Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer whose work is known for its engagement with melodrama, historical pastiche, and queer cinema. Across four decades, his films frequently explore the emotional and psychological consequences of social repression, particularly as they relate to sexuality, identity, illness, and conformity. Haynes is often associated with the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s and is noted for reworking classical Hollywood forms — such as the woman’s picture and the biopic — to examine marginalized experiences and unspoken desire. 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. His feature directorial debut, Poison (1991), a provocative exploration of AIDS-era perceptions and subversions, established him as a figure of a new transgressive cinema. Poison won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. 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), receiving 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), Dark Waters (2019), and May December (2023), as well as the documentary film The Velvet Underground (2021). Haynes also directed and co-wrote the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce (2011), for...