Directed by Pepi Ginsberg • 2022 • United States
Starring Angus O’Brien, JaQwan J. Kelly, Paul Bomba

A young man wrestles with feelings of attraction and fear during an unsettling beachside encounter in this tense, slow-burn study of queer isolation and connection.

Directed by Isabel Sandoval • 2019 • Philippines, United States
Starring Isabel Sandoval, Lynn Cohen, Eamon Farren

This poignant human drama from acclaimed writer-director-star Isabel Sandoval follows Olivia (Sandoval), an undocumented Filipina trans woman, after she has secured a job as a live-...

Directed by Ira Sachs • 1996 • United States
Starring Shayne Gray, Thang Chan, Rachel Zan Huss

A treasure of the 1990s’ New Queer Cinema, Ira Sachs’s incisive debut feature moodily evokes the wide space between dreams, desires, and fulfillment in post–Vietnam War America via the romance between ...

Directed by Stanley Kwan • 2001 • Hong Kong, China
Starring Liu Ye, Hu Jun, Huatong Li

Filmed in secret in Beijing, this tender gay romance by Stanley Kwan combines the timeless conventions of classic melodrama with a radically frank depiction of queer intimacy as it traces, over the course of y...

Directed by Érica Sarmet • 2021 • Brazil
Starring Zélia Duncan, Bruna Linzmeyer, Lorre Motta

This formally innovative, euphorically sexy short travels through the queer Brazil of past, present, and future as it traces an encounter between an older butch biker and a band of young polyamorous lesb...

Directed by Milton Miron • 1971 • United States
Starring Goldie Glitters, Richard Koldewyn, Sylvester

Revel in the psychedelic debauchery as underground “acid drag” theater troupe the Cockettes orchestrate a decidedly queer, hysterically funny send-up of the televised wedding of First Daughter T...

Directed by Cheryl Dunye • 1996 • United States
Starring Cheryl Dunye, Guinevere Turner, Valarie Walker

The wry, incisive debut feature by Cheryl Dunye gave cinema something bracingly new and groundbreaking: a vibrant representation of Black lesbian identity by a Black lesbian filmmaker. Dunye s...

Directed by Juliet Bashore • 1986 • United States
Starring Tigr, Sharon Mitchell, Jon Martin

Juliet Bashore’s quasi-documentary plunge into the 1980s porn industry takes an unsparing look at issues of misogyny, drug abuse, and exploitation via the story of two women—the naive Tigr and the magne...

Directed by A. Hans Scheirl, Dietmar Schipek, and Ursula Pürrer • 1992 • Austria
Starring Susanna Heilmayr, Ursula Pürrer, A. Hans Scheirl

A tour de force of DIY visual invention, this underground sci-fi lesbian extravaganza has been newly restored to its Super 8 visual splendor. It’s the year 2...

Directed by Eva Vitija • 2022 • Germany, Switzerland
Starring Gwendoline Christie, Annina Butterworth, Marijane Meaker

The life and work of celebrated American writer Patricia Highsmith are revealed through her diaries and notebooks and the intimate reflections of her lovers, friends, and family...

Directed by Marin Håskjold • 2017 • Norway
Starring Jonas Strand Gravli, Sverre Kvamme

The dynamics between friends are challenged when Martin arrives at a Christmas party wearing a dress. As hidden desires come forth, the evening becomes an exploration of gender roles.

Directed by Patricia Rozema • 1987 • Canada
Starring Sheila McCarthy, Paule Baillargeon, Ann-Marie MacDonald

Structured around a video-recorded confession, this charming, whimsical story about a waifish daydreamer with artistic aspirations won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Fest...

Directed by Shirley Clarke • 1967 • United States
Starring Jason Holliday

On the night of December 2, 1966, Shirley Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. For twelve straight hours, they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang,...

Criterion Collection Edition #789

Made up of intimate, revelatory footage of the singular author and poet filmed over the course of five years, Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary about William S. Burroughs was for decades mainly the stuff of legend; that changed when Aaron Brookner, the late dir...

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1982 • Germany
Starring Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau

Conjured from the unholy meeting of two iconoclastic queer artists, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film audaciously raises Jean Genet’s controversial novel to the level of myth. In an expressi...

Criterion Collection Edition #407

With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant’s debut feature MALA NOCHE heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, the film evokes a world of transient wo...

Directed by Barbara Hammer • 1982 • United States

An incredible document of the LGBT film scene in the early 1980s (as well as artist Barbara Hammer’s off-the-charts charisma), AUDIENCE finds Hammer working in a more straightforward documentary mode than usual. Hammer interviews her largely lesb...

Directed by Paul Schrader • 1985 • Japan, United States

Paul Schrader's visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between s...

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1972 • West Germany
Starring Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake

In the early 1970s, Rainer Werner Fassbinder discovered the American melodramas of Douglas Sirk and was inspired by them to begin working in a new, more intensely emotional regi...

Directed by D. A. Pennebaker • 1970 • United States
Starring Stephen Sondheim, Elaine Stritch, Donna McKechnie

This legendary, long-unavailable documentary from Direct Cinema pioneer D. A. Pennebaker captures the behind-the-scenes drama that went into the making of a classic Broadway recording. ...