Kiss of the Spider Woman · reception & legacy
1985 · Héctor Babenco
How Kiss of the Spider Woman has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A prestige sensation in 1985 — William Hurt won Best Actor at both Cannes and the Oscars, and the film landed a Best Picture nomination as a scrappy independent production. Today it's honored as a queer-cinema landmark but viewed with more complicated eyes, its once-daring casting now a talking point rather than a triumph.
What's debated
The perennial fight: is Hurt's Oscar-winning Molina a great, humane performance or the origin story of the 'straight actor acclaimed for playing gay' problem?
Its footprint
It kept multiplying: Manuel Puig's novel became this film, then the Kander & Ebb Broadway musical that swept the 1993 Tonys with Chita Rivera, then Bill Condon's 2025 movie musical with Jennifer Lopez — few 80s indies have had that kind of afterlife.
Where it stands
A canonical 80s indie and queer-cinema touchstone that had drifted into 'respected but under-watched' territory until the 2025 remake sent Letterboxd users back to the original.