The Jim Hosking Movies Ranked

THE GREASY STRANGLER is one of my favorite movies of all time. Without spoiling/cannibalizing that entry to come in this piece too much, director Jim Hosking’s feature directorial debut is so bizarrely gross, foul, and hilarious. Hosking, in the 22 years since 2003, has directed nine films, three features and six shorts…if one goes by IMDb and the like. Reflecting the shades of categorization that have multiplied in digital spaces, Hosking’s own Vimeo account also contains many videos not cited as a more “mainstream” credit. Where does “internet video” end and “short film” begin? That’s a musing for another day. Here, I’ll address the movies the British director has made that indeed do show up on the usual sources.

#9 — WORK (2006)

The short WORK is like if the British THE OFFICE (2001–2003) was even more depressing and not really funny. Hosking’s trademark slow and deadpan style, both from a shot-length and actor performance perspective, and escalation into high crass energy are technically on display here. But WORK feels like it’s building to something more extreme that never comes, which may be a view held in hindsight considering Hosking’s work to come.

#8 — CRABS (2010)

The father-son dynamic in CRABS, while not nearly as horrific or vulgar, is like a predecessor to the back-and-forth of the central characters in THE GREASY STRANGLER. This short even features Sky Elobar of that later feature, who is also a permanent feature of Hosking’s work since RENEGADES (indeed, the director has kind of cultivated a stock company of sorts). But Elobar’s role is a proportionally “smaller” one, as a strange man found in the woods by the hiking father and son, amid a film that, like WORK, doesn’t quite escalate into something too remarkable. CRABS instills a kind of uneasy feeling but doesn’t deliver on the strange energy.

#7 — LITTLE CLUMPS OF HAIR (2003)

I’m trying to avoid sounding like a broken record, but I swear this is the last time this is the case: Hosking’s debut short, LITTLE CLUMPS OF HAIR, feels like it’s building to a more out-of-bounds joke. And while the short does include its share of references to male bush (soon to be a fixture of Hosking’s films), threesomes, and strange shoving, it doesn’t quite finish the punchline satisfyingly. LITTLE CLUMPS OF HAIR is, somehow, Hosking’s least strange work, which is saying something about a story that exists in a world where everyone thinks mustaches are gross until a guy gets some women to stroke his in an extended sequence.

#6 — G FOR GRANDAD (2014)

G FOR GRANDAD, Hosking’s last short at the time of this writing, is actually part of the horror anthology film ABCS OF DEATH 2 (2014). This really brief vignette does feel like a direct precedent to THE GREASY STRANGLER, with a strangely suave elderly man with a big bunch of pubic hair above a long, floppy prosthetic penis. Now, this is a short that very immediately builds up to a ridiculous and unsettling bit of business. G FOR GRANDAD and THE GREASY STRANGLER being boiled down to horror is quite interesting, as Hosking’s take on the genre is much more comic and quease-inducing than intentionally scary.

#5 — THE IMPORTANCE OF AWARDS IN ADVERTISING: A TALK BY MAXIMILLIAN VILLIVANKK (2008)

THE IMPORTANCE OF AWARDS IN ADVERTISING: A TALK BY MAXIMILLIAN VILLIVANKK stars Sam Dissanayake, who features in my favorite scene of THE GREASY STRANGLER. His direct address of the camera brings in a bunch old, skimpily-clad men (and one woman) that leads into an initially quiet dance party. While there is no direct punchline, the ultimate strangeness of THE IMPORTANCE OF AWARDS IN ADVERTISING makes it a totally weird foray into a cinematic space of understated grotesquerie.

#4 — RENEGADES (2010)

RENEGADES is Hosking’s best short. Once again starring some familiar faces for fans of THE GREASY STRANGLER, the offbeat Hosking tone is strangely brought into its sweetest territory. Well, until a man who was being fucked by another man in the woods gets his ear shot off by one of our two titular renegades, following the other one professing he may be gay. RENEGADES is sleazy, and in that one moment, grossly violent, but the scenes taken together feel more meditative than, really, any of Hosking’s films.

#3 — EBONY & IVORY (2025)

EBONY & IVORY comes after the biggest gap between Hosking’s films, feature or short, at seven years since AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN (although he had also co-created the Adult Swim show TROPICAL COP TALES [2019] in between). Hosking’s worst feature is still an admirable skewering of traditional biopic structures, as the film, ostensibly about Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder getting together to “ideate” “Ebony and Ivory,” cares not a bit about narrative structure or making sense, certainly even more so than the director’s other two features. But I can’t profess to have been as tickled with it as I was expecting. Elobar’s McCartney, terrible accent and all, is an endearingly warped reading of the real man. Gil Gex’s Wonder, on the other hand, is abrasive and not quite as compelling, even by the standard of pure bizarreness. EBONY & IVORY may be Hosking’s most formally beautiful film, however, and its score is quite great, even as its repetitive nature and repudiation of telling a coherent story can grate.

#2 — AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN (2018)

After the relative word-of-mouth success of THE GREASY STRANGLER, Hosking made his most “mainstream” film, still to date, with stars Aubrey Plaza, Jemaine Clement, and Craig Robinson. Calling AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN normal, though, would be inaccurate. The film, with roles populated with Hosking faithfuls Elobar, Gex, Dissanayake, and others, is still incredibly askew. Its array of bigger name stars definitely heightened my expectations, especially after my love for THE GREASY STRANGLER was firmly established, which have led to my feeling it wasn’t great. But BEVERLY LUFF LINN is still strange enough in the Hosking vein and offers a more thorough experience of enjoyment than the director’s follow up.

#1 — THE GREASY STRANGLER (2016)

But of course, THE GREASY STRANGLER was always going to reign supreme on this list (at least at this point of Hosking’s career). His debut feature is a perfect nexus of popping eyeballs, flaccid penises, greased-up serial killers (and hot dogs), disco tours, and more rendered in spectacularly gross practical effects. The “horror” film is really just a comedy in the now trademark Hosking style, complete with repetition and stilted dialogue that can test one’s patience. But if you’re of a certain inclination, there’s nothing funnier. My wife and I love THE GREASY STRANGLER so much that we went as Big Ronnie (played deliriously by Michael St. Michaels) and Big Braden (Elobar) for our first Halloween together after bonding over the movie early in our relationship. It is a must-watch and I’m not overexaggerating when I say that Hosking created a seminal work of a certain kind and time, ahead of the total “arthouse-ization” of mondo genre pictures, with THE GREASY STRANGLER.