Directed by Ondi Timoner • 2018 • United States
Starring Matt Smith, Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey

One of the most important and controversial artists of the twentieth century, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe captured eroticism in a way that had never been seen before. Set during the 19...

Directed by Todd Haynes • 1991 • United States
Starring Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, Susan Norman

Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, Todd Haynes’s debut feature deftly interweaves a trio of transgressive tales—“Hero,” “Horror,” and “Homo”—that build towards a devastating climax. “Hero,” shot...

Directed by Jack Hazan • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring David Hockney

This intimate and innovative documentary about English-born, California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. Director Jack Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction...

Directed by Gregg Araki • 1993 • United States
Starring James Duval, Roko Belic, Susan Behshid

A delirious mix of punk nihilism and deadpan irony, the first film in Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy puts an audaciously queer spin on Jean-Luc Godard’s classic MASCULIN FÉMININ. Across fifteen ...

Directed by Robert Epstein • 1984 • United States

A true twentieth-century trailblazer, Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and one of the first openly gay U.S. politicians elected to public office; even after his assassination in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised peop...

Directed by John Greyson • 1996 • Canada
Starring Brent Carver, Marcel Sabourin, Aubert Pallascio

A visually intoxicating queer rhapsody of desire and repression, revenge and redemption unfolds as a deliriously stylized play-within-a-film in this sumptuous cinematic pageant adapted from the stag...

Directed by Gregg Araki • 1997 • United States
Starring James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton

You can practically smell the pheromones wafting off this kaleidoscopic odyssey, which finds director Gregg Araki crossing soap-operatic elements with blasts of science fiction, indie-kid cool, and sh...

Directed by Ann Oren • 2022 • Germany
Starring Simone Bucio, Simon(è) Jaikiriuma Paetau, Sebastian Rudolph

Ravishingly shot on lush 16 mm, the audaciously erotic, playfully surreal debut feature from Ann Oren crosses lines of gender and species on a visceral journey into sexuality, control, and ...

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 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 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 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

Directed by Howard Brookner • 1983 • United States

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 le...