This is always worth a rewatch. Such an inspired story and execution

I just happened to think of this movie and watched it again earlier today. I loved it when it came out and I still do. It's not really a feel good film but James Spader is such a subtle actor, it's a treat to watch him work. He says so much with a tiny expression. It's very sexy at times without explicit sex, which I get very tired of these days and it's also sad. Complicated people trying to figure out their messed up lives. I'm surprised the audience rating is not higher considering the critical acclaim it received when it was released. It remains one of my favorites.

一般我是璐感冒感味人性的片子的，因为比起情节的波折情感的复杂更难以璐懒得环纳，璐过这璐的曟曟道来般的层层推进却颇意外地舒服，即使看得仍云里雾里未暇细品却还璐失舒服

Watched in 2024. Looking retro, but still truly interesting and absorbing.

So great! Original, clever, quirky, unpredictable.

I like that movie chooses to tell it's story and dynamic of characters mainly by dialogue. Which means dialogues are exceptionally well written. Final scene bw Ann and Graham is perfectly written,directed and acted. My only wish is there to be a confrontation bw sisters. Movie points out their complicated and toxic relationship many times but I feel like confrontation would've add more impact to the movie.

Pretty neatly intertwined the lives of four characters as they try to come to terms with their attitudes to sex and relationships. It's like being a fly on the wall with their shrink sessions. Fairly ponderously underwhelming ending but a solid character study of all the main players. Bought this one for ?1 in a charity shop and happy to have this Palme D'Or winner in my collection.

The breakout film for Steven Soderbergh, and a catalyst for the glorious independent movie boom of the 1990s, Sex Lies And Videotape might have the most accurate title in film history. You can't say its deceptive or ambiguous because, much like Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Don't expect a graphic exploration of a couple's sex life, instead be prepared for a deliberately paced, careful examination of marital strife, done with very little nudity and almost entirely through dialogue. Soderbergh really does a great job in capturing the way people talk, complete with flubs and hesitations. The affair at the centre of it is given a lot of time and emotional weight, much like it is in The Ice Strom, and when the confrontations begin to happen, we understand how painful it is because we've seen everything the characters have been through. It manages to avoid a lot of the pointless, padded arguments that a lot of these films have, instead saving the blow ups for the climax. Much of the acting is deliberately understated, with the characters seemingly resigned to their bizarre life choices and seeing little to no way out of their situation. James Spader plays the most interesting character, a man purposely devoid of physical gratification, instead getting his kicks from the personal lives of others. It's a film that forces us to confront the unspoken difficulties of relationships, the kind of things that are considered taboo, and therefore must only be discussed behind closed doors. His career might have taken a rocky path soon afterwards, but SL&V is an incredibly assured debut, and marked him out as a great talent to keep an eye on.

The film belongs to James Spader - and an early Andie McDowell. A gentle yet compelling exploration of intimacy. There's certainly a lot of cross-overs and projections happening in the story - the sister and husband look more like brother and sister, and the old friend and andie mcdowell look and sound like long-lost soulmates. How can people project so much in choosing their spouses and lovers? When I saw this on release in 1989, the 'aura' around the film was weird and unsettling - yet today, it all seems pretty normal and compassionate. Maybe the world has become more voyeuristic and accomodating in general, maybe there's been a moral shift, yet there is nothing too confronting in this film. Whatever happened to James Spader?

I remember watching this when it first came out and not liking it very much. I gave it another shot 34 years later and thought it was very good. I guess it's a movie catering to older folks.

Steven Soderbergh's first feature still holds up well as a married couple having intimacy issues, have their lives changed when an old friend of the husbands comes into their lives and raises some eyebrows with his hobby of videotaping women speaking frankly about sex. James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo star.

Ann (Andie MacDowell) is a na?ve, sexually-repressed housewife married to John (Peter Gallagher), a lawyer who dabbles in adultery with Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), the sexually charged sister of Ann. The three seem to live in some sort of awkward balance until the arrival of Graham (James Spader), a school friend of John's, who manages to expose raw relationship nerves and shatter the status quo. Light on imagery and heavy on dialogue, Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape is a scathing examination of the impact of…well…sex, lies and videotape on the interpersonal relationships between the four main characters. The acting is stellar (with the possible exception of MacDowell, who seems uncomfortable in some of her scenes) and the writing is terrific. Overall, it's an impressive directorial debut for Soderbergh.

Soderbergh is a cinephile's director and this was his first feature film. We have four 1980s archetypes as our main characters: John (Peter Gallagher), the suspenders-wearing, successful corporate attorney, Ann (Andie MacDowell), the squeaky-clean housewife in therapy, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), Ann's crop-top wearing, licentious bartender younger sister, and Graham (James Spader), the soft-spoken pretty-boy with a camera. All four characters intersect throughout the film's original plot, popping in and out of each other's lives without so much as a phone call — it was a different time. There were a few shots where Soderbergh slowly, gently, rotates the camera across the character's visage, which reminded me of my favorite scene from Ordet. There isn't a weak performance, but Spader absolutely stands out and you really want him to get more screen-time. I'd only known San Giacomo from Just Shoot Me! and had no idea she was such a total babe — she's also the perfect foil to Andie MacDowell's tight-laced Ann. Unfortunately, the film climaxes with a whimper. We should've heard about this unseen "Elizabeth" far earlier — we should've also seen more interaction between John and Graham throughout the film, given the ending. And the videotapes thought they'd have a little more significance than crack-off fuel. Sex, Lies, and Videotape will likely be too slow for many viewers, but if you're looking for something different with cinematic value, you'll enjoy it.

1001 movies to see before you die. Certainly not one that I thoroughly enjoyed, but it was unique in its intrigue and did something new. It was on Showtime.

Funny how in 1989, before the rise of the internet, a bit of voyeur erotic conversation recorded on a home camera was considered adventurous and a bit depraved. A few decades down the line, I bet the average junior-high health counselor hears about fetishes that would make this look patently vanilla on their first day. A movie superficially about eroticism, love, sexual satisfaction, and romantic fulfilment that hangs a heady atmosphere without actually including any sex. If Soderbergh had oriented the plot around the sexual eccentiricites of Spader's Graham and how he alone interrupts the lives of an idyllic slow town would have been pointless, but Sex, Lies, and Videotape is instead a melting pot where the particular tastes and phobias of several people come into conflict, each with their own set of flaws and well-fleshed-out character details. When Laura san Giacomo begins to talk about her first sexual experiences as being watched while peeing as a child, there is really a sense of fear that this film is going to dive into a sense of pure exploitation, channeling shock value in place of any creativity. However, the film ends up developing characters and using them well, even with several moments that make you stop, shake your head, and question what is happening. Crazy that Steven Soderbergh wrote, directed, and edited this Palme D'Or-winner before his 27th birthday. (3.5/5)

A film more about the honest aspects of sex and intimacy rather than the exchanging of feelings and, excuse me, fluids. While the film dances around sex, masturbation, impotence & voyeurism, Soderbergh never hides the fact that he is more interested in honesty in relationships and their cerebral effects on sex. All four leads display fine acting chops, especially McDowell & Spader.

My Dad walked in on me watching this when I was a kid because he left his Blockbusters out, it was right when they were discussing masturbation, and I didn't get to finish the film. It was a bit of a buzz kill. Years later I finished the film and it's a bit of a buzz kill because it stinks. It was still a very cutting edge film for the time, as years later our college theatre troupe started putting together a stage version, and I got a part. Even bonding with the script that short time I thought it was horrible, as in "Do I want to put THIS in my memory?". Luckily, just like my original experience, the production blew-up before we put it on, and we saved the world from this one again.

I only watched it because I was curious to see James Spader; my 'Raymond Reddington' as a young man. The movie was boring, characters were plain and overall it was not interesting.

sexy, though it can be a little slowburn sometimes

Well acted but not remotely interesting.