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Synopsis: Oscar-nominated documentarian Kirby Dick directs this shocking and passionate indictment of the clandestine hypocrisy of many closeted homosexuals in Washington, [More]
Directed By: Kirby Dick
#22
Critics Consensus:We Were Here revisits the crises facing the gay community in the early 1980s -- and offers a powerful tribute to the inspiring resolve shown at a time of turmoil.
If so, recommend them in the comments and below!
40 Essential LGBTQ+ Documentaries
(Photo by ©Off White Productions/ Courtesy: Everett Collection.)
Queer cinema hinges on stories about the one and the many. Melling spent time with the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club to prepare for the role.
The film sits at 88 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and is streaming on Paramount+.
Sauna
Denmark’s Sauna turns the heat up as Johan, a sauna attendant, falls for William, a trans man taking time out from uni.
Synopsis: Iranian men undergoing sex-change surgery reveal what life in their country is like for them.
Synopsis: Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to [More]
Directed By: Graham Kolbeins
#6
Critics Consensus: Like the cheekily named store at this documentary's center, Circus of Books proves there are countless stories below the surface if we're only willing to look.
The film premiered at Sundance and holds an 85 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. Director Harry Lighton adapted Adam Mars-Jones’s novel Box Hill for his feature debut, winning the Best Screenplay prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.
As subject and filmmaker, Tom documents their lives post-diagnosis: endless doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, dancing in the living room.
(Nordisk Film), Alexander Skarsgard in Pillion. Similarly, aptly-titled works like Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Communityand Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Livesoffer not just potent history lessons but snapshots of how Americans were conceiving of their own community-building in the years following the 1969 Stonewall riots.
There is also, of course, no way of discussing queer nonfiction cinema without calling up the urgent historiographical work of films like Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, How to Survive a Plague,and We Were Here.
– Manuel Betancourt
#40
Critics Consensus: Like any great work of art, Portrait of Jason tells a story that reaches far beyond its canvas in the act of illuminating its subject. Meanwhile, his sister-in-law Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) begins her own secret romance with a woman, Sandra (Sasha Calle).
To look at this list of documentaries is to see the commingling of the one and the many. LGBTQ+ documentary films, though, can only ever offer both: portraits of individuals necessarily speak more broadly about the community they come to represent, while chronicles of a group (or a family, or a segment of the population) can only ever do so through individual testimonials and the singular vision of the filmmaker at hand.
Here are our 40 essential LGBTQ+ documentaries, in order of release. (A240, and Jacob Elordi and Diego Calva in On Swift Horses (Sony Pictures Classics).
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The holiday break is upon us, which means one thing: time to disappear onto the couch with a solid lineup of films.
It’s available to rent or stream on Amazon Video, Apple TV and Fandango At Home.
The Wedding Banquet
Andrew Ahn, the director behind Fire Island, returns with The Wedding Banquet, a remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 classic.
Burn This Letter Pleaseand How to Survive a Plague.
Synopsis: Activists risk their lives to confront Russian leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his government-directed campaign to detain, torture and execute LGBTQ [More]
Starring: Olga Baranova, David Isteev, Maxim Lapunov
Directed By: David France
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Tom Blyth plays Lucas, an undercover police officer in 1997 Syracuse assigned to entrap gay men.
That the documentary was directed by Chris Bolan, Terry’s nephew, makes this film all the more poignant as it charts a lifetime of deep devotion — from falling in love in their early 20s, to growing old together and finally coming out to their families.
“What a way to die.”
Disclosure (2020)
Directed by Sam Feder and executive produced by Laverne Cox, Disclosureis a critical look at transness as depicted on screen, from the early days of cinema to today’s hit TV shows.
When the groom’s grandmother arrives to throw an extravagant Korean wedding banquet, plans go sideways. Projects like Call Her Ganda, Transhood, and Indianara have offered vivid portraits of trans individuals, alongside the towering achievement that is the GLAAD Media Award-winning doc Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen, stress the urgency of trans liberation politics.
The list below, which reaches back to the late 1960s and includes recent projects from around the globe that have further broadened what kinds of LGBTQ+ stories get told, is an invitation to see how queer and straight filmmakers alike have made real-life narratives pulsate with meaning.
Burn This Letter Please (2020)