Sightlines · reception

How I Want Your Sex was received

2026 · Gregg Araki · I Want Your Sex on Sightlines

The arc

Premiered at Sundance 2026 — Araki's first feature in over a decade — to genuinely split notices: raves from Variety and Deadline, a 2/5 from the Guardian. It only hit theaters (via Magnolia) at the end of July 2026, so its long-term reputation is still being written.

What’s debated

The fight is over whether it's a liberating, sex-positive romp or a Gen X queer elder lecturing a supposedly sexless Gen Z to loosen up and get horny — critics landed hard on both sides.

Its footprint

The cultural hook is Charli XCX, cast in an Araki film at peak brat-era fame — the pop-star-meets-New-Queer-Cinema crossover did much of the film's pre-release talking, alongside a title lifted straight from pop-culture memory.

Where it stands

An event for Araki completists: the New Queer Cinema provocateur's comeback film, arriving with instant cult-object energy and a divisive Letterboxd reception to match.

Did you know? Charli XCX — a longtime Araki fan and self-professed cinephile — shot her entire role as Cooper Hoffman's girlfriend Minerva in a single day.

Named by the director

• Fifty Shades of Gray (2015) — Araki says the original spec script was pitched to him as 'a comic Fifty Shades of Gray,' the seed the whole project grew from.
• Sunset Boulevard (1950) — Araki has described folding in 'the whole thing of the Sunset Boulevard body in the pool' as the film gained its noir shape.