Low-budget beginnings Araki made his directorial debut in 1987 with
Three Bewildered People in the Night. With a budget of only $5,000 and using a stationary camera, he told the story of a romance between a video artist, her sweetheart, and her gay friend. Two years later, Araki followed up with ''
The Long Weekend (O' Despair)'', another film with a $5,000 budget. He often had to shoot his early movies spontaneously and without proper permits.
Teenage Apocalypse trilogy Araki's next three movies—
Totally F***ed Up (1993),
The Doom Generation (1995), and
Nowhere (1997)—were collectively dubbed the
Teenage Apocalypse trilogy. A former student of his at UC Santa Barbara,
Andrea Sperling, co-produced the films with him. The trilogy saw Araki work increasingly with more notable actors and actresses including
Rose McGowan,
Margaret Cho,
Parker Posey,
Guillermo Díaz,
Ryan Phillippe,
Heather Graham, and
Mena Suvari among others. The trilogy received varying degrees of reviews, from a thumbs down and "zero stars" by
Roger Ebert to "Literally the Best Thing Ever" by
Rookie, and was eventually heralded as cult classics.
Subsequent efforts Araki's following film,
Splendor (1999), was both an homage to
screwball comedies of the 1940s and 1950s and a response to the controversy surrounding his ongoing relationship (despite Araki self-identifying as gay) with actress
Kathleen Robertson. Araki's next project was the ill-fated
MTV production
This Is How the World Ends, originally planned with a budget of $1.5 million. He viewed it as a chance to reach the masses through MTV's viewership and signed on to do the project despite the budget being cut to $700,000. Araki's next feature was the stoner comedy
Smiley Face (2007), featuring
Anna Faris,
Adam Brody, and
John Krasinski, written by Dylan Haggerty. It marked a stark change from the dark, heavy drama of
Mysterious Skin, a change purposely planned by Araki.
Kaboom marked Araki's tenth film and made its premiere at the
2010 Cannes Film Festival. It was awarded the first ever
Queer Palm for its contribution to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. Araki followed that film with
White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), which was given limited release to mixed reviews. Araki returned to television with the 2019 series
Now Apocalypse, co-executive produced by
Gregory Jacobs and
Steven Soderbergh on
Starz. Araki's next film, the comedy/thriller
I Want Your Sex, will star
Olivia Wilde,
Cooper Hoffman, and
Charli XCX. The screenplay was written by Araki and
Karley Sciortino.
Style One notable feature of Araki's work is the frequent presence of
shoegaze music. This was first seen in the soundtrack of
Totally Fucked Up, and was also substantially featured in the films
Nowhere and
Mysterious Skin. Both
The Living End and
Nowhere owe their titles to this shoegaze influence:
The Living End after
The Jesus and Mary Chain song of the same name, and
Nowhere after
Ride's album
Nowhere. ==Awards and honors==