Cruel Intentions: The Dark Side of a 90s Cult Classic Movie

How did Cruel Intentions (1999) become a 90s cult classic movie? In this documentary, we trace the history of Roger Kumble's glossy teen drama, from its 1782 literary roots to its lasting place in cult cinema history. Released on March 5, 1999, Cruel Intentions starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, and Selma Blair in a modern adaptation of the French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses. Produced for Columbia Pictures on a reported budget of about ten and a half million dollars, the film went on to earn roughly seventy-six million dollars worldwide. It was never banned and it was never lost. Yet it became one of the most debated and most rewatched teen films of its era. This documentary investigates how that happened, and what audiences kept finding inside it. We explore the late-nineties teen film boom, the origins of the story, the production, and the film's rise through home video, a Best Kiss win at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, and a twentieth-anniversary theatrical return in 2019. We also examine the quieter controversy around the film, the long-running argument over what teenage audiences should be shown, and how one of its most talked-about scenes has been reinterpreted over the years. If you enjoy movie production history, cult cinema history, film censorship debates, forgotten Hollywood stories, and documentaries about movies that refused to fade away, this video is for you. Every claim in this documentary is based on reported production history and available sources. Where the historical record is uncertain, we say so. This is the story of a film that was dismissed by some, embraced by others, and passed from one generation of viewers to the next. It is also a story about cinematic legacy and how cultural memory is built. Here is a question for the comments. When a film divides critics and audiences, who ultimately decides whether it deserves to be remembered: the studio, the critics, or the viewers who keep watching it? Subscri