x movie review av club

‘X’ Review: ’70s Horror Meets ’70s Porn in the Rare ‘Chain Saw’ Homage That Earns Its Fear

In 1979, a group of renegades rent a Texas farmhouse to shoot a porn film — and for once the mayhem that follows doesn't feel cheap.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Humane’ Review: Caitlin Cronenberg’s First Feature Is a Searing Domestic Thriller About Crimes of the Not-So-Distant Future 4 days ago
• ‘Boy Kills World’ Review: Bill Skarsgård Is a Deaf-Mute Avenger in an Action Film So Ultraviolent It’s Like ‘John Wick’ Gone ‘Clockwork Orange’ 6 days ago
• ‘Uncropped’ Review: An Enticing Portrait of James Hamilton Makes You Wonder: Is He the Greatest New York Photographer Ever? 1 week ago

If I had a dime — or maybe a drop of blood — for every movie that tried to recreate the vibe, the situation, and the high anxiety of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” I’d have a pretty big bucket of blood. For decades, I’ve been watching movies that open with a handful of obnoxious kids in a vehicle, tooling down a redneck roadway, and then…well, you know what happens next. They land in a remote house somewhere, at which point the film in question stops bearing any resemblance to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Instead, it turns into one more instance of deadening formula trash: another piece of slasher-movie roadkill.

More than that, it’s a movie made with genuine mood and skill and flavor. Your average “Chain Saw” knockoff never seems remotely like a movie from the grainy outlaw ’70s. It is, rather, contempo product that feels like product; the movies in the “Chain Saw” franchise itself are made with the worst kind of synthetic digital sheen. But “X,” set in 1979, actually achieves the look and atmosphere of 1979: the free-ride waywardness, the needle drops (Pablo Cruise, “In the Summertime”), the local televangelist barking at his stuffy minions on a black-and-white TV set. The film’s images have a no-fuss pastoral documentary lyricism, and it’s not just the way the shots look. It’s the way they’re cut together — slowly and calmly, without razzmatazz, so that the film seems to be taking place in real time, at a time when technology was a lot quieter. The folks within those frames actually seem like real people.

Her boyfriend, the middle-aged cowboy stud Wayne (Martin Henderson), is producing the film and running the shoot. Maxine is going to be one of the farmer’s daughters, and so is Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), who works, like Maxine, at a Houston burlesque club. Jackson (Scott Mescudi, a.k.a. Kid Cudi), the one male porn actor in the group, is Bobby-Lynne’s’s boyfriend, and the other two kids are the filmmakers: RJ (Owen Campbell), the stringy-haired geek who’s directing the film (i.e., pointing the camera), and has convinced himself it’s going to be a piece of “cinema,” and his girlfriend, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who’s on hand to hold the boom mike. They have rented a farm cottage about 75 yards from the main house, and they’re going to use that and the cow barn to stage their country-vixen fantasy.

“Texas Chain Saw,” the granddaddy of the slasher genre, had an atmosphere that was sexualized enough that the porn-film plot of “X” feels like a natural extension of it. We see several of the porn scenes being shot, and like the ones in “Boogie Nights” they’re realistic and true to the scruffy pre-video porn vibe. So what’s there to be scared of? When they arrive at the farmhouse, Wayne is greeted at the door by a gnarly old man who looks about 100, like the grandpa in “Chain Saw.” He doesn’t seem that scary until he picks up a shotgun. Even so, there’s got to be more.

Is there a Leatherface? Not quite. But grandpa has a wife, who looks about as old as he is, and she starts to show up in odd places, her white hair, in a Victorian bun like the one on the corpse of Norman Bates’ mother, looking like a nimbus. These two ancient codgers are the quintessence of creepy. But we wonder what’s going to happen, since Ti West, in making this film, strikes a kind of deal with the audience. He basically says: I won’t cheat. I won’t have an insane killer coming out of nowhere. I will earn your fear. And he does.

“X” is no “Chain Saw.” What is? Nothing comes close (except for maybe Takashi Miike’s “Audition,” the most disturbing horror film since). But “X” is a wily and entertaining slow-motion ride of terror that earns its shocks, along with its singular quease factor, which relates to the fact that the demons here are ancient specimens of humanity who actually have a touch of…humanity. West, as a filmmaker, reverses tropes in a way that speaks to the era that was coming. The men, for once, are the first to get killed off, and where movie slashers tend to represent the suppression of female sexuality, “X” is a kind of feminist horror film in which the principal demon is a woman who wants to embrace sexuality. The world just won’t let her.

Reviewed at Stateside at the Paramount (SXSW), March 13, 2022. MPAA rating: R. Running time: 105 MIN.

• Production: An 24 release of a BRON Creative, MAD SOLAR production. Producers: Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen, Harrison Kreiss, Ti West. Executive producers: Sam Levinson, Ashley Levinson, Peter Phok, Scott Mescudi, Dennis Cummings, Karina Manashil.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Ti West. Camera: Eliot Rockett. Editors: David Kashevaroff, Ti West. Music: Tyler Bates, Chelsea Wolfe.
• With: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell,. Stephen Ure, Scott Mescudi.

More From Our Brands

Trump admits he asked secret service to take him to capitol on jan. 6, redefining the luxury property landscape in dubai, lsu’s livvy dunne joins passes in company’s first nil deal, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, svu’s mariska hargitay is trying to get kelli giddish back for season 26, verify it's you, please log in.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

X review – Bump’n’grindhouse from horror director Ti West

The film-maker’s latest, about a porn shoot gone wrong, is a playful gore-fest

T he year is 1979 and a foxy gang of actors from Houston, Texas, are pounding down the highway in a truck plastered with the name “Plowing Service”. The latest film from horror director Ti West ( The House of the Devil ), about a porn movie shoot gone wrong, is ripe with playful winks and nudges.

Producer Wayne (Martin Henderson) casts his younger girlfriend, the coke-snorting Maxine (Mia Goth), in “The Farmer’s Daughter” alongside Bobby-Lynne (a witty Brittany Snow) and former marine Jackson (Scott Mescudi, AKA Kid Cudi). Director RJ (Owen Campbell) aspires to make “a good dirty movie”, but to his sound recordist girlfriend, Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), “it’s smut”. Their activities titillate the older couple next door. West has great fun teasing the audience ahead of the gory climax. Even more provocative is the real “money shot”, which sees the elderly lovers getting their kicks.

X is released in US and UK cinemas on 18 March

• Horror films
• The Observer
• Drama films

Most viewed

Advertisement

Supported by

critic’s pick

‘X’ Review: Trash, Art and the Movies

Ti West’s latest is a slasher film about the making of a porno film, but the result might not be what you expect.

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

“X” is a clever and exuberant throwback to a less innocent time, when movies could be naughty, disreputable and idiosyncratic. Two kinds of movie in particular: the dirty kind and the scary kind. Set in 1979, before the internet made pornography ubiquitous and before anyone was pontificating about “elevated horror,” this sly and nasty picture insists that the flesh and blood of down-and-dirty entertainment is, literally, flesh and blood.

Not that the director, Ti West, is simply replicating the cheap, tawdry thrills of the olden days. West, whose earlier features include “The House of the Devil” and “The Sacrament,” is both a canny craftsman and a genre intellectual. In the midst of the sex and slaughter, he conducts an advanced seminar on visual pleasure and narrative cinema.

And also a brief course in film history, with particular attention to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and shout-outs to “Psycho” and “Debbie Does Dallas.” That X-rated landmark (later adapted into an Off Broadway musical ) provides inspiration for the six Texans who show up at a decrepit farmstead to shoot a hard-core oeuvre called “The Farmer’s Daughters.” The actual farmer, an apparently childless geezer named Howard (Stephen Ure), has rented them a bunkhouse on his property. He and his wife live in the creaky, creepy main house.

The cast and crew consists of three performers — two women and a man, the classic heterosexual porn ratio — a director, a technician and a swaggering entrepreneur who claims the title of executive producer. This guy, Wayne (Martin Henderson), is also romantically attached to one of the stars, Maxine (Mia Goth), who dreams of the Hollywood big time. Her veteran co-stars, Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow) and Jackson (Scott Mescudi, also known as the rapper Kid Cudi), are also a couple, as are RJ (Owen Campbell), the director, and Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who handles the sound and is, at least for a while, the designated prude.

Since “X” is a slasher film, it’s not spoiling anything to note that most of these people will not make it out alive. An ax, a pitchfork and a shotgun are all in easy reach, and for good measure there’s an alligator in the pond. Howard and his wife, Pearl, give off sinister vibes, and West’s knack for zooming, cutting, manipulating point of view and layering sinister sounds creates an unmistakable anticipation of doom.

But the sequence of deaths, the motives for the mayhem and the identity of the survivor may not quite match your expectations. Most notably, the old circuitry connecting horror and female sexuality — canonically diagramed in Carol J. Clover’s 1992 study “Men, Women and Chain Saws” — has been rewired. By the time it’s all over, the film has moved out of period pastiche into interesting new territory, exposing a feminist dimension in the horror tradition that may have been there all along. (Since West is reportedly already at work on a prequel, further exploration may be in store.)

In the meantime, you can sample the familiar, trashy pleasures of sin and skin, with a piquant sprinkling of meta. This is a movie about moviemaking, after all, like “Argo” or “Day for Night” or “Singin’ in the Rain,” and as such it teases the viewer with knowing winks and easy-access insider references.

Many of these come at poor RJ’s expense. With his stringy hair, wispy beard and wet-noodle physique, he’s a film-nerd caricature. He wants to bring experimental techniques — “the way they do in France” — to “The Farmer’s Daughters,” and worries Wayne with his commitment to the avant-garde. Still, he’s not entirely a satirical scapegoat. His sensitivity about the kind of movie he’s actually making (especially once Lorraine sheds her disapproval) isn’t played for laughs. His toast “to independent cinema” is a punchline, but it could also be West’s motto.

When RJ argues against the importance of plot, he has a point, one West both upholds and challenges. Horror and hard-core both use narrative as a flimsy excuse to show the audience the action it really came to see. And while the sex in “X” is strictly R-rated, the movie isn’t shy about appealing to voyeurism. There’s nothing coy or arty about the bloodletting.

The twists of the story — the shifts in attention from Wayne and Maxine and their colleagues to Howard and Pearl — are hardly arbitrary. West, unlike his pornographers, has things to say as well as bodies to show. Most of all, he has an aesthetic that isn’t all about terror or titillation. “X” is full of dreamy, haunting overhead shots and moments of surprising tenderness.

One of these arrives in the middle, while everyone is still alive and wearing clothes, and Bobby-Lynne, accompanied by Jackson on guitar, breaks into a heartfelt rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.” (One thing that definitely sets “X” apart from its ’70s influences is a robust budget for musical clearances.) The song serves no narrative end, or any prurient or profound purpose. It’s an unexpected gift. So is “X.”

X Rated R. Not quite what the title promises, but still. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this article misstated where the theatrical production of “Debbie Does Dallas” ran. It was an Off Broadway musical, not a Broadway one.

How we handle corrections

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series  based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

The A.V. Club Presents Film Club

• Film History
• Film Interviews
• Film Reviews
• movie reviews

Welcome to Film Club, the  A.V. Club ’s movie discussion series. Each week, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife (and occasionally some special guests) will gab about the week's new releases, explore various corners of the film industry, and examine the lasting impact of some of history's biggest films.

Frozen II and the Mr. Rogers movie compete for your family's love

Welcome back to Film Club, The A.V. Club’s weekly movie discussion series, now available in podcast form. In the first episode of our new season, film critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss two family-oriented entertainments hitting theaters in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday: Frozen II the sequel to the most successful animated movie ever, and A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers.

Visit: http://avclub.com

Like us on Facebook: http://www.fb.com/theavclub

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/theavclub

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Netflix nabs two filmmaking heavyweights for Marriage Story and The Irishman

This season’s second installment of Film Club is all about Netflix. Earlier this fall, the streaming giant reunited with Noah Baumbach for the tragicomedy Marriage Story, and debuted Martin Scorsese’s long-in-development-hell crime epic The Irishman. With both films hitting the service in the coming weeks—The Irishman premieres today, Marriage Story on December 6—our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife sit down to discuss the merits of these two impressive films.

Knives Out and Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

Join our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife as for a spoiler-free discussion of the twisty murder mystery, Knives Out—one of the year's most entertaining films—and the rapturous romance from Céline Sciamma, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire—our favorite film out of Cannes.

Bombshell and Uncut Gems

Join our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife for discussion of Jay Roach’s toothless dramatization of the Fox News-Roger Ailes sexual harassment scandal, Bombshell, and Josh and Benny Safdie’s anxiety-inducing thrill ride, Uncut Gems.

Visit: http://avclub.com Like us on Facebook:

http://www.fb.com/theavclub

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Little Women, and Cats

For the final Film Club of the year, our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss the final chapter in the new Star Wars trilogy, The Rise Of Skywalker, and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women, Also, special guest Ignatiy Vishnevetsky stops by and tries to wrap his head around Cats.

Dolittle and 1917

Welcome back to Film Club! For the first episode of 2020, Our critics discuss Dolittle—the wholly unnecessary reboot of Hugh Lofting’s children’s lit series starring Robert Downey Jr. in his first post-Endgame film—and 1917—the recently minted Oscar favorite which feels like an empty technical showcase.

OSCARS | Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Joker, and Ford v Ferrari

In honor of the fast-approaching 92nd Academy Awards, airing Sunday, February 9, Film Club is taking a break from covering this week’s film releases (do we really need to cover The Gentlemen?) to look back at the Best Picture nominees we didn’t cover last year. Today, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, Joker, and Ford v Ferrari. Look out for our episodes on Parasite, and Jojo Rabbit in the coming weeks.

Like: http://www.fb.com/theavclub

Follow: http://www.twitter.com/theavclub

The Rhythm Section and Beanpole

Welcome back to another edition of Film Club. Film editor A.A. Dowd is unable to join us this week, as he is in Park City, Utah covering this year’s Sundance Film Festival—check out his excellent coverage here. In his place, contributor Ignatiy Vishnevetsky joins senior writer Katie Rife to discuss Reed Morano's The Rhythm Section and Kantemir Balagov's Beanpole.

OSCARS | Parasite and Jojo Rabbit

In honor of the fast-approaching 92nd Academy Awards—airing this Sunday, February 9—Film Club is looking back at the Best Picture nominees we didn’t cover last year. Today, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss Parasite and Jojo Rabbit. For further Oscars discussion, check out our previous Film Club episodes about fellow Best Picture nominees—Marriage Story, The Irishman, Little Women, 1917, Joker, Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, and Ford v Ferrari.

Birds of Prey

Welcome back to another edition of Film Club. After hitting all of Sunday’s Best Picture nominees, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife are back to discussing the week’s new releases, starting with the latest entry in the new-and-improved DCEU, Birds Of Prey. Directed by Cathy Yan and starring Margot Robbie, Birds Of Prey is a wildly colorful mess of a movie—but it’s also really fun.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
• I Saw the TV Glow Link to I Saw the TV Glow
• Música Link to Música

New TV Tonight

• Hacks: Season 3
• The Tattooist of Auschwitz: Season 1
• Shardlake: Season 1
• The Veil: Season 1
• A Man in Full: Season 1
• Acapulco: Season 3
• Welcome to Wrexham: Season 3
• John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA: Season 1
• Star Wars: Tales of the Empire: Season 1
• My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman: Season 4.2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• Them: Season 2
• Shōgun: Season 1
• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• The Green Veil: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1 Link to Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

100 Essential Criterion Collection Films

100 Best Free Movies on YouTube (May 2024)

Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Summer Movie Calendar 2024

Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2024 Programming Guide

• Trending on RT
• The Fall Guy
• Challengers
• Best Movies of All Time
• Play Movie Trivia

AV Club Staff

Movies reviews only.

3 of the best movies of all time, all of which earned a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

If you believe Jerry Seinfeld’s gloomy assessment of the movie business — that, in his words, it’s over , to put it bluntly — then it probably follows that you haven’t ventured out to your local cinema much if at all in the recent past. Maybe you look at the kind of films Hollywood is churning out today, including hits like Anyone But You or the new Dune blockbuster, and you can’t help thinking: All of the best movies, the really great and unforgettable films, maybe they really are all in the past now.

Whenever I do get bored from time to time, I may fall back on one of the best movies from the past if I’m looking for something new to watch. Everyone, of course, has their own ideas for what constitutes the ‘best’ — purely on the basis of the number of reviews they’ve garnered, for example, as well as their 100% scores on Rotten Tomatoes, critics think these three movies we’ve included below are among the best of the best.

They’re certainly among the best- reviewed of all time, based on Rotten Tomatoes data.

Tech. Entertainment. Science. Your inbox.

Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there.

By signing up, I agree to the Terms of Use and have reviewed the Privacy Notice.

• Leave No Trace (100% on RT, 251 reviews): In this 2018 indie drama from Bleecker Street, Ben Foster stars as the father of a 13-year-old daughter. Their characters are living in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon, basically trying to stay under the radar and off the grid. Eventually, the authorities catch up to them and force Foster’s character (an Iraq war veteran) and his daughter to adhere to more traditional ways of life.
• Toy Story 2 (100% on RT, 171 reviews): Arguably the best installment in Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, this 1999 classic finds Woody stolen by a toy collector, who plans to sell him to a museum in Japan. Meanwhile, Buzz Lightyear and other toys from Andy’s room band together on a rescue mission to bring back Woody — who also learns that he was the star of a 1950s TV show called Woody’s Roundup.
• Man On Wire (100% on RT, 160 reviews): This third movie is a 2008 documentary about Philippe Petit, a French tightrope walker who in 1974 pulled off the daring feat of crossing between the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center. This film is categorized as one of the best movies for a reason; it presents the execution of what was ultimately an illegal stunt like a caper. Petit himself, who’s shown here meticulously planning and preparing to pull off the wire walk, even called it “the artistic crime of the century.”

This article talks about:

Andy Meek is a reporter based in Memphis who has covered media, entertainment, and culture for over 20 years. His work has appeared in outlets including The Guardian, Forbes, and The Financial Times, and he’s written for BGR since 2015. Andy's coverage includes technology and entertainment, and he has a particular interest in all things streaming.

Over the years, he’s interviewed legendary figures in entertainment and tech that range from Stan Lee to John McAfee, Peter Thiel, and Reed Hastings.

• Forget Ted Lasso, this sweet Apple TV+ comedy is so much better
• Netflix Top 10: The most-watched shows in the world right now

More Entertainment

Deadpool & Wolverine will reportedly feature an amazing cameo I should have seen coming

Nintendo Switch 2 might sacrifice portable power for better battery life

All 9 Planet of the Apes movies are now streaming on Hulu

The 5 biggest game releases of May 2024

Latest news.

Apple’s answer to Circle to Search might not be ready until next year

Revolutionary new plastic eats itself to biodegrade in landfills

I only keep 10 third-party apps on my iPhone – here’s which ones make the cut

iOS 17.5 beta: Every new feature coming to your iPhone

Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there.

Where to Watch

Viva Bianca (Holly Rowe) Hanna Mangan Lawrence (Shay Ryan) Peter Docker (Ligurian) Stephen Phillips (Bennett) Eamon Farren (Harry) Belinda McClory (Katherine) Darren Moss (Giles) Freya Tingley (Cindy) Anthony Phelan (Customer) Hazem Shammas (Willie)

A veteran call girl and a runaway prostitute witness a murder and must evade the killer as he chases them through Sydney.

Recommendations

Advertisement

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• What Is Cinema?
• Newsletters

You’ve Never Seen a Movie Like I Saw the TV Glow

By Matthew Jacobs

Jane Schoenbrun is this close to being attacked by a stray kickball. We’re sitting outside a brewery in Austin during South by Southwest as a pack of grade-schoolers turn our secluded spot into their playground. Schoenbrun, whose new movie, I Saw the TV Glow , was this year’s buzziest Sundance sensation , has been thrust into the limelight that accompanies a hip A24 release—already an overwhelming position to be in without the perils of unwanted athletics. I ask if we should find another table. “No, it adds an interesting danger,” Schoenbrun says.

The 37-year-old director can handle minor hazards. Schoenbrun, who uses they/them pronouns, makes enigmatic art films that double as analogies about the transgender experience. Their debut narrative feature, 2022’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, was a restrained psychodrama about a lonely teenager who takes part in an online role-playing game said to distort participants’ bodies. It was strange and sullen, the sort of slow-burning indie that’s good for street cred but not commercial fanfare. I Saw the TV Glow (in select theaters May 3) had a bigger budget and has gotten more publicity, but it also colors outside the lines of Hollywood conventions. Watching it is a bit like being hit by a kickball: Afterward, you need a moment to recover.

While I Saw the TV Glow isn’t a work of memoir, Schoenbrun’s entire life has been leading to this project—and a mushroom trip helped. Schoenbrun realized they had written We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a movie about someone willing to mutate herself if it might make her feel whole, as a way of acknowledging their own transness. Schoenbrun had long felt a dysphoria they couldn’t classify, an otherness that sent them searching for corollaries in Judith Butler texts. Turns out the answer was right there in the script. Upon wrapping World’s Fair in early 2020, Schoenbrun “disappeared for two years, and came out a girl.” Then they made I Saw the TV Glow.

An eerie coming-of-age fable about the connection adolescents form with the media they consume, I Saw the TV Glow follows Owen ( Justice Smith ) and Maddy ( Brigette Lundy-Paine ), ’90s suburban outcasts who bond over their shared affection for a SNICK -esque show called The Pink Opaque. The uncanny cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Are You Afraid of the Dark? lets Owen and Maddy disassociate from their alienated lives. They feel more seen by its teen heroines ( Helena Howard and Lindsey Jordan, the latter better known as the musician Snail Mail) than by their peers or parents. With time, reality and make-believe blur. Maddy more or less enters The Pink Opaque and tries desperately to bring Owen with her.

I Saw the TV Glow is Schoenbrun’s ode to Buffy, Goosebumps, The X-Files, and other relics that ignited something inside them the way the horror genre, with its emphasis on oddballs and otherworldliness, does for so many queer striplings. It also resists what Schoenbrun sees as “misleading” ideas about transness that have seeped into pop culture, which tends to rely on binaries—boys transitioning to girls, girls transitioning to boys. “A lot of those narratives are either crafted by cis people from a completely voyeuristic perspective, or they were crafted by trans people trying to make themselves legible in a way that cis people can make into a Hallmark card,” they say. “I very proudly identify as nonbinary. I don’t think my relationship to gender is something that I completely understand. It’s actually quite comforting to embrace incoherence.”

Schoenbrun currently has three long-term romantic partners, including one they’ve dated since high school. (She was the first person to suggest to Schoenbrun that they might be trans. The filmmaker gives her “infinite thanks” in the closing credits of World’s Fair. ) Splitting time between Brooklyn and upstate New York, they’ve built an existence largely estranged from where they grew up in Westchester, the tony county about 40 minutes from Central Park. As a teenager, Schoenbrun took the train into the city to see Rilo Kiley and Sufjan Stevens concerts. On family vacations, they’d spend time alone listening to Belle and Sebastian. “All of that music was like an outlet to not be emotionally earnest in my real life,” they recall. “I was a quote, unquote boy, and that’s not how boys interact. I do think that the city was a space where I could continue to differentiate myself from the homogenized, creepy, conservative, and just normative suburban place that I had been told was my home.”

Talking to Schoenbrun for a few hours is like witnessing a seminar in self-actualization. Their quippy intellectualism never wanes; nor does their encyclopedic knowledge of entertainment, or their sense of humor. Schoenbrun’s mouth curves naturally into a smile as they talk. Afterward, while we stroll past themed pinball machines at a nearby arcade, they get excited about everything from The Simpsons to Johnny Mnemonic. Spotting a Sopranos version, Schoenbrun quickly pegs which season it represents based on the characters featured. “This one is calling to me,” they joke, pointing to a machine with a sultry Jessica Simpson looming overhead.

I Saw the TV Glow started with the image of a teenager in an open grave. Schoenbrun wanted to make a movie about a young adult program that ended in a “really fucked-up and disturbing way.” Scratchy VHS recordings would be a physical manifestation of the wounds The Pink Opaque ’s viewers still carried with them. “Very early on, there was this idea that the show ends with the main characters buried alive, and slowly the space between the characters and the people watching the show would collapse,” they say. Schoenbrun briefly considered designing the entire film as a two-hour SNICK block, including commercials; by the final frames, the audience would realize the footage was being filtered through haunted childhood memories.

As the story evolved, Schoenbrun introduced idiosyncrasies native to the pre-social-media era. “My youth was the video-store-to-friend’s-basement pipeline,” they say. So Maddy and Owen spend time in Maddy’s basement, watching The Pink Opaque late at night and having stilted conversations about their homelives. “Jane does this brilliant thing where the way these teenagers talk is very familiar because it feels like it’s from teen soap shows, but it’s slowed down and stretched out in a way that you’re hypnotized,” Lundy-Paine says. “You’re surrendering to the poetry of this type of dialogue that we’ve taken in our whole lives, subconsciously. It reminds me of how Yorgos Lanthimos ’s actors talk about making movies with him. I saw World’s Fair, so I knew the tempo we were living in. I approached it from understanding that it would need to feel strange and unsettling.”

By Karen Valby

By Anthony Breznican

By David Canfield

Schoenbrun positions I Saw the TV Glow ’s provincial misfits within a lineage established by Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and Stranger Things. They even got Emma Stone, who produced the movie, to email the owner of a Westchester house where the director used to hang out, hoping to get permission to revisit the basement. Stone was a helpful collaborator throughout the process, the filmmaker says, participating in pitch calls with financiers and bonding with Schoenbrum over the British horror parody Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. She is one of several A-listers in Schoenbrun’s corner, a roster that includes Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline Polachek (both of whom contributed to TV Glow ’s soundtrack ) and Green Knight director David Lowery, who has known Schoenbrun since the latter worked at the nonprofit Independent Filmmaker Project in the 2010s. Lowery was part of an experimental variety anthology that Schoenbrun cocreated. He later became an executive producer on World’s Fair, contacting distribution executives to encourage them to see the movie at Sundance.

“It felt like I was watching an entirely new form emerge from the ether of our culture and Jane’s own experiences,” Lowery says. “It’s a movie that’s partially rooted in a webcam’s point of view, but it doesn’t feel like a screenshare thriller or a movie that’s technologically oriented. It feels intensely physiological. I saw the point where the waves broke against the shore of my own taste and leapt into a territory that I was completely unaware of, which was the ‘extremely online’ perspective that the film participates in. I never fully understood the language of the online filmmaker, and it felt like Jane was bringing that into the language of cinema that I came from. I was witnessing a generational fault line: Here’s the voice of a filmmaker who could speak to the current and future generations in a way that I never could.”

As someone who canvassed message boards and other early-internet hubs, Schoenbrun treats screens as the foundation of contemporary life. What started as a planned “screen trilogy” has morphed into what they joke is a “screen septology.” One installment is a novel, called Public Access Afterworld, that explores transition itself. Schoenbrun compares its scope to that of Harry Potter or Dune. “I world-built this century-spanning fantasy, sci-fi epic,” they say. “I could tell you the story of it, but it would take me an hour.” If all goes well, it could be franchise material. They also have another movie script ready to go— Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a gory slasher comedy.

“I’ve hung out with Jane so much since all of this, and there’s never been a dull moment,” says Jordan, who makes her acting debut in TV Glow. “They’re such a trip…. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had this crazy loft apartment in Greenpoint, and one time me and Jane hunkered up there, just getting stoned and watching music videos for hours and hours and hours. We maybe listened to the Shallow Hal soundtrack…a forgotten indie masterpiece.”

With I Saw the TV Glow entering the world in earnest, Schoenbrun is thinking a lot about what it means to become a public figure, and to seek protection from the crucible of fame. Instead of indulging in first-class airline tickets, Schoenbrun asked A24 to subsidize SXSW travel for a few close friends. Instead of feeling daunted by journalists attempting to capture Schoenbrun’s interiority in profiles while children punt balls nearby, they view self-promotion as separate from anything concerning their actual day-to-day circumstances.

“There are many people who get into this space because they actually thrive on power or social climbing, or on the glitz and glamour of celebrity,” Schoenbrun says. “I think I enjoy those things from a wouldn’t-that-be-interesting? perspective, but I actively need to heal from them. I need to recede and shower, and the shower is just smoking weed and watching movies with my friends. Promoting a movie as a trans person right now involves a participation within this capitalist machinery that I am too sensitive not to be sickened by. I need to go and remember who I am.”

Queer millennials and Gen X’ers often say they wish certain shows, films, or books existed when they were growing up, and usually those shows, films, or books portray a version of coming out where everything turns out okay. Schoenbrun is interested, for now at least, in work that’s more slippery. I Saw the TV Glow can be interpreted many ways, some of which are quite upsetting. And yet the ingenuity Schoenbrun pours into it, from the supernatural shock of The Pink Opaque to the philosophical fantasia that ends the film, is its own feat, proof that queer tales don’t need feel-good sentimentality to be inspiring. Soon, some kid will say this movie changed their life.

After I play Dance Dance Revolution with one of Schoenbrun’s travel companions—we step to a remix of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on My Mind” as Schoenbrun and I rave about the song’s use in last year’s All of Us Strangers —I leave them to play games with their friends, unencumbered by a reporter’s watchful eye. Schoenbrun says they’ll probably head out after I do, but as I exit a few minutes later, I spot the group through the window, clustered around the grand DDR machine. It is glowing, and they look happy.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

Cover Star Chris Hemsworth on Fear, Love, and Furiosa

The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF

Scenes From the Knives-Out Feud Between Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer

An Exclusive First Look at Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis

Kristi Noem Doubles Down on Decision to Kill Family Dog

The 25 Best True-Crime Documentaries to Binge Right Now

From the Archive: The Devil in Bette Davis

Stay in the know and subscribe to Vanity Fair for just $2.50 $1 per month.

Matthew Jacobs

Hollywood daily.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Kase Wickman

By Maureen Ryan

By Dan Adler

By Paul Chi

By Savannah Walsh

By Andrew Buss

By Hillary Busis

Similar to The A.V. Club Presents Film Club

1 The Class of 1989

The micheaux mission / the podglomerate, 1 classic film jerks, classic film jerks, 1 the plot thickens, tcm & novel, 1 binge mode: marvel, 1 werewolf ambulance: a horror movie comedy podcast, werewolf ambulance, 1 post show recaps: tv & movie podcasts from josh wigler and friends, josh wigler and friends, 1 picture this: photography podcast, tony & chelsea northrup, 1 what to watch, entertainment weekly, 1 cordkillers (all audio), tom merritt, 1 dumteedum - a show about bbc radio's 'the archers', roifield brown, podcasts worth a listen, the a.v. club presents film club « » bonus | tv club our critics discuss the x-files.

Welcome to this week’s second installment of Film Club, The A.V. Club’s weekly movie-discussion series. On this very special, format-breaking episode, our critics encroach on TV editor Danette Chavez’s turf to discuss the strange world of The X-Files. Since its premiere almost three decades ago, Chris Carter’s sci-fi drama grew from beloved cult favorite, to pop culture juggernaut, garnering prestige and acclaim along the way. By total coincidence, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife both found themselves revisiting the series while quarantining, and decided to record this bonus episode of Film Club. In it, they discuss their shared love for the series, its influences and legacy, and whether or not it still holds up.

Visit: https://www.avclub.com/

Like: https://www.facebook.com/theavclub

Follow: https://twitter.com/theavclub

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

94 episodes

BONUS | TV Club? Our critics discuss The X-Files

The A.V. Club Presents Film Club

21 subscribers

published 4y ago

All episodes

Welcome to player fm.

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

Quick Reference Guide

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Bon Jovi docuseries 'Thank You, Goodnight' is an argument for respect

Eric Deggans

Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013. David Bergman/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., in 2013.

Hulu's docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story , spends a lot of time building up the Bon Jovi legend — exploring the band's almost unbelievable 40-plus-year run from playing hardscrabble rock clubs in New Jersey to earning platinum albums and entry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

But what moved me most in the four-part series was something more revealing: its close look at the struggle by lead singer Jon Bon Jovi to overcome vocal problems which nearly led him to quit the band.

Footage of the singer croaking through vocal exercises, undergoing laser treatments, enduring acupuncture and finally turning to surgery is sprinkled throughout the series, which toggles back and forth between his problems in 2022 and a chronological story of the band's triumphs and tragedies from its earliest days.

Refusing to be Fat Elvis

Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight . Disney/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi was interviewed for Thank You, Goodnight .

Through it all, a question hangs: Will Bon Jovi ever recover enough vocal strength to lead a 40th anniversary tour?

"If I can't be the very best I can be, I'm out," he tells the cameras, still looking a bit boyish despite his voluminous gray hair at age 62. "I'm not here to drag down the legacy, I'm not here for the 'Where are they now?' tour ... I'm not ever gonna be the Fat Elvis ... That ain't happening."

Filmmaker Gotham Chopra — who has also directed docuseries about his father, spiritualist Deepak Chopra, and star quarterback Tom Brady — digs deeply into the band's history, aided by boatloads of pictures, video footage and early recordings provided by the group.

Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight Disney/Hulu hide caption

Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora in Thank You, Goodnight

Chopra gets folks from the group's tight inner circle to speak up, including former manager Doc McGhee and guitarist Richie Sambora, who quit the band in 2013. ("Are we telling the truth, or are we going to lie, what are we going to do?" Sambora cracks to his offscreen interviewer. "Let's figure it out.")

But anyone expecting gossipy dish will walk away disappointed. Even major scandals in the band's history are handled with care, including the firing of founding bassist Alec John Such in 1994 (and the admission that his replacement, Hugh McDonald, already had been secretly playing bass parts on their albums for years), drummer Tico Torres' stint in addiction treatment and Sambora's decision to quit midway through a tour in 2013, with no notice to bandmates he had performed alongside for 30 years.

Alec John Such, a founding member of Bon Jovi, dies at 70

Sambora's explanation: When issues with substance use and family problems led him to miss recording sessions, Bon Jovi got producer John Shanks to play more guitar on their 2013 record What About Now . And Sambora was hurt.

"[Bon Jovi] had the whole thing kinda planned out," Sambora says, "which basically was telling me, um, 'I can do it without you.'"

Building a band on rock anthems

Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X. Disney/Hulu hide caption

Jon Bon Jovi with guitarist Phil X.

The docuseries shows how young New Jersey native John Bongiovi turned a job as a gofer at legendary recording studio The Power Station – owned by a cousin — into a recording of his first hit in the early 1980s, Runaway . His song eventually caught the ear of another little-known artist from New Jersey called Bruce Springsteen.

"The first demo I got of Jon's was a good song," says Springsteen, a longtime friend of Bon Jovi. "I mean, Jon's great talent is these big, powerful pop rock choruses that just demand to be sung by, you know, 20,000 people in an arena."

Music Interviews

Rock star jon bon jovi comes full 'circle'.

Thank You, Goodnight shows the band really took off by honing those rock anthems with songwriter Desmond Child, while simultaneously developing videos that showcased their status as a fun, rollicking live band. Hits like You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin' on a Prayer and Wanted: Dead or Alive made them MTV darlings and rock superstars.

Through it all, the singer and bandleader is shown as the group's visionary and spark plug, open about how strategically he pushed the band to write hit songs and positioned them for commercial success.

"It wasn't as though I woke up one morning and was the best singer in the school, or on the block, or in my house," he tells the camera, laughing. "I just had a desire and a work ethic that was always the driving force."

I saw that dynamic up close in the mid-1990s when I worked as a music critic in New Jersey, spending time with Jon Bon Jovi and the band. Back then, his mother ran the group's fan club and was always trying to convince the local rock critic to write about her superstar son – I was fascinated by how the band shrugged off criticisms of being uncool and survived changing musical trends, led by a frontman who worked hard to stay grounded.

Bon Jovi was always gracious and willing to talk; he even introduced me to then-New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman at one of his legendary Christmas charity concerts. (And in a crazy coincidence, the band's backup singer Everett Bradley is an old friend from college.)

I think the docuseries captures Bon Jovi's skill at leading the group through challenges musical and otherwise — from metal's slow fade off the pop charts to the rise of grunge rock — something the singer rarely gets credit for achieving.

Still, much of Thank You, Goodnight feels like an extended celebration of the band and its charismatic frontman, leavened by his earnest effort to regain control of his voice. If you're not a Bon Jovi fan, four episodes of this story may feel like a bit much (I'd recommend at least watching the first and last episodes.)

More than anything, the docuseries feels like an extended argument for something Bon Jovi has struggled to achieve, even amid million selling records and top-grossing concert tours – respect as a legendary rock band.

The audio and digital versions of this story were edited by Jennifer Vanasco .

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle

Despite a strong field, Karasuno High volleyball team advances past preliminary round of Harutaka tournament in Miyagi prefecture to reach the third round. Despite a strong field, Karasuno High volleyball team advances past preliminary round of Harutaka tournament in Miyagi prefecture to reach the third round. Despite a strong field, Karasuno High volleyball team advances past preliminary round of Harutaka tournament in Miyagi prefecture to reach the third round.

• Susumu Mitsunaka
• Haruichi Furudate
• Ayumu Murase
• Kaito Ishikawa
• 4 User reviews

• Shôyô Hinata
• Tobio Kageyama

• Kenma Kozume

• Tetsurô Kuroo

• Kei Tsukishima
• Keishin Ukai

• Yasufumi Nekomata
• Ryûnosuke Tanaka

• Daichi Sawamura
• Nobuyuki Kai

• Asahi Azumane

• Kôshi Sugawara

• Ittetsu Takeda
• Chikara Ennoshita

• Hitoka Yachi
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

User reviews 4

• sarthakanimationaveen
• Feb 16, 2024
• May 31, 2024 (United States)
• Official Site (Japan)
• Haikyu!! The Movie: Decisive Battle at the Garbage Dump
• Production I.G.
• Sony Music Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $64,501,734

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 25 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed

Critics are calling Luca Guadagnino's sexy tennis drama 'Challengers' the 'horniest movie of the year'

• The reviews for Luca Guadagnino's new movie "Challengers" are in. 
• The drama about a former tennis prodigy caught in a love triangle has a 92% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Critics say the film is stylish, the performances are gripping, and the score is exhilarating.

Luca Guadagnino's latest film " Challengers " has finally arrived — and critics can't get enough of the sexy tennis drama.

The movie stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy who becomes a coach after a severe on-court injury forces her to abandon her dream of going pro. Tashi's past and present collide years later at a lower-tier challenger tournament leading up to the US Open , where her husband, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and her ex-boyfriend, Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) — who are also former best friends and doubles partners— compete against each other.

At the time of this article's publication, "Challengers" has a critics score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes , with people praising Guadagnino's direction, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's pulsating score , and the mesmerizing performances of the main trio of actors. Here's a rundown of the reviews.

Director Luca Guadagnino films the tennis sequences in stylish and inventive ways, aided by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.

"The tennis is shot with formidable emotional urgency." — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

"Guadagnino, for his part, treats what could be a visually straightforward relationship/sports drama as a laboratory, where he tinkers with unlikely ways to communicate action and emotion on screen. — Tasha Robinson, Polygon

"Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's nimble shooting style brings excitement to the matches, inventively switching up the angles to bolster the energy. And the intoxication of his camera with the leads' physicality is entirely contagious." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Guadagnino frames his three actors in many close-ups and medium shots where their eyes and the way they ogle each other tell the story. In return, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's camera ogles the actors' bodies, capturing every flicker of light in their eyes, every trembling lip and sweaty brow. All of this makes for a movie high on sexual heat, something not seen much in contemporary American cinema." — Murtada Elfadl, AV Club

Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor deliver undeniable chemistry and star-making performances.

"Like seeing a well-balanced team dominate in triples, the film is a true three-hander, with everyone performing at the top of their game." — Rocco T. Thompson, Slant magazine

"That script is a terrific three-course meal for Faist and O'Connor. They get to trade off face and heel roles from scene to scene and era to era, as Art and Patrick help and hurt each other in equal measure. But it's an absolute smorgasbord for Zendaya, who even in starring roles has never been given this much room to stretch." — Tasha Robinson, Polygon

"All three lead actors carry themselves like movie stars." — Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

"Zendaya, O'Connor, and Faist play off each other charmingly, particularly in the flashbacks when their characters are younger. Those scenes are lively and jocular and the three actors bring into them combustible chemistry." — Murtada Elfadl, AV Club

"Zendaya is the linchpin. Her work here, on the heels of 'Dune: Part Two,' cements her status as a born Movie Star. She moves with the decisive ferocity of a warrior on the court and the floating grace of a ballerina elsewhere." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"The trio of actors all share a crackling chemistry, but the electricity between O'Connor and Faist is strongest. Both men engage in passionate scenes with Zendaya, making out in intense close-ups and tearing clothes off with palpable want. But none of those more physical scenes sear with the level of heat that O'Connor and Faist create with a mere shared glance." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

Justin Kuritzkes' screenplay vacillates between different time periods, mirroring the back-and-forth nature of tennis.

"Justin Kuritzkes's twisty script leaves us guessing as the trio's mind games wreak havoc on each other and the audience all at once." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

"What keeps the movie humming is the skill with which Kuritzkes' script draws out the complications in the trio's relationships." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Constructed like a tennis competition, Justin Kuritzkes' screenplay ricochets back and forth through time, asking us to pivot our brains the way audiences do at the movie's opening challenger match." — Peter Debruge, Variety

"​​Kuritzkes' script nimbly leaps back and forth between their teens and 20s and the present, never missing a beat to put them — and us — through the emotional wringer. And as these three flirt, fumble, fuck, and break each others' hearts, 'Challenger's' tantalizes with its ambush of raw emotions and gnarled repressions." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor's rousing techno and electronica score drives the action forward, on and off the court.

"One of the best surprises turns out to be the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a propulsive techno score that does a lot of the work to keep the tennis scenes moving." — Caryn James, BBC

"'Challengers's' simple conceit, thrillingly executed, is that every conversation is a tennis match, and every tennis match is a sex scene. The film's galvanizing score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, unifies both." — Clarisse Loughrey, The Independent

"Propelling the on-court action is Reznor and Ross's score, bringing a level of bombast to the sports action that at times threatens to overwhelm the action, without ever actually proving distracting." — Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

"The electronic, staccato rhythm mimics the rapid back-and-forth of tennis while also catapulting us into a sound that is inherently sexy in the ways it evokes the hypnotic trance of a dance club." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

There aren't any explicit sex scenes, but "Challengers" is still incredibly sexy.

"There are no explicit sex scenes or orgasms on screen, and yet this is the horniest movie of the year." — Mireia Mullor, Digital Spy

"The promotional materials for 'Challengers' make it out to be slightly more erotically charged than what we actually get on screen; there's certainly sexual content, but it's not as explicit as you'd expect, and it's all very rooted in these characters and their relationships..." — Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

"Those hoping for a threesome throwdown might initially be disappointed here, as there is no literal group sex — neither on screen nor implied offscreen. However, using tennis as a metaphor, every grunt, groan, and drip of sweat (all of which are generously dispersed) has a sexual implication." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable

"There isn't an inch of nudity apart from some extras in the locker room showers, and yet Guadagnino shoots the climactic match with a stylistic vulgarity that suggests what sports might look like if Brazzers suddenly took over for ESPN." — David Ehrlich, IndieWire

"Challengers" is tantalizing and entertaining, regardless of how familiar you are with the rules of tennis.

"Moment by moment, line by line and scene by scene, 'Challengers' delivers sexiness and laughs, intrigue and resentment, and Guadagnino's signature is there in the intensity, the closeups and the music stabs." — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"Smart, seductive and bristling with sexual tension, 'Challengers' is arguably Luca Guadagnino's most purely pleasurable film to date; it's certainly his lightest and most playful." — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

"Behind every high-speed volley and smashed racket courses raw emotion, resulting in the steamiest (and funniest) sports-centric love triangle since 'Bull Durham.' With some romantic movies, you'd do well to pack tissues. In the case of 'Challengers,' bring a towel. It's that rare film where you'll work up a sweat just from spectating." — Peter Debruge, Variety

"Anchored by three arresting performances and playfully experimental direction, 'Challengers' is fresh, exhilarating, and energetic." — Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly

• Main content