Kiss of the Spider Woman - The Criterion Collection
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Release Date: 02/02/2026
Featuring indelible performances from Raul Julia and an Academy Award-winning William Hurt, Kiss of the Spider Woman is a work of radical compassion that boldly expands notions of love, gender, and revolution. In the film - directed by Héctor Babenco following his international breakthrough with Pixote, and adapted from the novel by the iconoclastic writer Manuel Puig - Julia and Hurt play Valentin and Molina, a militant leftist activist and a queer, cinema-obsessed window dresser, imprisoned together under a repressive military dictatorship. The two gradually forge a bond that transforms the way they both understand politics, sexuality, and masculinity. Blending raw realism with Molina's imaginative escapes into sumptuous movie fantasy, this searing human drama offers a powerful vision of personal liberation embedded within broader political struggle.