Directed by Todd Haynes, the film features archival documentary footage and stop motion animation using Barbie dolls with actors' voiceovers.

The film was withdrawn from circulation in 1990 after Haynes lost a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Karen's brother and musical collaborator, Richard Carpenter.

[3][4] Its apparent metamodern purpose as a film, including multiple perspectives on anorexia nervosa, the pop music industry, The Carpenters themselves, and the definition of a biographical film, has also given it a legacy among fans of avant-garde cinema; Guy Lodge, writing for The Guardian, expressed that 'while Haynes is working in a vein of very rich irony, there's not a hint of snark here'.

[5] The film follows Karen Carpenter from the time of her "discovery" in 1966 and her quick rise to stardom to her untimely death by cardiac arrest (secondary to anorexia nervosa) in 1983.

Sets were created properly scaled to the dolls, including locales such as the Carpenter home in Downey, Karen's apartment in Century City, restaurants, and recording studios.

The duo's initial meeting with A&M Records owner Herb Alpert (who is simply called Mr. A&M in the credits) was inter-cut with stock footage of Vietnam War scenes.

In his analysis of Superstar's bootleg existence, Lucas Hilderbrand, a professor of film studies at University of California, Irvine, stated: "Analogue reproduction of the text rather than destroying the original's aura, actually reconstructs it.

Materially the fallout of the image and sound mark each successive copy as an illicit object, a forbidden pleasure watched and shared and loved to exhaustion.