Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a 1989 American independent drama film that brought director Steven Soderbergh to prominence. It tells the story of a man who films women discussing their sexuality, and his impact on the relationships of a troubled married couple and the wife’s younger sister. A sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, the film made that festival a synonym for a new brand of low-budget indie dramas about contemporary life and relationships. Together with Quentin Tarantino’s very different Pulp Fiction (1994), sex, lies, and videotape was one of the most influential movies for independent filmmaking of the 1990s. The film won the Palme d’Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, and was critical in revolutionising the independent film movement in the early 1990s. In 2006, Sex, Lies, and Videotape was added to the United States Library of Congress’ National Film Registry as being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
