Fitzpatrick, Pierce, Sevigny, and other newcomers including Rosario Dawson portray a group of teenagers in New York City.

Ben Detrick of the New York Times has described the film as "Lord of the Flies with skateboards, nitrous oxide and hip-hop...

When Jennie arrives at the club, she runs into a boy named Fidget, who shoves a depressant into her mouth; she then learns Telly is at Steven's house.

After a montage shows homeless people and drug users in the waking New York City, a voiceover by Telly says that sex is the only worthwhile thing in his life.

I wanted to present the way kids see things, but without all this baggage, this morality that these old middle aged Hollywood guys bring to it.

[9][10] Clark originally decided he wanted to cast Fitzpatrick in a film after watching him skateboard in New York, and cursing when he could not land certain tricks.

[11] Korine had met Chloë Sevigny in New York before production began on Kids, and initially cast her in a small role as one of the girls in the swimming pool.

[12] She was given the leading role of Jennie after Mia Kirshner, the original actress cast, was deemed not the right fit to work with first-time actors.

Korine makes a cameo in the club scene with Jennie, as the kid wearing Coke-bottle glasses and a Nuclear Assault shirt who gives her drugs, though the part is credited to his brother Avi.

Contrary to the perception of many viewers, the film, according to Korine, was almost entirely scripted, with the only exception being the scene with Casper on the couch at the end, which was improvised.

After Woods showed him the final cut, Miramax paid $3.5 million to buy the worldwide distribution rights of this film.

[16] Miramax Films, which was owned by The Walt Disney Company, paid $3.5 million to buy the worldwide distribution rights.

[19] According to Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures, Eamonn Bowles had stated that Harvey and Bob Weinstein might have personally profited up to $2 million each.

The site's consensus reads, "Kids isn't afraid to test viewers' limits, but the point of its nearly non-stop provocation is likely to be lost in all the repellent characters and unpleasant imagery".

[24] She added it is also "an extremely difficult film to sit through, with an emphasis on societal disintegration and adolescent selfishness at its most sordid", and that some viewers will find issue with Clark's lack of judgment on the events depicted.

"[26] Feminist scholar bell hooks spoke extensively about the film in Cultural Criticism and Transformation: "Kids fascinated me as a film precisely because when you heard about it, it seemed like the perfect embodiment of the kind of postmodern, notions of journeying and dislocation and fragmentation and yet when you go to see it, it has simply such a conservative take on gender, on race, on the politics of HIV.

[28] However, she commented on the film's depiction of HIV, writing: "Watching it today, I was hoping for an account of the ways that the fear of AIDS shaped how young people in that time and place learned about desire.

[38][39] In the Eminem song Guilty Conscience (1999), Dr. Dre exclaims, "Man, ain't you ever seen that one movie Kids?"

In August 2010, American rapper Mac Miller released the mixtape K.I.D.S., and its cover art, title, and some musical themes pay homage to the film.

[41] Actors Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter had been involved with Supreme since its incarnation and were part of the brand's original skate team.