Sundance 2026 Review: I WANT YOUR SEX, Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman Headline Gregg Araki's Welcome Return to Filmmaking

Between 1987 (Three Bewildered People in the Night) and 2010 (Kaboom), queer filmmaker Gregg Araki wrote and directed 10 films, solidifying his status as a New Queer Cinema visionary with few, if any, peers (only arthouse favorites Derek Jarman and Todd Haynes belong in the conversation).

 

Simply put, Araki was one of the exhilaratingly transgressive filmmakers working at the margins of indie filmmaking as the 20th century ended and the 21st century began.

 

As months turned into years and years turned into decades, changing cinema-going habits and generational shifts (Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, etc.) led to a noticeable slowdown in Araki’s output as a filmmaker. Araki shifted to directing episodic television, only returning to feature-length filmmaking in 2014 with White Bird in a Blizzard, an uninspired, lifeless adaptation of Laura Kasischke's well-received 1999 novel. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before disappearing into well-earned obscurity after a limited release nine months later. 

 

Araki could have retired from filmmaking, but didn’t. All of the available signs suggest otherwise. His first film this decade, I Want Your Sex, an erotic comedy/art-world satire set at the crossroads of the Los Angeles art world, BDSM, and generational conflict, doubles as a return to form for the long-absent Araki and a reminder that he remains a vital, even essential, voice in indie filmmaking.

 

I Want Your Sex revolves around Elliot (Cooper Hoffman, The Long Walk, Licorice Pizza), a fresh-faced twenty-something straight out of college, with an unmarketable degree in art or art history, and few job prospects, and Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, The Invite), an art maker, gallery owner, and a brand name unto herself who, in a moment of clarity or possibly, the opposite, invites Elliot into a non-exclusive BDSM relationshp. It’s not a match made in hell, heaven, or even purgatory.

 

Despite the exploitative power imbalance -- and employment laws bent, broken, or shattered beyond repair -- Elliot and Erika embark on what appears to be a fulfilling relationship, albeit one with one-sided commitment, Elliot’s. Erika coaxes the naively curious Elliot into not just exploring his sexual fantasies, but pushing past their outer limits into unknown physical, emotional, and mental territory. As expected for a Gregg Araki-directed enterprise, sex-positive kink finds itself introduced into both the narrative and Eliot and Erika's sex play. Before long, out come the sex toys; likewise, the lube, bindings, and ball gags. 

 

Elliot becomes understandably besotted with the calm, cool, seemingly collected Erika (magnificently performed by Wilde as a borderline camp dominatrix), all but ignoring his girlfriend, Minerva (Charli XCX), a medical student, and his roommate/best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Bored and disinterested in a physical relationship, Minverva barely notices Elliot’s absence. Apple takes a decidedly curious attitude towards Elliot and the rapid disassembly of his so-called life. Without external guidance or an internal compass, Elliot takes his cues from the cynical, worldly Zap (Mason Gooding), Elliot’s co-worker and self-described gay slut. 

 

For all of its deliberately confrontational sex talk and frank imagery, not often seen outside of streaming porn, I Want Your Sex isn’t quite as radical or outrageous as Araki and his White Bird in a Blizzard co-screenwriter, Karley Sciortino, apparently intended for their decade-in-the-making follow-up. As other material obstacles intrude on Elliot and Erika’s sexual adventures, specifically an upcoming make-or-break art exhibition for Erika’s latest art, Elliot’s obsession with Erika canonly temporarily forestall resolving the messier aspects of his life (soon-to-be girlfriend, a best friend pushed beyond her comfort levels, his barely concealed need for a more conventional, committed relationship based on mutuality) eventually converge on the night the art show opens. 

 

As the besotted, obsessive Elliot, Hoffman delivers an endearingly vulnerable, wide-eyed performance. His stumbling, bumbling physicality around Wilde’s domineering artist and gallery owner avoids slipping into cartoonish caricature. Introduced in women’s underwear whispering “Oh f*ck…” repeatedly after he emerges from a drug-fueled party for two, Hoffman’s utter disbelief at what — or rather who — he finds in the pool highlights his uncanny ability to tap into an everyman persona (twenty-something edition).  

 

I Want Your Sex premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.