We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

When Héctor Babenco's "Kiss of the Spider Woman" premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, it was an immediate sensation due to the remarkable performances of William Hurt, Raúl Julia, and Sônia Braga, as well as an expertly crafted screenplay by Leonard Schrader (the brother of Paul Schrader). The film performed surprisingly well at the box office (despite its radical political content and, gasp, fully realized portrayal of a homosexual at a time when America was ignorantly blaming the gay community for the AIDS epidemic), and wound up earning four Academy Award nominations. The late William Hurt won Best Actor for his performance as the gay Luis Molina, whose cinephilia ultimately captivates Julia's political prisoner Valenti

See Full Page