Film

High Art

A debut feature about a young magazine editor drawn into the orbit of a brilliant, self-destructive photographer across a shared wall in New York. *High Art* moves between desire and betrayal, ambition and addiction, with the specificity of a film made by someone who knew this world. Radha Mitchell is luminous and complicit. It's intoxicating and sad.

TMDb rating3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like character studies where ambition and desire tangle until neither party is sure who is using whom, and you enjoy a film that keeps its moral temperature ambiguous rather than handing you a verdict.

Skip it if you want a story that moves briskly toward a payoff, since this one lingers in its rooms and conversations, and its drug-soaked, unhurried mood can feel airless if you came for plot.

What it asks of you: It runs about a hundred minutes at a patient, observational pace, so you need to sit with silences and watch faces closely, because much of the drama lives in what goes unsaid.

If you liked this

Mulholland Drive2001

David Lynch's masterpiece about a woman arriving in Los Angeles and the actress she befriends, tracing desire and delusion in the film industry. Gorgeous, baroque, and emotionally devastating.

But Narratively fractured in ways that demand active participation. If you want plot clarity, you'll be frustrated.

Mulholland Drive poster

Carol2015

Todd Haynes' elegant romance between two women in 1950s America, shot in muted, lush colour. Restrained and achingly human, with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara at their finest.

But The pacing is deliberate; intimacy is expressed through glances and silences rather than dramatic beats. Some find it slow.

Carol poster

Chungking Express1994

Wong Kar-wai's neon-soaked meditation on loneliness and coincidence in Hong Kong, split into two lovers' stories. Visually intoxicating and emotionally raw, shot like a fever dream.

But The narrative is fragmented and the tone shifts dramatically between its two halves. Subtitles required.

Chungking Express poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from High Art

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stormy Monday1988

Both are intimate two-hander character studies set in specific cities (Newcastle, New York), where sexual attraction is inseparable from danger and professional exploitation.

Mike Figgis' moody Newcastle noir about a young American falling for a woman entangled with dangerous men. Visually sophisticated, sultry, and genuinely tense—a deep cut from a great director.

But The plot occasionally feels secondary to mood and style. Newcastle's industrial gloom isn't for everyone.

Stormy Monday poster
More like this (7)

The Limits of Control2009

Jim Jarmusch's spare, hypnotic study of an unnamed agent moving through Madrid and the city's dreamlike architecture. Meditative and gorgeous, a film about style as substance.

But Nearly plot-free and very slow. If you need propulsion, this will feel like watching paint dry.

The Limits of Control poster

Phantom Thread2017

Paul Thomas Anderson's intimate psychological portrait of a fashion designer and the woman who unsettles his meticulous life. Beautifully crafted, tense, and wickedly funny beneath its elegance.

But The power dynamics are uncomfortable and unresolved. It doesn't provide moral clarity or a comfortable resolution.

Phantom Thread poster

The Last Days of Disco1998

Whit Stillman's sharp, funny ensemble film about young Manhattan professionals navigating ambition and desire in the dying moments of Studio 54. Witty dialogue and genuine emotional stakes.

But The ensemble is large and the plot somewhat diffuse. Some scenes feel more like conversation than drama.

The Last Days of Disco poster

Poison1991

Todd Haynes' bold, genre-hopping debut interweaving three narratives—horror, melodrama, documentary—about desire, transgression, and the body. Formally inventive and politically urgent.

But Deliberately provocative and structurally disorienting. The industrial, academic tone keeps emotional distance.

Poison poster

The Hours2002

Stephen Daldry weaves Virginia Woolf's interior life with two women living out the aftereffects of her novel, exploring desire, madness, and mortality across decades. Elegant and intellectually alive.

But The structure can feel schematic. Some find the parallel-cutting between timelines heavy-handed.

The Hours poster

Safe1995

Todd Haynes' unsettling portrait of a woman whose body becomes increasingly allergic to the modern world. Ambiguous, clinical, and deeply unsettling in ways that linger.

But Deliberately opaque about whether her illness is physical or psychological. The lack of answers infuriates some viewers.

Safe poster

Céline and Julie Go Boating1974

A woman drawn into the orbit of another who transforms her perception of reality; attraction as a kind of spell; the camera's love for watching women together.

Jacques Rivette's three-hour dreaming mystery about two women who fall into each other's lives and a recursive haunted house narrative. Playful, romantic, genuinely magical—the best film about female friendship ever made.

But Three hours, deliberately loose narrative logic, subtitled French. It requires patience and surrender rather than engagement.

Céline and Julie Go Boating poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by