Peter Hujar’s Day Review: BFI London Film Festival 2025

Ira Sachs latest recounts a day in the life of celebrated photographer Peter Hujar

In 1974 author Linda Rosencrantz had the idea to interview several of her artist friends for a book that would detail what it was like to live a day in each of their lives. The book never came to pass, and the tapes were lost over the years, but in 2019, a transcript of her recording of Peter Hujar’s Day was found.

Ira Sachs script is a direct copy of that transcript, which sees the celebrated gay photographer (Ben Wishaw) spend a day at Rosencrantz’s (Rebecca Hall) apartment, recounting a day in his life during which he at first thinks nothing of note happened, but comes to realise was actually full of activity. From mundane details to anecdotes and musings on life and work, he covers every minute of the 24 hours.

Sachs shot on 16mm film, and the result is a gorgeously textured picture that feels like it’s been lifted straight out of the archives. He moves the pair around Linda’s beautifully decorated apartment so it doesn’t all feel static, but this is at the end of the day just an 80-minute monologue with only a few interjections from Hall. While Sachs last film Passages was his plottiest and most popular work yet, this is all together a different beast.

It paints of portrait of a man obsessed with observing the details of life in only the way an artist can be. Hujar knows that it took him precisely 12 minutes to carry out a certain task, that he did precisely 27 push ups in the evening, and he can account for everything he has spent in the day, and on what, down to the cent.

He also observes people the way only an artist can – sharing not just his judgements of his sitters and friends, but also individuals he passes in the street. Surely no one else would be regaling a third party with the exact shade of orange paint a random person he passed on the street had on their nose – but Peter Hujar recalls it perfectly.  

The ultimate test for a film like this is does it hold the attention of an audience with no knowledge of or interest in the people it’s about. Hujar is name-dropping from almost scene to scene. He has a phone call with an Ab Fab-esque Susan Sontag and a meeting with a ranting Allen Ginsberg, recounting the décor of his spartan apartment in great detail. Hujar is rubbing shoulders with William S Burroughs and Fran Leibovitz, photographing musicians and film stars – but if none of these names mean anything to you then this film might be too niche to hold attention.

With even a passing interest, though, Peter Hujar’s Day is a cultural goldmine. A snapshot of New York pop culture in the 1970s, where everyone seems to know each other and meets up all the time to hobnob and bitch, collaborate, smoke and dine. More than just an appreciation for the arts, Sachs also reminisces on that lost sense of physical closeness and familiarity with friends we seem to have lost in the social media era. People are constantly calling and dropping by unannounced in a way that simply seems unimaginable in 2025, but I suspect we all miss very much.

It’s a remarkable performance from Ben Wishaw who resists the urge to turn this into a theatrical monologue. There’s no inexplicably overwrought emotion, and while he does seem to come to some sort of quiet revelation about his work, it’s deeply understated and natural. He and Hall ping-pong their conversation back and forth well, the whole piece managing to feel spontaneous and familiar.

Ultimately, despite only having the briefest knowledge of the people at the centre of this story, I found Peter Hujar’s Day deeply absorbing. An understated and relaxed hangout movie packed full of period texture and colour, it’s a very clever adaptation from Ira Sachs.

Peter Hujar’s Day is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival, and it will be released in cinemas on 2nd January 2026

Check out more reviews from the 2025 London Film Festival here