Film

Crimes of Passion

Name: Crimes of Passion
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Released: 1984
Cast: Kathleen Turner, Anthony Perkins, John Laughlin, Annie Potts, Bruce Davison

Crime
Very dark
Strange

Ken Russell's lurid 1984 thriller splits Kathleen Turner between respectable fashion designer and high-end sex worker, a binary that fractures under the pressure of two obsessed men. It's operatic exploitation cinema—gaudy, transgressive, visually unhinged, and genuinely interested in the contradictions women navigate. For viewers who want their thrillers strange and unsettling rather than comforting.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like stylized, lurid erotic thrillers where a pop-art colour palette and a sense of moral sickness coexist, the way Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill does.

Skip it if you find sex-and-violence imagery used as sleazy spectacle hard to sit through, since the film lingers on both with more relish than restraint.

What it asks of you: It runs about 107 minutes and holds a feverish, heightened tone throughout, so you must commit to its excess rather than wait for realism.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Body Double1984

De Palma's voyeurism thriller with similar obsession mechanics and a protagonist drawn into a sexual underworld he doesn't understand. Dazzling visual language and a real moral center beneath the provocation.

But Slower than you'd expect, and the sexual politics aren't as complicated as the film thinks they are. Some scenes feel gratuitous even by its own logic.

Klute1971

Jane Fonda as a sex worker in a thriller that actually respects her intelligence. The film's interest in her interior life over her marketability feels revolutionary, and the psychological cat-and-mouse is genuinely tense.

But A procedural mystery from the '70s—it moves deliberately, and the thriller elements are secondary to character. Patience required.

Dressed to Kill1980

De Palma again, but this is the direct ancestor of Crimes of Passion: psychosis, sexual obsession, and a woman at the center of male pathology. Michael Caine in a role that shouldn't work but does. Pure stylistic excess.

But The violence is misogynistic in ways that linger uncomfortably. Some viewers will see exploitation; whether Russell critiques it or indulges it remains debatable.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Crimes of Passion

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both films are obsessed with female performance as survival mechanism, and both use narrative rupture and stylistic excess to suggest that identity itself might be a kind of prostitution.

Lynch's masterpiece about a woman fractured between identities: successful actress and desperate wannabe, constructed and deconstructed across three hours. Like Crimes of Passion, it's about the violence of performance and how desire remakes us.

But Genuinely difficult—dreamlike, nonlinear, 147 minutes. The ending is philosophical rather than explanatory. Some viewers find it cryptic to the point of frustration.

American Gigolo1980

Richard Gere as a male sex worker framed for murder. Like Crimes of Passion, it's interested in the distance between public performance and private desperation, shot in gorgeous, melancholic detail.

But Deliberately paced and more introspective than thrilling. Gere's blankness works thematically but can feel like inertness.

Blue Velvet1986

Lynch's dream-logic thriller about desire and voyeurism in small-town America. Formally radical, tonally unstable in the best way, and it trusts the audience to sit with profound discomfort.

But Aggressively weird and sometimes gratuitously violent. The portrayal of Isabella Rossellini's trauma is harrowing—not everyone wants that in their evening.

Blood Simple1985

The Coen Brothers' debut: a noir thriller about betrayal, misunderstanding, and paranoia. Every frame is composed like a painting, and the moral vacuum is absolute and gripping.

But A slow-burn procedural where you piece together what happened from fragments. If you need action or resolution, this withholds both until the very end.

Visceral2022

A modern thriller about obsession and performance that echoes Russell's sensibility—gorgeous, transgressive, interested in how bodies are surveilled and controlled. Formally inventive and genuinely unsettling.

But Extremely graphic and sexual. Very little plot in the traditional sense; it's mood and image-work. Not for viewers who need narrative clarity or catharsis.

Poison1991

Todd Haynes' provocative debut uses genre—horror, prison drama, tragedy—to excavate desire and violence. Shot in black-and-white, formally daring, morally serious about queerness and taboo.

But Deliberately abrasive and structurally fractured. Three interwoven narratives don't resolve neatly, and some subject matter is genuinely transgressive in ways meant to disturb.

Wild Things1998

A late-career thriller that knows exactly how trashy it is and leans in gleefully. Sexual games, double crosses, beautiful people behaving badly. Pure entertainment without pretense.

But Entirely plot-driven with paper-thin characters. It's a puzzle box, not a character study, and the twists matter more than anyone's inner life.

The Comfort of Strangers1990

Both are structured around a couple torn apart by sexual transgression, and both use visual beauty to complicate moral judgment—making the dangerous seductive.

Cavani's erotic nightmare: a young couple on holiday are drawn into the orbit of a sophisticated, predatory older couple. Beautifully composed menace, and it's genuinely interested in how seduction operates as a form of control.

But European art-film pacing and a deeply uncomfortable power dynamic. No one here is likeable and nothing feels safe. It's meant to unsettle, not entertain.

The Hunger1983

Like Russell, Scott uses the thriller framework as an excuse for formally audacious, sexually charged cinema where visual excess becomes the subject itself.

Tony Scott's vampire film is barely a vampire film—it's a visual experience about predation, seduction, and the commodification of the female body. Bauhaus on the soundtrack. Pure style weaponized.

But The plot barely exists and what does isn't the point. If you're watching for story clarity, you'll be frustrated. Some find it more artifact than film.