The erotic drama appears to be all but a lost art form these days, thanks to largely not existing aside from fare likeFifty Shades of Greyand365 Days, which, though popular, give it a bad name. On the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of craftsmanship and intelligence lie the best films ofLuca Guadagnino, an auteur who most recently has directed not one but two erotic drama films of note in 2024. Earlier this spring, MGM released the widely celebrated steamy tennis dramaChallengersstarringZendaya,Josh O’ConnorandMike Faist. From a smart, non-linear and altogether attention-grabbing script by first-time feature writerJustin Kuritzkes,Challengersfollowed the lives of two former best friends and the woman they’re both infatuated with as they navigate the hurdles, heartbreak, and triumph of professional tennis. It was a significant box-office success. Now in theaters,QueerstarsDaniel Craigas an American expatriate infatuated with a young military veteran in 1950s Mexico. Also written for the screen for Kuritzkes,Queeris based on the autobiographical novella of the same name byWilliam S. Burroughs.
Guadagnino’s very best movies are, on the surface at least, about the sexual escapades of rich people.But they’re produced (and crucially, acted) with so much understanding of human fragility that it’s impossible not to be amused, moved and altogether enthralled by them.The notably tactile, often voyeuristic filmmaker has notably delved into horror as well in recent years, makingChallengers(which opened atop the U.S. box office, remarkable for an arthouse movie, and Guadagnino’s first chart-topper) and the awards-readyQueerfeel even more like a resounding return to form. Where do these two most recent pictures rank within his canon?Ranked from misstep to masterpiece, these are the feature films of Luca Guadagnino.
9’Melissa P.' (2005)
Starring Maria Valverde, Primo Reggiani and Geraldine Chaplin
Melissa P.is a movie that’s best to discuss swiftly, and in the past tense. Guadagnino’s sophomore feature is about a 14-year-old girl’s sexual awakening (from a script and screen story that he co-adapted). It’s told with some of the sense of discovery that would, in a more polished state, make his later work so good, but it’s hard not to walk away from this half-baked drama feeling anything except a little unclean. Young love and budding sexuality are important topicsthat can be explored very well,butMelissa P.feels cheap in a way that has little to do with its budget.
Every great artist stumbles, and it’s best when it happens early on.Early flashes of brilliance and signs of the knowing human dramato come in this celebrated career pop up here and there, andMelissa P.is not as bad as some corners of the internet might try to tell you it is, but it’s best to just avoid.
Melissa P.
In a story of youthful exploration and the quest for identity, a teenager from Sicily chronicles her intimate adventures in a daring diary. Her confessions reveal a poignant and often troubling reflection on adolescence, capturing the intensity of emotions and the consequences of her explorations in a conservative setting.
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8’The Protagonists' (1999)
Starring Tilda Swinton, Andrew Tiernan and Fabrizia Sacchi
Guadagnino’s debut feature is also his first feature collaboration with longtime museTilda Swinton. The chameleonic and supremely talented English actress’s star rose throughout the early aughts before she won an Oscar forTony Gilroy’s masterful legal thrillerMichael Clayton. In mockumentaryThe Protagonists, Swinton plays Actress, one part of an Italian film crew exploring the real-life murder of Mohammed El-Sayed in London.
It’s a step up fromMelissa P.in that it’s a little less uncomfortable, butexperimentalThe Protagonistsis really only for Guadagnino completionists.Fortunately, the director was stretching his legs with his first two features. From here on out, things get much, much better.
7’A Bigger Splash' (2015)
Starring Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes
Swinton andSuspiriacollaboratorDakota Johnsonco-star alongsideMatthias Schoenaertsand a never-betterRalph Fiennesin a splashy, insatiable re-imagining ofJacques Deray’sLa Piscine. Guadagnino himself has christened the drama, about a deadly love quadrangle set on a picturesque Italian island, asthe second part of hisDesiretrilogy betweenI Am LoveandCall Me By Your Name. Paired withThe Grand Budapest Hotelfrom a year earlier, it marks an opulently tragicomic, throw-down sort of mid-career renaissance for Fiennes.
If the well-acted, non-stop visually arrestingA Bigger Splashhas any shortcoming of note, it’s thatit doesn’t transcend being a soap opera. It never really tries to.Oh, what a show it all is, though. It’s a testament to Guadagnino’s overall quality control that the deliriously entertaining, confidentA Bigger Splashis relatively low on this list.
A Bigger Splash
A famous rock star’s vacation in Italy with her boyfriend is disrupted by the unexpected visit of an old friend and his daughter.
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6’Suspiria' (2018)
Starring Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton and Mia Goth
So, as was inevitable, we’ve come to the most divisive film on this list.Maybe it’s the most divisive horror movie of the modern era.Suspiria2018 is one of those movies where it’s not hard to track down zero-star reviewsor five-star reviews.Truth lies somewhere in the middle of all that. This is a remake ofDario Argento’s masterpiece about witches in a German ballet academy in that it reuses some names and the basic premise. Argento’s movie was essential as artistry elevating mindless pulp. Guadagnino’s take is a sprawling political-historical epic that runs one hour longer.
The impressive set pieces are as haunting as they are disgusting. The characters and their supernatural methods are much further explored. This being a Guadagnino movie, it’s an audiovisual marvel, shot on 35mm stock with a disarming score byThom Yorke. But some elements, from a distracting casting choice to uneven effects to the grueling runtime, holdSuspiriaback from the original’s heights. Dakota Johnsonis terrific as ambitious ingénue Susy Bannion. As was made clear withMadame WebandFifty Shades, the naturalistic, talented and magnetic Johnson has a way of emerging from anything even greater and stronger than before.
A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.
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5’Queer' (2024)
Starring Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, and Jason Schwartzman
A strange and downbeat, unapologetically Kafkian exercise in arthouse cinema,Queerwas never going to have the crossover appeal of something likeChallengers, or evenCall Me by Your Name. It’s really hard to pull of a movie that’s this aggressively dreamy, more focused on emotional sense than logical sense, but Guadagnino’s distinctively tactual signature is all over it; thank goodness for that.The ultimate effect of it all is searing.
Craig is undeniably captivating in a role that might feel tailor-made for awards attention to a cynic, butQueerperhaps feels most alive in the supporting turns. Starkey has a palpable allure, andJason SchwartzmanandDrew Droegeare hilarious in a way that’s not lacking for pathos. This is a really specific kind of film about a specific kind of experience: it’s a queer picture, and a disturbing and authentic look at drug and alcohol addiction. It’s also an uncompromising look at loneliness.Surely that’s the kind of thing that can affect any audience member willing to let their guard down.
4’Bones and All' (2022)
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell and Mark Rylance
A little likeBadlandsfor a new generation, Guadagnino’s second, slightly more accessible horror feature follows young Midwestern cannibals on the run and in love. Only it’s really horror as metaphor; this is a movie about being queer or in any way othered, and the metaphor works astonishingly well throughout.Taylor RussellandTimothée Chalametare pitch perfect, and the young romance is quite affecting, butit’s Mark Rylance who cuts deepest here.Generally recognized as one of the best actors alive, the English Oscar-winner (who also played the Big Friendly Giant in another movie), is impossible to shake as a cannibal who cannibals fear.
Guadagnino should keep making horror pictures. He’s a director with the intelligence to know a good performance and even good casting can be as shocking and unsettling as explicit violence (Bones and Allhas lots and lots of all of this). How often has a horror picture come along that’s genuinely disturbing, even for genre diehards—that’s also this tender and earnest, sad and sweet… if ever?
Bones and All
A young woman embarks on a 1000 mile odyssey through America where she meets a disenfranchised drifter. But all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether love can survive their otherness.
3’I Am Love' (2009)
Starring Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, and Edoardo Gabbriellini
ForI Am Love, Tilda Swinton learned to speak Italian in a Russian accent. How was this performance not Oscar-nominated? For that matter, how did this film not get more exposure? This is Guadagnino’s first masterpiece, of three. Swinton is nothing short of titanic as an erudite, repressed Milanese matriarch who falls for her son’s friend and business partner, a handsome chef (Edoardo Gabbriellini).Guadagnino fully comes into his own as a distinct and formidable filmmakerin a visual rapture that’s actually all about internal discovery.
Among too many merits to count,I Am Loveis a movie that, like that moment withAnton Ego in the finale ofRatatouille, knows how to remind us that food can stir one’s soul. It’s a direct means of connection and a way of being seen. Food can hit you just like music. Or like a really damn good movie.
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2’Call Me By Your Name' (2017)
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg
Based onAndré Aciman’s palm-sweating, heart-fluttering novel about a teen who falls in love with his father’s dashing doctoral intern,Call Me By Your Nameis one of those rare times when filmmakers spun a great book into something even better and richer. There are some fairly liberal changes made to the text, especially near the end, but it’s a film that perfectly captures the essence of what makes the intensely intimate book so impactful.
Call Me By Your Nameis timeless, and it perhaps ismost fascinating as a late-career move from iconic English filmmakerJames Ivory, who won an Academy Award for adapting the script. It’s a movie that feels first heartbreak without pulling its punches, while looking ahead to new loves. In an unspoken kind of a way, the movie makes damn sure to end with as much sweet as bitter. Chalamet’s performance in the final shot alone should have won him the Oscar for which he was nominated. First love and the proverbial summer that changed everything have never been realized more fully or so perfectly.
Call Me by Your Name
In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father’s research assistant.
1’Challengers' (2024)
Starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist
Thanks to the impetus of a techno soundtrack fromTrent ReznorandAtticus Ross,Challengersis a pulsating, stunning exercise in masterful cinematic exuberance. The three leads (O’Connor and Faist have long been the best part of whatever project they’re in) form the most captivating, hilarious and thoroughly imperfect will-they-or-won’t-they throuple sinceY Tu Mamá También, but this is Zendaya’s movie. In the shadow ofDune: Part Two’s runaway success, it would appear she can currently carry a theatrical release as well as any actress on the planet.
Call Me By Your Nameremains Guadagnino’s most intellectually stimulating and visually striking feature, but he arguably outdid himself here in terms of pure punch. When was the last time an arthouse movie worked this well as giddy popcorn-munching entertainment?Drive, maybe? Kuritzkes' unusually structured but deliberate script is so smart and original: it’s about competition and competitiveness, but it’s just as interested in chance. It’s about the drive for excellence, but it’s way more interested in foibles. It’s the best debut feature script sinceCord Jefferson’s Oscar-winningAmerican Fiction, and in a roundabout, deconstructed kind of way,Challengersdelivers everything that makes the sports genre so uniquely exhilarating.
Challengers
Follows three players who knew each other when they were teenagers as they compete in a tennis tournament to be the world-famous grand slam winner, and reignite old rivalries on and off the court.
