Todd Haynes

Director

January 2, 1961 (65 years)

Los Angeles, California, USA

Biography

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 dire…

Filmography

6.6

May December

Twenty 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.

7.0

Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce depicts an overprotective, self-sacrificing mother during the Great Depression who finds herself separated from her husband, opening a restaurant of her own and falling in love with a man, all the while trying to earn her spoiled, narcissistic daughter's love and respect.

7.0

Enlightened

After a very public breakdown and a subsequent philosophical awakening in rehabilitation, Amy tries to get her life back together.

7.5

Dark Waters

A 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.

7.5

Carol

In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.

6.5

I'm Not There

Six 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.

6.9

Safe

Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s, comes down with a debilitating illness with no clear diagnosis.

6.9

Velvet Goldmine

Almost 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.

7.1

Far from Heaven

In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.

6.1

Wonderstruck

The 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.

7.1

Six by Sondheim

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

6.8

The Velvet Underground

Experience 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.

5.9

Poison

A 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.

N/A

Image Book

When 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.

N/A

Sonic Youth: Corporate Ghost (The Videos: 1990-2002)

A collection of music videos by Sonic Youth, spanning from 1990 to 2002.

7.0

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.

6.2

Dottie Gets Spanked

A 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.

8.0

La Divina

Brooke Dammkoehler’s meditation on the rise to stardom of a glamorous movie idol (modelled after Greta Garbo), draped in gorgeous black & white photography and a tone of delirious grandeur.

5.7

Goo

In 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.

5.6

The Suicide

A young boy, abandoned by his father and supported by a blindly optimistic mother, struggles to fit in at his new school.