The 11 Best Ken Russell Movies to Revel in After The Devils

There is a before and after watching The Devils in my life, and I suspect many of its admirers feel the same way. You rarely see the Warner Bros. logo in the credits of a big-budget film in which a nun masturbates with a charred femur, but such was director Ken Russell’s vision of a real case of religious and political hysteria in 1634 France. Would you believe it was so widely condemned that it’s been virtually impossible to watch in full since its 1971 release? In what might be Warner’s only good decision this year, the studio is atoning for its censorship sins by releasing a 4K restoration of the director’s original cut across cinemas.

The Devils is Russell’s masterpiece, but the rest of his wildly prolific filmography is not far behind. The man had style down, unafraid to go full-tilt into camp fantasia while always staying grounded in fierce intellect. Ever the proper English schoolboy, many of his works are biographies of composers and literary figures, only the subjects are framed as sex-crazed, prog-rock addicts who confer with a Judy Garland–stanning pope and befriend divalicious female leads. (Russell was, against all odds, straight.) Here are 11 films to get into once you’ve walked off The Devils’s daze can fully surrender to Russellmania. All of his films are singular: You might abhor one and adore another, but each will pull you to the next.

Women in Love (1969)

Russell’s first major hit is the epitome of still waters running deep. Based on the D.H. Lawrence novel (this is also a reading list!), it masquerades as a quiet romantic drama about two sisters before turning into a carnal merry-go-round with their men, the impossibly sexy Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, who get naked and wrestle for the fun of it. Larry Kramer nabbed an Oscar nomination for his screenplay here, long before his legendary activism, and Glenda Jackson took home the Best Actress trophy — before also blazing a career fearless in politics and artistry. ➽ Available through the Criterion Collection.

The Music Lovers (1971)

No one captures mania like Russell, and what is passion for music if not a passion for the mania that drives our basest impulses? The Music Lovers is a dual portrait of the off-kilter relationship between the gay composer Tchaikovsky and his hypersexual wife, Nina. Using much of the legendary Russian’s symphonies and structured, almost wordlessly, as one large movement, it finds their true devotion to each other in their love of music. ➽ Streaming on MGM+.

The Boy Friend (1971)

Russell’s love letter to classic Hollywood is dizzying in its relentless motion, almost a sugar headache, but never less than glorious to behold. This meta-adaptation of the 1953 musical, already an irreverent take on the century’s earlier stage spectacles, was another early hit for the director. Russell adds a 30 Rock–esque backstage frame in which an assistant stage manager (Twiggy, looking divine) is thrust into the spotlight when the star of her regional playhouse’s production of The Boy Friend is nowhere to be found. ➽ Streaming on Apple TV.

Savage Messiah (1972)

Maybe my favorite Russell, after The Devils, is this dual study of the little-remembered French sculptor Henri Gaudier and the even more obscure writer Sophie Brzeska. Both lived what some might romanticize as chic, Parisian bohemia (perennially broke and largely unrecognized within their lifetimes), and both experienced what we would now diagnose as severe mental illness. Russell doesn’t traffick in any of that, and screenwriter Christopher Logue refuses to pathologize the two, focusing instead on the untamed beauty of their relationship, which was romantic, familiar, treacherous, and pure. It’s one of Russell’s quieter films, allowing his fervor to flow directly from his subjects, but he pairs it with stunning, art-book-worthy depictions of Gaudier’s works. Its final shot, in which Brzeska accepts her role as the keeper of her companion’s legacy, an image that acknowledges the inseparability of their art and life, is breathtaking. ➽ Streaming on Apple TV.

Tommy (1975)

Probably the best-known of Russell’s works is his adaptation of the Who’s Tommy, fronted by the band’s Roger Daltrey, with cameos by Tina Turner, Elton John, and Jack Nicholson. It also has surely the most un-Oscar-bait-y performance ever to score a nomination, from poor Ann-Margret, who was made to writhe around in Champagne and baked beans. And guess what? I hate it; an instance of the director going overboard with his frenetic style. The Broadway version is my favorite take on the rock opera, since it streamlines so much of the story’s raggediness and woe-is-me boomerism. But you always have to hand it to the man for doing things his way. If reading this makes you think I’m an absolute square, congratulations! You will love this movie, and we can toast at the next Russell convention. ➽ Streaming on Apple TV.

Listzomania (1975)

If you didn’t immediately look into the aforementioned Judy Garland reference, you’ll find it in Russell’s second collaboration with Roger Daltrey — in the same year, the workaholic — which is also his most out-there biopic. As with The Music Lovers, it takes off from the lesser-known account of an established genius’s lover, framing the 19th-century composer Franz Liszt as a clueless sex addict who is nevertheless angelic compared to the fascistic Wagner, later portrayed as an evil Superman (logo and all!) who commands a pre–Star Wars imperial army. In his recent review, film critic Brandon David Wilson wrote that “so many of you think you’ve seen a totally liberated film but you haven’t.” Does that make it a good film? Not really, but it’s Russell at his most orgiastic. ➽ Streaming on Apple TV.

Altered States (1980)

In this surreal voyage into consciousness, one of Russell’s better-known studio releases, a researcher starts experimenting with hallucinogenics and sensory-deprivation tanks, sending him (and the film) into some of the director’s trippiest visuals. What’s crazy is that it begins almost like a scene cut from Indiana Jones — all classrooms and academia — before turning into a creature feature and eventually, basically, Russell’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. ➽ Streaming on Tubi.

Crimes of Passion (1984)

The list’s shortest pitch: Kathleen Turner as a sex worker named China Blue being chased around by Anthony Perkins, who plays a street preacher with an addiction to poppers and peep shows. ➽ Streaming on Tubi.

Gothic (1986)

Russell never met an AP Lit story he couldn’t corrupt (or find the truth in?), and this one is no exception: a wildly sexual, opium-fueled retelling of that fateful night when Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson in her film debut) dreamed up the Frankenstein myth to win a writing competition against her incestuous, literary circle, which included husband Percy and Lord Byron. The extreme hedonism of it all might … not … actually … be far from the truth. ➽ Streaming on Tubi.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

This one’s earned cult-favorite status in recent years, thanks to people online discovering how yummy Hugh Grant’s hair looks in it and the fact that its plot, based on a Bram Stoker novel, is basically the same as SpongeBob SquarePants’s Alaskan Bull Worm episode. For fans of Hellraiser and its era of twisted English fairy tales with harrowing practical effects, White Worm wakes up a sleepy rural town with the accidental digging up of an ancient serpent’s skull (oops!), which sets off a chain of murders orchestrated by a slinky lady of the manor who is secretly a dark priestess. Those without Halloween costumes: Turn to Amanda Donohoe. Russell was losing prestige and funding by this point in his career, resulting in some truly zany sequences shot on video that, while thematically similar, make the 35-mm.-shot Devils look like stained glass. It’s gnarly and fun as hell, though. ➽ Streaming on Tubi.

Salome’s Last Dance (1988)

If you’ve made it this far through the list, you probably own a caftan, or at least have an old-school queen in your life whom you simply adore. Treat them to this silly little romp, which sees all-time queen Oscar Wilde and his lover taking in a secret performance of the writer’s Salome at a friend’s brothel. The most overtly queer of Russell’s works, it sneaks in some touching and venomous commentary on censorship and life on the margins. It’s the type of left-field passion project that makes you love an artist, and Imogen Millais-Scott’s titular performance is one for the ages — especially considering she’d gone blind three weeks before shooting. ➽ Streaming on Tubi.