The Canyons (2013) poster
2013 · thriller · drama

The Canyons

Directed by Paul Schrader1h 39m2013
ElsewhereIMDb3.812kRT21%Metacritic36
  • heavy
  • intense
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, steady, measured thriller / drama, inventive in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

Our read · The Canyons (2013) reads as a heavy, steady, inventive thriller · drama entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Canyons

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want Bret Easton Ellis sleaze dissecting LA hookup culture and hollow ambition.

ends unsettlingit leaves you shakensteady all the waygrips by minute 8attention 3/5feels its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upexplicit sexnuditysexual violencegraphic violencedrug usecringe humiliation

Skip it tonightSkip if explicit sex, assault themes, and emotional cruelty will sour the room.

If The Canyons is your film
American Gigolo (1980)
Schrader-era LA desire, control, and moral rot
(unless eighties gloss feels too soft)
The Informers (2008)
Ellis decadence across interconnected lost souls
(if ensemble sprawl loses you)
Auto Focus (2002)
Hollywood emptiness curdling into private violence
(unless period biopic pace drags)
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Nearest by DNA

Eight films that read most like this one.

Closeness in the twelve-axis space — how the film actually reads, not “people also liked.”

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