Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spermworld’ on FX, a Profoundly Probing Documentary About Internet Sperm Donors

Spermworld (now streaming on FX and Hulu) is one of those wild and rare documentaries about a subculture you likely aren’t aware exists, although you probably aren’t surprised that it actually does: a community of sperm donors and recipients who meet in Facebook groups, and essentially engage in DNA exchanges without the oversight of doctors or any other medical system. The film is directed by one of the best young documentary filmmakers to emerge in recent years, Lance Oppenheim, who seems to have embedded himself into the lives of three men as they sell or donate their semen to women who yearn to be mothers. And as Oppenheim made the best documentary of 2020, Some Kind of Heaven, he may have just made the best one of 2024 too. 

SPERMWORLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open in a Santa Cruz motel room, where one of the most awkward one-night stands in the history of sex is about to happen. The man explains his technique and the physics of the transaction, and the woman agrees to it – and let’s be clear here, this is absolutely transactional. They’ll attempt to conceive in, as they say, the old-fashioned way. Birds and bees. This is how it works sometimes. We’ll move on from this uncomfortable scene and settle into three other narratives in which the preferred method is ever so slightly less weird: A man alone in a room with some pornography and a cup, and when he’s done, he’ll deliver the specimen and a syringe to the woman. Biology!

These people meet in Facebook groups where some of the men are generous types who want to support LGBTQ+ couples or other altruistic ideals. Some are in it for the money, but it’s still significantly cheaper than a sperm bank (and doesn’t involve awful, awful insurance companies), albeit without the oversight and regulation and other things that might alleviate risk. I know – you have questions: Do creeps get into these forums? Of course they do. It seems as if the users are pretty good at policing things, though. And what about potential donors who pretend to be kind and noble, but are just in it for some form of sexual conquest? Well, that’s a gray area. Spermworld only profiles down-to-their-bones good people, possibly because the skeevy ones would never participate.

Let’s meet our first donor, Tyree Kelly. He greets a lesbian couple in a hotel room, and they have a pleasant, if slightly awkward exchange in which he gets to know them a little bit as human beings before he hands over the goods. A funny wrinkle: The couple also meets Tyree’s fiance, Atasha Pena Clay, who shares that she, too, is trying to get pregnant, and she has to fit herself into his busy insemination schedule. It’s funny, maybe. Tyree’s motive is altruistic – he donates blood and plasma regularly, and often doesn’t charge any money for his sperm, all part of his attempt to put some good into the world after he spent some time in prison (for reasons that remain vague). Atasha goes with him on some of his donation runs; they park in the empty lot of an abandoned building and she queues up a stimulating video on her phone while he reclines his car seat all the way back, and thankfully, this is when the camera cuts away. If Tyree and Atasha’s relationship seems like a pretty complicated dynamic, well, it gets even more fraught as the film goes on. They face hardship and endure some large portions of cosmic irony, but there’s so much love between them, we can’t help but believe that they’ll endure. 

Next is Steve Walker, a 65-year-old divorcee who’s relatively new to the sperm donation community; he has three successful pregnancies in six months, and remains in contact with the familes. He connects with Rachel Stanley, a single woman who has endured a lung transplant and cystic fibrosis diagnosis, and is now doing an end-around of her doctors, who think a pregnancy is too risky. Steve is incredibly polite and personable, with an endearing salty streak, and he’s nothing but respectful when inviting the softspoken and sensitive Rachel into his home. He makes her dinner, they sit by his pool, he hosts a movie night (of all things, they watch Mulholland Dr.!). They’re not successful in getting Rachel pregnant after several attempts, but they might have an odd sort of friendship developing here; from the look of things, both seem to suffer from acute loneliness. Rachel rightly senses that Steve is developing romantic feelings for her, and the camera keeps rolling as they sit down for what might be a terribly awkward conversation.

Finally, we have Ari Nagel, who’s in his 40s and introduces himself as the father of 123 children. But he says he really needs to quit being a donor: “I’m already too old to be jerking off in public restrooms,” he says. His friends and family wonder if this is some type of unusual addiction, but that might be the least unusual thing about this guy. He’s so open about his – what is it, work? Hobby? Calling? – that we see him teaching a college statistics class a lesson in probability, using himself and his paternity as an example. He has no permanent home, because he spends all his time traveling, visiting his children, the families happily letting him crash on their couches. Ari visits his parents, and his aging, ailing mother just. Doesn’t. Get it. Their relationship is loving, but complicated. He throws a party for some of his kids, with bouncy houses and all the fun stuff, but he has to duck out to, well, jerk off in a public restroom. Twice. He double-booked himself. Miscommunication. Too bad for donor no. 2’s yield, but it’s better than nothing, I guess.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Spermworld might be further beyond the pale than anything Errol Morris or Werner Herzog ever directed. (It also might be more painfully humane.) Think Fast, Cheap and Out of Control or Vernon, Florida from the former, and short films such as How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck or The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner from the latter.

Performance Worth Watching: You’ll walk away from the film a huge fan of Atasha, who comes off as an astoundingly supportive, patient and loving partner for Tyree (who’s also a sweetheart of a man). I hope she gets everything she wants, needs and deserves. 

Memorable Dialogue: Sometimes, Oppenheim gives us the lay of the land of these Facebook groups by sharing posts and conversations from them: “Just finished insemination no. 1. Best donor ever!” reads one post that seems pretty insane in any context but this one. Another commenter sums up the entire endeavor succinctly: “I don’t know about normal. This whole business is a bit abnormal.” 

Sex and Skin: None, although there are a few moments where Oppenheim comes right up to the brink of something before cutting away.

Our Take: The word of the day is awkward – and once you get past that, it’ll sink in how odd and moving Spermworld can be, and you’ll reflect on Oppenheim’s ability to capture moments of startling intimacy. So startling and intimate, you’re kind of surprised his subjects agreed to be filmed. Perhaps they realize that their vulnerability is a boon for this fascinating exploration of Very Big Ideas: Biology, psychology, the perpetuation of life, selflessness and selfishness, the need for human beings to connect on a profound level. It also serves as a reminder that no emotion is simple, no matter how much we insist they are, or want them to be – and few are more complex than those derived from the interactions of gray-market sperm donors and recipients, especially those profiled in this film.

Oppenheim employs a visual sense you don’t see in documentaries stocked with talking heads and archival footage (which is nearly all of them, it seems). He and cinematographer David Bolin stray from strict observation in an attempt to capture or create contemplative moods; their aesthetic frequently employs natural lighting and artfully staged shots, and even when they stray from the pointlessly strict conventions of cinema verite – which is quite often – they remain strict proponents of truth. You might even say that truth is ecstatic. 

The director essentially embeds himself in his subjects’ lives, and the footage he gets illustrates the trust he earned. In Steve, we see a man who may need a relationship that transcends simple friendship, stops short of marriage and is more meaningful than casual sex. In Rachel, we see a crushing inner conflict between her needs and desires, and harsh reality; she and Steve share a surprisingly matter-of-fact conversation about mortality that’s quietly heartbreaking. In Ari, we see a wildly complex man who’ll inspire divisive reactions, because his definition of “fatherhood” is so far outside the norm. In Tyree and Atasha, we see people with great big hearts full of love for themselves and others, and they’re just trying to get by, and build a family, and achieve dreams that may never come to fruition. It’s funny how deeply Spermworld sinks in, several hours after the credits roll, and weird how the deep strangeness of the borderline surreal interactions in this community drop away so quickly as Oppenheim pushes past all apprehensions and judgements to find such potently human stories. 

Our Call: Must see. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.