Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes (/heɪnz/; 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.