Soderbergh’s film emphasizes that technology can impede human connection and intimacy. Graham was using the videotapes to build a faux sense of intimacy so he could get off – a mere voyeur taking pleasure from the objectification of his subjects.

| Jan 16, 2025

Graham is an oddball, but you can't help but admire his bohemian, laid back approach to life.

| Oct 7, 2024

[James Spader's] deftly modulated performance... tips the scales from weird to sensitive and back again (even in the same scene) and is key to the film’s overall intelligent, ambiguous effect.

| Sep 2, 2023

In spite of sex being prevalent, Steven Soderbergh gives more emphasis to his characters' emotional nakedness. [Full review in Spanish]

| Oct 24, 2022

Demonstrates that it's not a lack of money, rather intelligence that makes a memorable film. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 15, 2022

Episode 8: Sex, Lies and Predator

| Original Score: 96/100 | Aug 28, 2021

Spader's truth-fetishist Graham was a harbinger of things to come, as the first of Gen X hit their teens (...) [acquiring] the possibility to interact with the simulacrum.

| Aug 1, 2021

It's impossible to overstate the importance of sex, lies, and videotape when it burst onto the scene in 1989.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 16, 2021

Such a fascinating film...it shows you what happens if people who start out small get to grow in the industry...

| Mar 16, 2021

No one is easily let off of Soderbergh's directorial hook -- not his characters, not the audience, not this reviewer.

| May 20, 2020

[It's] something that is intensely interesting for most of us yuppies.

| Feb 16, 2018

I was disappointed. I think it's been overhyped and I can't understand why people rave about it the way they do.

| Feb 16, 2018

(PODCAST)Steven Soderbergh's debut film of bad people doing bad things beats with a perverse heart.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 22, 2017

Talky '80s drama has sex, cursing, mature themes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 4, 2016

Soderbergh brings a bracing edge of humor to his probingly analytical drama.

| Jul 26, 2014

Solid performances and Soderbergh's sense of human nature and cinematic tension are what hold the Sex, Lies, and Videotape together.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 11, 2012

Beautifully edited by Soderbergh, the film is evenly paced, its subtleties accreting slowly, and by the end it gathers powerful emotional momentum.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 9, 2011

What amazes is that at just 26, Soderbergh displays the three qualities associated with mature filmmakers: a unique authorial voice, a spooky camera assurance, and the easy control of ensemble acting.

| Dec 9, 2011

Soderbergh has assembled his cast into a fascinating jigsaw of neuroses, which then leap from the screen thanks to his intriguingly intellectual script.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 9, 2011

A mature, beautifully acted and deeply sexy film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 9, 2011