---
title: "sex, lies, and videotape (1989) review"
description: "We need more movies with sensitive, handsome - but not traditionally super handsome - leads being super horny. James Spader delivers exactly that here."
url: https://www.joekarlsson.com/reviews/sex-lies-and-videotape/
---

![A still from sex, lies, and videotape (1989)](https://www.joekarlsson.com/images/reviews/sex-lies-and-videotape/backdrop.webp)

# sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

May 5, 2026 | Rated 4 out of 5 | Dir. Steven Soderbergh

We need more movies with sensitive, handsome - but not traditionally super handsome - leads being super horny. James Spader delivers exactly that here.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape reminds me of In the Mood for Love in a strange way. It’s a super horny movie where nobody actually fucks. All that desire just sits there, unresolved, radiating off the screen. The tension is the point.

The screenplay is incredible - tight, short, deeply psychological. By the end, I was completely engrossed in exactly why these people are the way they are, watching them react to each other in this little bottle. Soderbergh was 26 when he made this. It’s insane.

I get why this kicked off the indie film revolution in the 90s. It’s also wild that this and Wild at Heart won back-to-back Palmes d’Or. Cannes needs to start doing that again - rewarding weird, horny, psychologically rich films two years in a row.

James Spader has undeniable rizz in this. He’s playing a disgusting, self-flagellating incel, but his sensitivity and torment is so captivating you can’t look away. You hate that it works. It works anyway.

Also on [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/joekarlsson/film/sex-lies-and-videotape/)

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I write about my homelab, AI tools, databases, and the weird stuff I build on the side.

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