Film

Loving Highsmith

Name: Loving Highsmith
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2022
Cast: Gwendoline Christie, Annina Butterworth, Marijane Meaker, Courtney Coates Blackman, Judy Coates

Biopic

A portrait of Patricia Highsmith assembled from her private diaries, voice recordings, and interviews with those who knew her. It's intimate and unglamorous, revealing the writer behind the crime novels—her appetites, prejudices, loneliness, and fierce creative intelligence. Essential for Highsmith devotees; revelatory for anyone curious about the person who created Ripley.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love literary documentaries that let a writer's private diaries and unguarded voice carry the story, especially if you already admire the chilly moral unease of her novels.

Skip it if you want a tidy, fact-driven biography with a clear narrative spine; this one drifts through her intimate papers and reminiscences more than it marches through a timeline.

What it asks of you: Eighty-four minutes of mostly spoken reflection over images, paced gently and without much action, so it rewards patience and a willingness to sit with one restless mind.

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

If you liked this

Dial M for Murder1954

Hitchcock's masterpiece of psychological manipulation, adapted from a stage play. Highsmith's intellectual thrillers owe a debt to this kind of clever, confined suspense. A perfect entry point to what drew her to the crime form.

But It's a product of its era in ways that can feel stiff. The central romance is functional rather than compelling, and some will find the pacing glacial by modern standards.

The Talented Mr. Ripley1999

Minghella's sumptuous adaptation of Highsmith's most famous novel. Beautiful, seductive, and morally rotten—it captures what makes her writing so addictive: the thrill of inhabiting a monster who is also charismatic and lonely.

But Nearly two and a half hours. Some find the aesthetic so polished it softens the book's cruelty. The film likes Tom more than Highsmith did.

Carol2015

Todd Haynes' adaptation of The Price of Salt, Highsmith's only romance novel, published under a pseudonym. It's achingly tender and gorgeously composed—a side of her many missed. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are magnificent.

But Glacially paced, which suits the emotional tenor but not everyone's patience. If you want plot momentum, this isn't it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Loving Highsmith

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer1986

Both Highsmith and this film understand that the real horror isn't in the act but in the intimate normality of it. They refuse to distance you from the killer's point of view.

A film that shares Highsmith's most dangerous quality: the ability to make you complicit in the perspective of someone utterly without empathy. Shot in grainy, documentary style; it's repellent and almost unwatchable, but it understands how to get under your skin.

But Extremely graphic and genuinely disturbing. Not art-house discomfort—real violence shot like documentary. This is a film that makes you complicit in ways that feel ethically compromising.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer poster

Strangers on a Train1951

Another Hitchcock adaptation of Highsmith, and in many ways sharper than Dial M. The premise—two strangers agree to murder each other's enemies—is pure Highsmith: morally dizzying and disturbingly plausible. Elegant and unsettling.

But The homophobic subtext is inescapable and uncomfortable. It's a product of when it was made, and that can't be unseen.

The Two Faces of January2014

Hossein Amini's adaptation of one of Highsmith's finest, most underrated novels. A taut psychological study of theft, murder, and paranoia in 1960s Greece. Oscar Isaac and Viggo Mortensen crackle with tension and moral ambiguity.

But Deliberately low-key and interior. It builds dread rather than delivering thrills, which can feel like nothing's happening if you're watching for plot.

Deep Water2022

Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a married couple in a loveless arrangement. Highsmith's exploration of quiet domestic cruelty and the marriages that contain secrets. Linklater's direction lets the tension simmer rather than boil.

But Affleck's performance is uneven, and some will find the setup more interesting than the resolution. It's very blue-collar compared to her usual settings.

The American Friend1977

Wim Wenders adapts another Ripley novel with painterly precision and a jazz soundtrack. Deliberately artificial and stylish, it treats Highsmith as art cinema rather than thriller material. Dennis Hopper is revelatory as an aged hitman.

But The pacing is dreamlike, almost experimental. It can feel like watching visual art rather than following a story, which some will find precious or slow.

Brick2006

Rian Johnson's high school noir borrows Highsmith's structural playbook: elegant plotting, moral ambiguity, and the seductive thrill of watching smart people lie. If you want to understand why Highsmith's mechanics matter, this shows how they translate.

But The hardboiled slang in a California high school can feel affected. It's clever in a way some find exhausting rather than entertaining.

In the Mood for Love2000

Both deal with forbidden desire and the architecture of secrecy—not as plot device, but as the whole emotional truth of the story.

Wong Kar-wai's masterpiece about desire restrained by social circumstance and time. Like Highsmith's The Price of Salt, it's about the gap between what people feel and what they can express. Visually ravishing in ways that make restraint visible.

But Glacial pacing and minimal plot. The entire film is mood and gesture; if you watch for narrative, you'll be frustrated. Also: not in English.

The Journalist2019

Like Highsmith, it refuses to make its protagonist sympathetic or heroic. It's interested in systems of power and how ordinary people are ground by them—the real moral architecture, not the dramatic one.

A Japanese political thriller about a female reporter investigating sexual assault in the Tokyo government. It captures something Highsmith understood: how institutional power protects itself, and how those who try to expose it are punished twice. Taut, angry, unsentimental.

But It's in Japanese with subtitles. The pacing is methodical rather than thrilling. Some will find the ending frustratingly ambiguous rather than satisfying.