Event

Sex, Lies, and Videotape

1989, Dir. Steven Soderbergh
With Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, and James Spader

Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Sex, Lies, and Videotape was not only the directorial debut of Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Haywire), it was the international breakout low-budget film that revolutionized American independent cinema.

Andie MacDowell stars as Ann, a frustrated wife who enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to Ann, her husband John (Peter Gallagher) has begun an affair with her sister. When John's best friend from college Graham (James Spader) arrives, his drifter lifestyle and penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann's rocky marriage.

Made possible through funding supported by the video rental market, Sex, Lies, and Videotape was the watershed film that raised low-budget American cinema into commercial and critical success. It was eventually added to the United States National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry, which names up to 25 "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films" each year for preservation in the Library of Congress.