Todd Haynes (1961) is an American filmmaker. His films explore the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender roles. Haynes first gained public attention with his controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987), which chronicles the life and death of this singer and features Barbie dolls as actors. Superstar became a cult classic. Haynes’s feature directorial debut, Poison (1991), a provocative exploration of queer perceptions and subversions in the AIDS era, established him as a major figure in a new transgressive cinema.
He gained acclaim and some mainstream success with Far from Heaven (2002), earning his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He continued to direct critically lauded films such as I’m Not There (2007), Carol (2015), Wonderstruck (2017), and Dark Waters (2019).
