Chris Teague’s directing is most persuasive when it leaves the actors room to work. We rate the restraint of Dying for Sex, though his substantial cinematography work still tells us more about him than his directing credits do.
Fi1m perspective
In Dying for Sex (2025), Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate hold our attention without the surroundings asking for a share of it. Teague and fellow director Shannon Murphy are strongest when they let Molly and Nikki’s friendship occupy the scene without making every exchange feel insistently significant. We like this directing: it gives the performances room and does not keep announcing the seriousness of the subject. The credit is shared, and we would be wary of treating it as proof of a settled personal style.
His route to directing runs through cinematography, from independent features including Obvious Child (2014) to television work on Russian Doll (2019) and Only Murders in the Building (2021). He shot all eight episodes of Russian Doll and directed two episodes in the second series of Only Murders in the Building. As a cinematographer, he favours grain and optical irregularities, developing a programme’s look through close preparation with showrunners. His directing has developed alongside that work, with two episodes of Dying for Sex, on which he also worked as cinematographer and producer.
On Dying for Sex, Daniel Vecchione’s cinematography keeps the emphasis on Williams and Slate, while Michael Bricker’s production design avoids competing with them. Neither contribution demands much admiration separately, but both help the scenes between the performers feel comfortable. We were moved by Molly and Nikki’s friendship because the two women are allowed to seem at ease together, rather than forever signalling how much they mean to each other. Teague and Murphy trust that watching them together will be enough, and the series is better when they do.
The writing is sometimes too pleased with its frankness, and no amount of patient direction can make every line less self-conscious. That matters in a series whose strongest scenes depend on how readily we believe in the women talking. Watch Dying for Sex for Williams and Slate, with a little tolerance for dialogue that wants credit for being daring.
Biography
Chris Teague is a cinematographer and director. He studied film at Columbia University School of the Arts, graduating in 2006.
Teague has worked as director of photography on series including Russian Doll (2019), Only Murders in the Building (2021–2022), GLOW (2019), Mrs. America (2020) and The Acolyte (2024). He directed episodes of Only Murders in the Building (2022) and Dying for Sex (2025), and is credited as producer on the latter.
He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (Half-Hour) for Russian Doll.
