and the illusions that once defined who they were – and who they fear they might become.
De Noche
—
Richard Rent, a volatile LAPD cop, and Joe Thomas, a boarding schoolteacher, become targets of the city’s corrupt political machine and are forced to flee to Mexico. In the humid jungles of the country’s Pacific coast, an unexpected affair unfolds. As passion turns to reckoning, both men must confront the violence they fled and the illusions that once defined who they were – and who they fear they might become.
De Noche
—
NRA priest wakes repeatedly from a dream in which he sees attractive, partially-disrobed man in his room. The hypnotic repetition and anxiety of his vision gains tension from the minimalist score.
A Man in Your Room
1984
NRA dramatic story of childhood trauma and mystical bonds telling of Matthew, a young boy haunted by a traumatizing memory of witnessing a suffocation death of another child (possibly a friend or playmate). He withdraws and has nightmares about what he saw. He struggles to relive his experience through play and fantasy in the face of an increasingly hostile world while his uncomprehending parents struggle to understand him. During one of his frequent trips to a building site near his house, Matthew meets Anna, a strange mysterious girl with whom he forms a mystical bond that forces him to confront the memory that has obsessed him.
Muddy Hands
1988
NRThe parents of an adult infant named "Child", played by Todd Haynes, attempt to expel him from their home, by casting magical spell seen in a television documentary about Malaysian rites of passage.
Natural History
1989
4.0The violent love between poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.
Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud
1985
NROrdinary people of both sexes, and of varying ages, races and ethnicities, tell stories that sound familiar. But each is a construct to plumb reality in a considered, theoretical, and, ultimately, playful fashion, as Delson continues the filmic experimentation begun during her collaboration with Jill Godmilow an the genre-bending Far from Poland.
Cause and Effect
1988
5.6A young boy, abandoned by his father and supported by a blindly optimistic mother, struggles to fit in at his new school.
The Suicide
1978
5.6A young boy, abandoned by his father and supported by a blindly optimistic mother, struggles to fit in at his new school.
The Suicide
1978
5.6A young boy, abandoned by his father and supported by a blindly optimistic mother, struggles to fit in at his new school.
The Suicide
1978
5.7In 1991, a long-form music video version of Goo was released on VHS and LaserDisc. A music video for each song from the album was included; the track listing was identical to that of the original album.
Goo
1991
This bizarre parody of the animated religious children’s show Davey and Goliath uses actors but looks like Claymation because of the stop motion, distorted voices, giant prosthetic ears and hair and sets that make Pee-Wee’s Playhouse look realistic. Davey’s father whips him with a belt for saying that he saw a bear, though he really did see a bear, while his sister looks on in glee. His dog Goliath, actually a leopard-skin footrest with a grotesque tail, tries to help but gets whipped too. Oedipal dream sequences and Davey’s revenge are also highlights in this unforgettable and darkly hilarious suburban nightmare.
He Was Once
1989
NRWhen asked to create something for the “Où en êtes-vous?” (“Where Are You?”) collection commissioned and posed by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Haynes’s response was this behind-the-scenes film made during the production of May December, which evokes Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her in its metacinematic exploration of identity.
Image Book
2023
NRA cunning storyteller presents a curious tale of blackmail to two friends invited to lunch. As the story unwinds we realise that the blackmail plot is merely a cover-up for a far more sinister plot involving revenge and murder. This fast-paced, ironic black comedy provides the spectator with a challenging puzzle of events whose meaning always lies just beyond the frameline.
American Lunch
1988
