Find Movies & TV
Home
Live TV
On Demand
Discover
Explore
Movies & TV Shows
Most Popular
Leaving Soon
Categories
Action
Animation
Comedy
Crime
Documentary
Drama
En Español
Horror
Music
Romance
Sci-Fi
Thriller
Western
Explore
Browse Channels
Featured Channels
Crime 360
Nashville
FailArmy
Categories
Hit TV
Drama TV
Movies
True Crime
News
Sports
Reality
Classics
Sci-Fi & Action
Chills & Thrills
Comedy
Game Shows
Nature & Travel
History & Science
Food & Home
Lifestyle
Kids & Family
En Español
International
Anime+
Music
Sign In
Desert Hearts
Directed by
Donna Deitch
R
1986
1h 31m
Drama
,
Romance
7.1
77%
77%
7.1
Add to Watchlist
While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed professor of literature is unexpectedly seduced by a carefree, spirited young lesbian.
More
Where to Watch Desert Hearts
Criterion Channel
Subscription
HBO Max
Subscription
HBO Max Amazon Channel
Subscription
+4 more
Cast of Desert Hearts
Helen Shaver
Vivian Bell
Patricia Charbonneau
Cay Rivvers
Audra Lindley
Frances Parker
Andra Akers
Silver
Gwen Welles
Gwen
Dean Butler
Darrell
Katie La Bourdette
Lucille
James Staley
Art Warner
Denise Crosby
Pat
Antony Ponzini
Joe
Alex McArthur
Walter
Tyler Tyhurst
Buck
Brenda Beck
Joyce
Sam Minsky
Best Man
Patricia Frazier
Change Girl
Sheila Balter
Roadside Waitress
Joan Mankin
Casino Waitress
Frank Murtha
Minister
Dave Roberts
Lon
Desert Hearts Ratings & Reviews
Los Angeles Times
Sheila Benson
The movie is all for risk, in the name of attraction; for all its love of risk, it is a remarkably old-fashioned, cliché-ridden work.
USA Today
Mike Clark
A monotonous comedy-drama, though the setting is a plus.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Harper Barnes
One of those films that may not hold together very well as drama, and a couple of times beats you into submission with clichés in the dialogue, but still has a great deal of appeal because of the sheer humanity that pours from these characters.
San Francisco Chronicle
Judy Stone
There is no question about the film's entertainment value, particularly by the personalities and performances.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
A stylish, low-key comedy of Eros.
Orlando Sentinel
Jay Boyar
Like many films set in Reminiscence, Desert Hearts appears to be a labor of love -- and it may be intended as a mild political statement as well.
Newsday
Joseph Gelmis
Deserts Hearts is like a snail. You can see where it's going, but you have to patiently watch it moving inexorably at its own tedious pace.
New York Daily News
Kathleen Carroll
Contains a wonderfully crusty performance by Audra Lindley as Frances... She seems completely at home on the range, with her sun-scorched face and cigarette-tainted voice.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Jeff Strickler
As a result, we feel as if we are only observing, never becoming involved with either the characters or their situations.
Houston Chronicle
Michael Spies
Natalie Copper's screenplay makes the dilemmas intelligent -- perhaps more intelligent than they really might have been.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Michael H. Price
Desert Hearts' R rating takes into account some fiery lovemaking footage. Deitch, however, avoids prurience and concentrates on the players' faces, lending the picture a tasteful restraint that intensifies its eroticism.
Detroit Free Press
Catharine Rambeau
Desert hearts is joyous and outrageous -- an original with a beat all its own.
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
It's a Reno where metaphor thrives -- hearts as deserts, love as a gamble, roads and rail-road tracks as emblems of transience, cloudbursts and showers as burst dams of sexuality.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eleanor Ringel Cater
This first feature by former documentarian Donna Deitch is an old-fashioned love story that just happens to be about two women.
Arizona Republic
Marsha McCreadie
Add Desert Hearts to the current crop of gay films, which are hip, honest and knowing about the gay world without being either preachy or self-conscious.
Washington Post
Rita Kempley
Given the low budget, there was no money for transitions or fancy wideshots, so the look is strangled, stranded and somehow like stagework.
AV Club
Gwen Ihnat
The ending is ambiguous but not tragic, making Vivian and Cay groundbreakers not just in the '50s but in the '80s as well.
Chicago Reader
Andrea Thompson
The film surrounds its central pairing with relationships of various complexities that rebuke the clean-cut image of the decade.
Autostraddle
Heather Hogan
It was the tenderness of Desert Hearts that got me, the hope, and the idea that a woman didn't need to have it all nailed down by the time she hit 30, that a woman could give in to what she wanted and just figure it out as she went along
Washington Post
Paul Attanasio
... this is an astonishingly polished and nuanced first film. It deserves to be celebrated, not quibbled with.
Watch Desert Hearts Videos
Desert Hearts
Desert Hearts
Trailer
Take Plex everywhere
Watch free anytime, anywhere, on almost any device.
See the full list of supported devices
Home
Live TV
On Demand
Discover
