Gregg Araki’s ‘Totally F***ed Up’ 66th birthday!
As the filmmaker known for capturing the spirit of alienated queer youth turns 66, here's a look back at some of our favorite Araki projects
Gregg Araki is the undeniable king of the early 90s New Queer Cinema movement.
Photo by Kevin Paul; design by Ryan Quan
Words by Andy Crump
Is it a harder pill to swallow that Gregg Araki hasn’t made a movie since 2014, or that he’s closer to 70 than he is to 60? This is the man responsible for capturing the spirit of alienated queer youth from the late 1980s through the 1990s, raw and unconciliated; picturing him now as the person he was when he made his seminal Teenage Apocalypse movie trilogy—comprising Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995), and Nowhere (1997)—makes for a nearly contradictory exercise. What happens to young voices when they no longer are young? How do we engage with the work they did in middle age when they’re inexorably inching toward twilight?
Should reaffirmation of Araki’s talents be needed on his 66th birthday on Wednesday, rewatch his films alongside his projects from post-2014, the year he released his 11th picture, White Bird in a Blizzard; the critical shellacking that movie received clearly did nothing to snuff his spark. It’s somewhat a shame that a queer Asian American filmmaker as vital as Araki pivoted to television over the last decade. The good news, at least, is that he worked on great episodes of great TV shows, like 13 Reasons Why, leading up to the 2019 premiere of his Starz series Now Apocalypse. The better news is that his new movie, I Want Your Sex, will debut at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival next month. To play on a well-worn meme: Gregg Araki is back! Even though he never technically left!
Araki’s television work, whether done for himself or other producers, maintained his creative drive. If directing episodes for shows ranging from Heathers to Riverdale meant tailoring his style to fit another person’s vision, it also meant staying employed. The Araki of the 1990s might’ve found this sentiment dull, because youth is deathly allergic to practicality over the allure of chasing one’s passions. Maybe Araki thinks the same way today. He seems to have held onto his 90s vigor, after all, if Now Apocalypse is any indication. On the other hand, maybe I Want Your Sex will reveal a very different filmmaker than the one you’ll get to know by acquainting yourself with his best movies.
Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy: Totally F***ed Up, The Doom Generation, Nowhere
Araki’s cinema has been characterized as, and related to, “punk rock,” and there’s nothing more punk rock than bucking the rules (or ignoring them altogether). Instead of rattling off each movie in the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy one by one, let’s lump them all together under a single heading, lest they take up half the list on their own.
Each film exists at the intersection of youth experience and queer experience; the two dovetail with one another through such motifs as disaffection, isolation, and general confusion, and combined, mash together a bizarre assembly of genres and aesthetics into a shockingly cohesive whole.
Totally F***ed Up documents six teens’ travails across 15 chapters, encapsulating the aching desire for connection and the shattering effects of its absence. The Doom Generation follows two lovers and a handsome drifter, whom they pick up at the start of the film and go on the run with after a fatal accident puts them on the radar of the police and the FBI. And Nowhere stuffs an ensemble of characters into a slim 78 minute plot that broadly revolves around a party but sticks one toe just over the line of “alien invasion” cinema at the same time. Again: bizarre.
But in its outré way, the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy pinpoints the disparate feeling of being teenage and queer in a country, and at a time, when to be the former made one an inconvenience, and the latter made one a social aberration. Almost by necessity, these movies play by few rules other than those Araki sets for them, and likewise refuse to sand down the sharp edges of their characters’ lives for mainstream audiences—and frankly, even for a chunk of arthouse audiences. The effect of Araki’s uncompromising storytelling is to broadcast truths about queerness, wrapped up in existential dread, brutal violence, and unrestrained tenderness, at a time when few other filmmakers had the guts to tell them.
Smiley Face (2007)
Watching Anna Faris commit to the bit as the entirely too-high lead of Araki’s stoner comedy, which is lighthearted but not light on substance, is a joy. It’s reasonable to treat Smiley Face as a love letter to her, on account of how much goodwill and sympathy the film accords her. Like Totally F***ed Up and Nowhere, the film is episodic to a degree, as Jane (Faris) wanders across Los Angeles, brain fried from eating cupcakes she had no clue were laced with cannabis, encountering different characters in her misadventures. Unlike those movies, there’s nary a trace of nihilism in Smiley Face’s fabric, replaced by a happy-go-lucky character study woven with slapstick and cringe comedy, all resting on Faris’ blissful, charming shoulders.
The Living End (1992)
Just as HIV-positive people once—and even today still are—deemed “untouchable” by society at large, so too did the movies once treat this virus as a subject to be feared, and avoided, and on the rare occasions when Hollywood would dare confront it, sanitized. The Living End is anything but clean. It’s the perfect intersection of Araki’s attitudes as an artist, from his nonconformity and individualism to his empathy for his characters. Jon (Craig Gilmore) and Luke (Mike Dytri) are strangers with coinciding HIV diagnoses. When they cross paths by chance, they determine to live life as two men with effective death sentences—meaning, to the fullest, and to the grimmest. The Living End isn’t an easy watch. It shouldn’t be. Jon and Luke exist under uneasy circumstances, and Araki dramatizes the spectrum of their emotions without flinching, without judging, and, most importantly, without hesitating.
Splendor (1999)
On the opposite side of The Living End’s coin, there’s Splendor, a movie less radical on the surface but nonetheless revolutionary in its own way. Araki told Filmmaker Magazine that he saw Splendor as a story about “trying to live by your own rules.” The moral here is that people should satisfy conventions, like the pursuit of happiness, in unconventional ways when conventional ones don’t suit them. Basically, be happy, even if it means defying social mores. In Splendor, Araki couches that advice in a throuple between Veronica (Kathlee Roberston), Abel (Johnathon Schaech), and Zed (Matt Keeslar), though he carefully avoids preaching by treating their relationship as normal, on their terms—the only terms that ultimately matter.
Published on December 17, 2025
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is JoySauce's social media manager, associate editor, and all-around visual eye. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans, and check out his work on his website.