Luca Guadagnino’s road to Hollywood was far from written in the stars – his debut feature The Protagonists opened to dismal reviews, while his adaptation of Melissa P. was publicly condemned by its author. Even the generally well-received I Am Love faced mass walkouts and a chorus of boos at Venice Film Festival.  

It was only in 2017 when the tides started to turn with Call Me by Your Name, a queer coming-of-age romance that earned $43 million in box offices worldwide (against its $3 million budget) along with an Academy Award to boot. Since then, the 52-year-old has rightly gone from industry outcast to cult auteur – a reputation that’s only bound to intensify with the release of Challengers, a steamy tennis drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.

What sets Guadagnino apart from his contemporaries is not just his uncanny ability to capture beauty in the everyday, but also his brazen willingness to experiment with form and genre. Whether reinventing classic horror tropes or crafting fashion films for the likes of Ferragamo and Loewe, his storytelling is constantly grounded in the deeply human experience of desire. Underneath his penchant for lingering shots of endless blue skies, cascading waterfalls and just-ripe peaches, he asks us: what would it be like to give in to everything that life has to offer?  

Ahead of the Challengers opening in UK cinemas this week, AnOther recommends six career-defining works below from the Italian-Algerian filmmaker.

I Am Love, 2009

The first of Guadagnino’s unofficial “Desire Trilogy”, I Am Love follows the wife of a wealthy Milanese businessman who becomes embroiled in a heady affair with a young chef. Featuring Tilda Swinton as Emma in sumptuous re-editions of Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2008, gliding between rooms of the iconic Villa Necchi Campiglio, this is undoubtedly one of the most stylish films put to screen. In one sequence, Emma tilts her head back with a smile as she savours a plate of prawns. A warm spotlight washes over her alabaster complexion as the camera roves over her eyes and mouth – tracking her every intimation of pleasure like a lover trying to commit a moment to memory. It’s a strange but defining contrivance that sets off an irrevocable chain of events for a woman in pursuit of her long-lost freedom.

On the surface, the film presents a feast for the senses, but if Shakespeare’s Rosalind once wondered whether she could desire “too much of a good thing” then Guadagnino’s Emma grapples with the realisation that no desire can be fulfilled without a cost.

A Bigger Splash, 2015

For fans of scenic swimming pools, Dakota Johnson’s piercing gaze, or Emotional Rescue by The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Splash is the film for you. Riffing off Jacques Deray’s 1969 thriller La Piscine, Guadagnino transplants his cast of four to the secluded island of Pantelleria where they “fuck and fuck and fuck” and “dive and dive and dive” all summer long. Amidst this entanglement of half-forgotten passions, the parties quickly understand that there can be no winner but find themselves unable to resist the pull of each other’s lithe, radiant bodies. As Ralph Fiennes’ larger-than-life character Harry Hawkes puts it: “We’re all obscene, everyone’s obscene. We see it and we love each other anyway.” 

Even as the second half meanders a little longer than necessary, there’s a charged, orgiastic quality to the whole set-up that makes it difficult to look away. It’s a film that grows on you – revealing itself on a second watch – and once it does, you won’t be able to shake it off.

Call Me by Your Name, 2017

Ranked as one of the best films of the 21st century by The Guardian, Empire and The Hollywood Reporter, Call Me by Your Name is Guadagnino’s unrivalled masterpiece and it’s not hard to see why. Framed as a pas de deux between precocious teenager Elio (played extraordinarily by Timothée Chalamet) and charming intellectual Oliver (Armie Hammer), the result is a sultry snapshot of a summer spent discovering first love under the shimmering sun of 1980s Northern Italy.

For all the sweetness of the romance itself, the most moving revelation lies perhaps in Elio’s consciousness that nothing this good can last forever. Hazy melancholy stains every interaction, days unfurl into nights like distant memories and even dreams are filtered through colour-inverted supercuts of a time already passed. Few Guadagnino images remain as vivid as the final shot of Chalamet crying by the fireplace as Sufjan Stevens’ Visions of Gideon echoes in the background.

Suspiria, 2018

Unafraid of making radical thematic detours, Guadagnino enlists a formidable female cast and a haunting Thom Yorke score for his take on Dario Argento’s 1977 horror Suspiria. Unlike the neon-tinged phantasmagoria of the original, this Suspiria relishes in its dark, oppressive tone and muted colour palette. Set in a dance company that turns out to be a witch coven, there are exploding heads, mangled limbs and a blood-red orgy ritual to top it all off.

That it somehow still manages to feel seductive is a testament to Guadagnino’s irreverent approach to filmmaking. In a 2022 interview with friend and collaborator Jonathan Anderson (who also designed the costumes for Challengers), he observed that “horror is the closest thing to love … because it’s visceral.” It’s a shame that owing to its meagre $7.9 million box office return (against its $20 million budget), a sequel is no longer in the works and we may never know what else he had in store.

We Are Who We Are, 2020

Marking Guadagnino’s first foray into television, We Are Who We Are is an intimate eight-part series that centres around a group of teenagers growing up on an American army base in Italy. Languorous in pace, the camera trails its subjects for whole days at a time, dipping in and out of their cacophonous chitchat and tracing the contours of their nimble bodies. A stellar cast including Chloë Sevigny, Kid Cudi and newcomer Jack Dylan Grazer join forces with Devonte Hynes’ shapeshifting score to create an emotional portrait of youth – blissful yet ephemeral.

It’s criminally underrated but well worth a watch, if not for the inspired wardrobe pulls (the pilot features a notorious Raf Simons x Brian Calvin Spring/Summer 2013 T-shirt) then for Francesca Scorsese’s (daughter of Martin Scorsese) heartbreaking rendition of Pearl Jam’s Soldier of Love.

Bones and All, 2022

Bones and All is Guadagnino’s most sweeping endeavour yet, extending across the stunning if not hostile terrain of the American Midwest. But the film belongs to Taylor Russell, who puts in a tour de force performance as 18-year-old Maren on a road trip to find answers about her cannibalistic condition. Together, the actor-director pairing elicits a magnificent tenderness from a story about flesh-eating humans. It’s about the uncontrollable desire to eat people, but also the unspoken desire to see and be seen in a cruel, isolating world.

Taking home the prestigious Silver Lion for Best Director at Venice Film Festival, this entry in the Guadagnino catalogue can be viewed as a linchpin between his indie beginnings and a new chapter in Hollywood (one that is no doubt being propelled by Zendaya’s headline-making appearances for Challengers’ press tour).

Challengers is out in UK cinemas on April 26.