Crash (1996)

Technology and sexuality meet in head-on collision in David Cronenberg’s controversial adaptation of writer J.G. Ballard’s transgressive 1973 novel.

James Spader stars as James Ballard, a film producer whose deviant sexual desires are awakened by a near fatal automobile accident with Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter). Soon the pair, alongside Ballard’s wife Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger), are drawn into an underground world of car crash fetishism presided over by renegade scientist Vaughan (Elias Koteas).

Danger, sex and death become entwined as eroticism and technology join together in a disturbing, deadly union. Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for originality, daring and audacity, Crash remains a subversive and confrontational piece of cinema.

1996 Canada
Directed by
David Cronenberg
Produced by
David Cronenberg
Written by
David Cronenberg
Featuring
James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Unger
Running time
98 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Crash

Critics

Philippe Azoury
France
Neil Bahadur
Canada
Philip Brophy
Australia
Sehad Čekić
Montenegro
Nel Dahl
USA
Steph Green
UK
Stefan Grissemann
Austria
Evgeny Gusyatinskiy
Netherlands
Nathan Lee
USA
Beatrice Loayza
USA
Saffron Maeve
Canada
Justine Peres Smith
Canada
Josh Slater-Williams
UK

Directors

Rose Glass
UK

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