It is, by now, a well-known fact that Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are not for the faint of heart. Delighting in the strange and absurd, he first made a name for himself with Dogtooth (2009): a film in which a domineering father imprisons his three adult children in a fenced compound, cut off from the outside. If Poor Things (2023) was a Victorian sadomodernist twist on the ‘Born Sexy Yesterday’ trope, his latest, Kinds of Kindness (2024), offers up a spectacle of cruelty – featuring, among other kinds of evil, brainwashing sex cults, murder, rape, domestic violence, and cannibalism. In Lanthimos’ worlds, humanity is stripped of moral pretension; his characters obey inscrutable logics.

Given the content of these films, it might then seem an odd choice to describe the behind-the-scenes stills from these productions as beautiful. But two books, “Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken” (2024) – shot during the filming of Poor Things – and “I shall sing these songs beautifully” (2024) – made alongside Kinds of Kindness – prove otherwise. Now, an exhibition at Webber Gallery in Los Angeles collates images from both books in the first public presentations of Lanthimos’ photography.

Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs is on from 29 March until 24 May 2025 at Webber Gallery, Los Angeles.

Photos Courtesy of Yorgos Lanthimos / Mack