
Gregg Araki returns to feature filmmaking with a provocative, sex-positive Sundance breakout that turns desire, power and obsession into a chaotic new kind of romantic nightmare.
Gregg Araki is back, and he is not exactly returning quietly.
Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing have released the first trailer for âI Want Your Sex,â Arakiâs boundary-pushing erotic comedy thriller starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman. The film follows Elliot, played by Hoffman, a young assistant who becomes entangled with Erika Tracy, a provocative artist played by Wilde, after she hires him to become her sexual muse. What begins as a fantasy of proximity, desire and power quickly turns into something more unstable, as the trailer teases a relationship built around domination, obsession, betrayal and increasingly dangerous games.
The footage leans directly into the filmâs reputation as one of the buzziest and most sexually explicit titles to come out of Sundance. Ball gags, whips, strap-ons, threesome chaos and sadomasochistic power play all appear to be part of Arakiâs latest provocation, but the trailer also suggests that âI Want Your Sexâ is not merely interested in shock value. Wildeâs Erika appears to be both seductive and controlling, while Hoffmanâs Elliot enters her world with the wide-eyed curiosity of someone who believes he has found liberation before realizing he may have stepped into something far more complicated.
That tension fits naturally within Arakiâs larger body of work. The filmmaker became one of the defining voices of queer independent cinema through films like âTotally F***ed Up,â âThe Doom Generationâ and âNowhere,â works that helped shape his reputation for turning youth culture, sexuality, alienation and pop chaos into something both anarchic and deeply personal. âI Want Your Sexâ marks Arakiâs long-awaited return to feature filmmaking after 2014âs âWhite Bird in a Blizzard,â following years of television work on shows including âRiverdale,â â13 Reasons Why,â âMonsterâ and âAmerican Gigolo.â

The film also arrives at a moment when sex on screen remains a strangely contested subject. Despite years of prestige television pushing boundaries, mainstream American film has often become more cautious about eroticism, especially when compared with the kind of unruly independent cinema that helped define Arakiâs rise. âI Want Your Sexâ seems designed to confront that tension head-on. At Sundance, Wilde described the film as an irreverent and playful look at the sexual revolution of a young person, while also framing sex as a metaphor for broader emotional experience.
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The cast adds to the filmâs cult-ready appeal. Alongside Wilde and Hoffman, âI Want Your Sexâ features Charli XCX, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho and Roxane Mesquida. That ensemble suggests Araki is once again building a heightened, combustible world where pop culture, performance, danger and desire all collide. The film was co-written by Araki and Karley Sciortino, whose own work has often explored sexuality, intimacy and taboo with a mix of humor and candor.

âI Want Your Sexâ premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it became one of the festivalâs more talked-about titles and was later acquired for U.S. distribution by Magnolia Pictures in a seven-figure deal. The trailer now positions the film as one of the summerâs more provocative indie releases, not because it promises to be tasteful, restrained or easy to categorize, but because it appears to be fully committed to the kind of messy adult filmmaking that has become increasingly rare.
Whether the film ultimately plays as erotic thriller, screwball sex comedy, dom-sub romance or Araki-style pop provocation, the trailer makes one thing clear: âI Want Your Sexâ is not trying to blend in. It looks loud, kinky, chaotic, funny, dangerous and deliberately uncomfortable, which may be exactly the point. In a film landscape often dominated by franchise safety and algorithmic caution, Arakiâs return looks like a reminder that cinema can still be horny, strange and willing to misbehave.
âI Want Your Sexâ is scheduled to open in U.S. theaters on July 31.
Watch The Trailer Below:
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