Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes

Born: January 2, 1961
in Los Angeles, California, USA
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's Grand Jury Prize and is regarded as a seminal work of New Queer Cinema.

Haynes received further acclaim for his second feature film, Safe (1995), a symbolic portrait of a housewife who develops multiple chemical sensitivity. Safe was later voted the best film of the 1990s by The Village Voice Film Poll. His next feature, Velvet Goldmine (1998), is a tribute to the 1970s glam rock era. The film received the Special Jury Prize for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.

Haynes gained acclaim and a measure of mainstream success with Far from Heaven (2002) earning his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He continued to direct critically lauded films such as I'm Not There (2007), Carol (2015), Wonderstruck (2017) and Dark Waters (2019). He directed his first feature-length documentary, The Velvet Underground (2021). Haynes directed and co-wrote the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce (2011) for which he was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards.

Movies for Todd Haynes...

Title: Off Script with The Hollywood Reporter
Character: Self
Released: December 31, 2023
Type: TV
THR’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.
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Douglas Sirk – Hope as in Despair
Title: Douglas Sirk – Hope as in Despair
Character: Self
Released: August 3, 2022
Type: Movie
An 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.
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Dark Waters: The Cost of Being a Hero
Title: Dark Waters: The Cost of Being a Hero
Character: Self
Released: November 24, 2019
Type: Movie
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.
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At the Video Store
Title: At the Video Store
Character: Self
Released: October 11, 2019
Type: Movie
Equal 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.
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Xavier Dolan: Bound to Impossible
Title: Xavier Dolan: Bound to Impossible
Character: Self
Released: September 20, 2016
Type: Movie
Actors 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.
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Great Directors
Title: Great Directors
Character: Self
Released: May 19, 2009
Type: Movie
Features 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.
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Infinite Pleasure: Todd Haynes on Max Ophuls' Le Plaisir
Title: Infinite Pleasure: Todd Haynes on Max Ophuls' Le Plaisir
Character: Interviewee
Released: September 18, 2006
Type: Movie
Filmmaker Todd Haynes talks about Max Ophuls' 1952 film Le Plaisir.
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Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
Title: Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
Character: Self
Released: February 12, 2006
Type: Movie
A 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?
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Notes on the Death of Kodachrome
Title: Notes on the Death of Kodachrome
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 2006
Type: Movie
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.
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Eine Zärtlichkeit wie bei Sirk - Todd Haynes über Fassbinder und das Melodram
Title: Eine Zärtlichkeit wie bei Sirk - Todd Haynes über Fassbinder und das Melodram
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 2006
Type: Movie
In 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.
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Title: SexTV
Released: October 17, 1998
Type: TV
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.
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At Sundance
Title: At Sundance
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1995
Type: Movie
A 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.]
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Swoon
Title: Swoon
Character: Phrenology Head
Released: September 11, 1992
Type: Movie
Teenagers 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.
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He Was Once
Title: He Was Once
Character: Randy
Released: November 1, 1989
Type: Movie
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.
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Natural History
Title: Natural History
Character: Child
Released: April 12, 1989
Type: Movie
The 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.
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Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
Title: Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
Character: Todd Donovan
Released: July 15, 1987
Type: Movie
The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
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Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud
Title: Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud
Released: January 1, 1985
Type: Movie
The violent love between poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.