Teenagers Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb share a dangerous sexual bond and an amoral outlook on life. They spend afternoons breaking into storefronts and engaging in petty crimes, until the calculating Nathan ups the ante by kidnapping, and murdering, a young boy.
Cinematography
Lush black-and-white that makes murder look like perfume ad.
Direction
Kalin refuses easy moralizing — you're complicit in their glamour.
Costume
Those Oxford bags and spectator shoes are *chef's kiss* evil.
Director
Tom Kalin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of the 1990s New Queer Cinema movement alongside Poison and Swoon, reclaiming queer history from straight true crime sensationalism.
The real Leopold and Loeb case inspired Compulsion, Rope, and Murder by Numbers — but Swoon is the only one that centers their queer relationship without apology.
US
