In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.

In How to Shoot a Crime, Chris Kraus constructs a quasi-documentary with police crime footage, interviews with two dominitrices, and an ersatz mystery sub-plot. Sadomasochism finds its analog in a “plot” where gentrification and crime documentation are two versions of aestheticized death.