Todd Haynes: Far from Safe

March 8–April 12, 2025

Todd Haynes will be at BAMPFA to present Safe, Velvet Goldmine, I’m Not There, and Far From Heaven, launching an extensive retrospective of his films, exceptional explorations of identity in relation to self and society, and the danger and power of resisting or transgressing social norms.

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Todd Haynes: Far From Heaven, 2002
Todd Haynes: May December, 2023
Todd Haynes: I'm Not There, 2007
Todd Haynes: Wonderstruck, 2017
Todd Haynes: Carol, 2015
Todd Haynes: Far From Heaven, 2002
Todd Haynes: Velvet Goldmine, 1998

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Films
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Upcoming Films

Safe
Todd Haynes
United States, 1995
Saturday, March 8 2:30 PM
Todd Haynes and Mary Ann Doane in Conversation
A placid San Fernando Valley housewife (Julianne Moore) suddenly afflicted with environmental illness finds her sunny surroundings, shopping malls, and beauty salons imbued with suffocating menace, suggesting both the material and metaphysical toxicity from which she must escape.
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Velvet Goldmine
Todd Haynes
United States, 1998
Saturday, March 8 6:30 PM
Todd Haynes and Damon Young in Conversation
In this exuberant ode to the liberating potential of glam rock—named for a David Bowie B-side—Todd Haynes re-creates the era’s glittering excess, with an epic soundtrack featuring Brian Eno, Pulp, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, T. Rex, and more.
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I’m Not There
Todd Haynes
United States, 2007
Sunday, March 9 2:00 PM
Todd Haynes and Damon Young in Conversation
As audacious as its subject, Todd Haynes’s mixtape/cine-collage/essay-poem is an imaginative, multifaceted portrait of the great Bob Dylan. “It plays like the headiest musical ever made” (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly).
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Far From Heaven
Todd Haynes
United States, 2002
Sunday, March 9 6:30 PM
Todd Haynes and Dolores McElroy in Conversation
A reimagining of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 All That Heaven Allows, Todd Haynes’s 2002 chronicle of social isolation, existential loneliness, and forbidden love meticulously re-creates the mode of Sirk’s mid-century technicolor melodramas, while creating an uncanny, timeless modern masterpiece.
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Todd Haynes’s Early Works
Thursday, March 20 7:00 PM
Introduced by Mary Ann Doane
New restorations of Todd Haynes’s ambitious early films show the director’s devotion to transgressive desire from very different points of view, including the fin de siècle Paris of Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud and suburban America and TV in Dottie Gets Spanked.
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Dark Waters
Todd Haynes
United States, 2019
Saturday, March 22 7:00 PM
A chilling true story of corporate malfeasance, Dark Waters chronicles the efforts of lawyer Mark Bilott to hold DuPont responsible for knowingly exposing its employees; the residents of Parkersburg, West Virginia; and many others to highly toxic “forever chemicals.”
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Carol
Todd Haynes
United States, 2015
Wednesday, March 26 7:00 PM
Introduced by Dolores McElroy
A thriller without a body count, Todd Haynes’s sumptuous adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel The Price of Salt investigates the shifting power dynamics of love.
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Wonderstruck
Todd Haynes
United States, 2017
Saturday, March 29 3:30 PM
Todd Haynes’s adaptation of Brian Selznick’s children’s book is a gorgeous cinematic rendering of the intersecting stories of Rose and Ben, two courageous deaf children who, dealing with loss and longing, run away to New York City fifty years apart.
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Poison
Todd Haynes
United States, 1991
35mm Archival Print
Saturday, April 5 6:30 PM
Introduced by Thomas DePaoli
A seminal work of the New Queer Cinema and a preemptive strike against the domestication of queer identity, Todd Haynes’s audacious first feature weaves together three stories inspired by Jean Genet, each realized in a radically different cinematic style.
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The Velvet Underground
Todd Haynes
United States, 2021
Friday, April 11 7:00 PM
Reflecting the history and legacy of The Velvet Underground, and the vibrant New York scene from which the band emerged, Todd Haynes combines their music; interviews with band members, artists, and collaborators; and movies by Andy Warhol and others.
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May December
Todd Haynes
United States, 2023
Saturday, April 12 6:30 PM
An unsettling power play of shifting perspectives, reflections, and performances, May December chronicles the encounter between ambitious actor Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) and formerly incarcerated suburban housewife Gracie (Julianne Moore), the woman she is preparing to portray. Screens with Image Book, a catalogue of references and inspirations for May December.
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Past Films

Todd Haynes: Far from Safe

March 8–April 12, 2025

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Drawn to cinema and already making Super 8mm movies as a child, Todd Haynes earned cinematic cult hero status with the banned but bootlegged 1987 underground hit Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Following the 1991 release of his first feature, Poison (an ambitious reimagining of stories by Jean Genet in three distinct cinematic idioms), he was recognized as a pioneer of the New Queer Cinema. Since then, Haynes has continued to direct an impressive body of work—including original screenplays Safe, Velvet Goldmine, and Far From Heaven; adaptations Dark Waters, Wonderstruck, and Carol; an innovative biopic, I’m Not There; and a dazzling documentary about The Velvet Underground—distinguished by his commitment to experimentation and omnivorous cinephilia.

Certain themes recur throughout Haynes’s varied oeuvre, especially the nature of identity in relation to the self and society, and the power and danger of resisting or transgressing social norms. Illness, toxicity, and contagion in the films can serve as sinister existential menace, or sickness can be or provide a portal for resistance. Haynes frequently tweaks narrative and genre conventions to upend or unsettle viewer expectations, activating critical engagement with the works. Often working within specific historical times and places, he further enhances his meticulous production design through his choice of media, cameras, lenses, and film stocks for each project. Beginning with four films chosen and presented by the director himself, this extensive retrospective offers viewers the exceptional opportunity to see all of Haynes’s feature films and a selection of early works.

—Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator

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Todd Haynes: Far from Safe is presented in partnership with the Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley.

Thanks to Stephen Best, Rebecca Egger, Townsend Center for the Humanities, UC Berkeley; Michael DiCerto, Sony Pictures Classics; Victor Garcia, Netflix; Sandra Schulberg, Matt Hoffman, IndieCollect; Jason Jackowski, Universal Pictures; Nancy Gerstman, Emily Russo, Zeitgeist Films; Amanda Smith, Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research; Todd Wiener, Steven K. Hill, UCLA Film & Television Archive; Alyssa DeMuri, Swank Motion Pictures; Erica Anderson, Apple Inc.; Tanya Smith; Christine Vashon, Killer Films; Judith Revault d’Allonnes, Carles Torres, Centre Pompidou; Derek Coughlan, Debbie Hu Ricks, Lionsgate; and DeWitt Davis and Edward Lachman.