# Kids (film)
**Kids** is a 1995 American independent drama film directed by photographer [Larry Clark](https://www.edgepedia.org/larry-clark) in his feature debut and written by [Harmony Korine](https://www.edgepedia.org/harmony-korine), which follows a group of New York City teenagers through roughly 24 hours of sex, drug use, shoplifting, and violence, centering on a teenage boy who pursues virgin girls while unaware that he is HIV positive.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids) • [2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1996/films/kids) • [14](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/42-torino-film-festival/film/kids/57086/) • [15](https://www.iwu.edu/~iepstein/StrtKids.PDF) Made with non-professional actors in a pseudo-documentary style, it became one of the most controversial American films of the 1990s and was released unrated after receiving an NC-17 classification from the MPAA.[3](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1995/08/06/kids-the-darker-side-of-disney/b3537877-0e85-4b63-89b8-356247bfe685) • [4](https://soundsofcinema.com/review-archive/review-kids-1995/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writer | Larry Clark (feature debut); screenplay by Harmony Korine, who was 19 when he wrote it[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-ca-28836-story.html) |
| Principal cast | Leo Fitzpatrick (Telly), Justin Pierce (Casper), Chloë Sevigny (Jennie), Rosario Dawson (Ruby), Harold Hunter (Harold)[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) |
| Release | Limited US release July 21, 1995 by Shining Excalibur Pictures, unrated after an NC-17 rating was surrendered[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) |
| Running time | 91 minutes[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) |
| Budget and box office | $1.5 million production budget; $7,412,216 domestic and $20,412,216 worldwide gross[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) |
| Festival | Screened in competition at the 48th Cannes Film Festival in 1995[7](https://eiga.com/movie/43670/) |
| Critical scores | 47% Tomatometer (57 reviews) and 76% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and style
The story follows Telly ([Leo Fitzpatrick](https://www.edgepedia.org/leo-fitzpatrick)), a teenager whose goal is to have sex with as many virgin girls as possible unaware that he is HIV positive.[15](https://www.iwu.edu/~iepstein/StrtKids.PDF) • [14](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/42-torino-film-festival/film/kids/57086/) He spends the day with his friend Casper ([Justin Pierce](https://www.edgepedia.org/justin-pierce)), smoking marijuana and stealing from shops around New York. Jennie ([Chloë Sevigny](https://www.edgepedia.org/chloe-sevigny)), one of Telly's earlier partners, learns she has contracted HIV from a single encounter and tries to reach Telly before he can infect another girl, but arrives too late to stop what happens at a party.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-ca-28836-story.html)
Clark shot the film in a direct, cinema-vérité-influenced style with non-professional actors, saying he wanted to tell the story about the group "from the inside."[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1996/films/kids) The Rotterdam festival described the film as an uncompromising picture of 24 turbulent hours in the lives of teenagers who believe they are invincible.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1996/films/kids) Reviewers have repeatedly noted the resulting effect: although the film was scripted, its naturalistic performances and documentary look give it a gritty realism that makes it uncomfortable to watch.[4](https://soundsofcinema.com/review-archive/review-kids-1995/) The Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan, reviewing it on release, called it a neo-documentary look at streetwise, sexually active teenagers and found the characters too unpleasant to care about; a reply from two Los Angeles educators defended the film as an honest look at sex, drugs, and violence in a cinéma-vérité style.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-ca-28836-story.html) • [8](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-14-ca-34968-story.html)
## Production
The project began when the teenage Korine, a skateboarder, approached Clark in New York's Washington Square Park and told him about a screenplay he had written in high school. A year later Clark asked him to write Kids.[9](https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1995/rascals.php) Clark, born in 1943, was a well-known photographer whose collections *Tulsa* (1971) and *Teenage Lust* (1983) had already documented young people and sex, and he described his whole career as preparation for making the film.[10](https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/976096/1/MR45454.pdf) • [9](https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1995/rascals.php)
Financing was difficult. Producer Christine Vachon assembled budgets and packages but could not raise the money; Korine eventually reached Cary Woods, whose recent credits helped attract initial investors.[9](https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1995/rascals.php) The final production budget was $1.5 million.[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) Casting drew on non-actors: [Rosario Dawson](https://www.edgepedia.org/rosario-dawson) was spotted on a New York street and asked if she wanted to be in a movie.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/kids-30-years-anniversary-controversial-chloe-sevigny-b2777437.html)
## Rating controversy and release
The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an NC-17 rating, citing what its ratings panel described as "explicit sex, language, drug use and violence involving children." Because Miramax's owner, the Walt Disney Company, would not distribute an NC-17 film, Miramax's co-chairmen Harvey and [Bob Weinstein](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-weinstein) chartered a new company, Shining Excalibur Pictures, expressly to release it. After the MPAA rejected an appeal, the film opened without any rating, which let it bypass theater-chain and newspaper bans on NC-17 films while limiting it to smaller, mostly big-city independent theaters.[3](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1995/08/06/kids-the-darker-side-of-disney/b3537877-0e85-4b63-89b8-356247bfe685)
The film had premiered to intense audience reaction at the [Sundance Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/sundance-film-festival) in 1995 because of its sexual explicitness, then fizzled at Cannes after a heavily publicized debut.[12](https://sun.iwu.edu/~iepstein/StrtKids.PDF) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-ca-28836-story.html) It opened in New York and Los Angeles to generally favorable reviews and large crowds at a handful of small theaters.[3](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1995/08/06/kids-the-darker-side-of-disney/b3537877-0e85-4b63-89b8-356247bfe685) Against its $1.5 million budget it eventually grossed $7.4 million domestically and $20.4 million worldwide.[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids) The controversy crossed the Atlantic: at the 1996 UK release a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament called it "disgusting material that panders to paedophile fantasies," and *The New Yorker* dubbed the film "nihilistic pornography."[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/kids-30-years-anniversary-controversial-chloe-sevigny-b2777437.html)
## Reception and reassessment
Critical response was sharply divided from the start. Janet Maslin of *The New York Times* called it "frightening, frank and serious, a wake-up call to the world," while other critics found its provocation hollow; a later review in *The Stranger* argued that its lack of thesis and realistic sex scenes offered nothing beyond the shock itself.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 47% critics score against a 76% audience score.[1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids)
**Scholarly and retrospective views** have shifted the argument from shock to representation. The feminist scholar bell hooks argued in 1997 that Kids was, for all its transgressive bravado, a deeply conservative film in its understanding of sex, race, and gender.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/kids-30-years-anniversary-controversial-chloe-sevigny-b2777437.html) An academic chapter on the film notes that its raw pseudo-documentary style and use of non-actors have drawn repeated criticism of youth exploitation, and that the film is characterized by an apparent refusal to pass moral judgment on the adolescent sexuality it depicts.[13](https://research.tees.ac.uk/en/publications/kids-larry-clark-1995/) A 2025 anniversary feature in *The Independent* judged that the film's storytelling has been overshadowed by its images, though the performances of Sevigny, Dawson, Fitzpatrick, Pierce, and Hunter retain their power.[11](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/kids-30-years-anniversary-controversial-chloe-sevigny-b2777437.html)
The film is also placed within the 1990s independent film boom, alongside pictures like [Quentin Tarantino](https://www.edgepedia.org/quentin-tarantino)'s *Reservoir Dogs* and [Kevin Smith](https://www.edgepedia.org/kevin-smith)'s *Clerks*, that challenged the Hollywood establishment, and it marked the debut of several notable careers, including Sevigny and Dawson.[4](https://soundsofcinema.com/review-archive/review-kids-1995/) • [1](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids) Decades after release it retains a cult following, and it received a limited theatrical re-release in Japan on October 17, 2025.[6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids)
## References
1. [Kids, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kids)
2. [Kids - IFFR EN](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1996/films/kids)
3. [Marc Fisher, "'Kids': The Darker Side of Disney," The Washington Post, August 6, 1995](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1995/08/06/kids-the-darker-side-of-disney/b3537877-0e85-4b63-89b8-356247bfe685)
4. [Review: Kids (1995), Sounds of Cinema](https://soundsofcinema.com/review-archive/review-kids-1995/)
5. [Kenneth Turan, "'Kids': Grossing Out the Old Squares," Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1995](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-07-28-ca-28836-story.html)
6. [Kids (1995), Box Office and Financial Information, The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kids)
7. [KIDS キッズ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/43670/)
8. [James Hosney and Jesse Engdahl, "'Kids' Is Honest Look at Real Issues," Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1995](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-14-ca-34968-story.html)
9. [Peter Bowen, "The Little Rascals: Peter Bowen on Larry Clark's Kids," Filmmaker Magazine, Summer 1995](https://filmmakermagazine.com/archives/issues/summer1995/rascals.php)
10. [MA thesis on the published screenplay of Kids, Concordia University](https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/976096/1/MR45454.pdf)
11. [Adam White, "Kids at 30: the most controversial movie of the Nineties," The Independent, June 30, 2025](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/kids-30-years-anniversary-controversial-chloe-sevigny-b2777437.html)
12. [Course text on Kids, Illinois Wesleyan University](https://sun.iwu.edu/~iepstein/StrtKids.PDF)
13. [Thomas Watson, "KIDS (Larry Clark, 1995)," in Screening Controversial Cinema, Routledge](https://research.tees.ac.uk/en/publications/kids-larry-clark-1995/)
14. [Film card - Torino Film Fest](https://www.torinofilmfest.org/en/42-torino-film-festival/film/kids/57086/)
15. [iwu.edu](https://www.iwu.edu/~iepstein/StrtKids.PDF)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Coming-of-age films › Coming-of-age films released before 2000*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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