Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1978 • West Germany
Starring Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Gottfried John
This heartrendingly compassionate tragedy from Rainer Werner Fassbinder traces the final days in the life of Elvira (Volker Spengler), a transgender woman spurned by her former lover...
Queer love and desire smolder behind bars in these unconventional holiday tales. Harry Lighton’s expectation-defying short WREN BOYS spins off in increasingly surprising directions as it unravels the relationships between an incarcerated man, his boyfriend on the outside, and an Irish Catholic pr...
Criterion Collection Edition #622
This sensual, remarkably observed, beautifully acted wonder is the breakout feature from British writer-director-editor Andrew Haigh. Rarely has a film been as honest about sexuality—in both depiction and discussion—as this tale of a one-night stand that devel...
Directed by Leilah Weinraub • 2018 • United States
Charting the eight-year run of Shakedown, a peripatetic black lesbian strip club in Los Angeles, director Leilah Weinraub attempts “to portray the before and after of a utopic moment.” Weinraub presents a world unto itself, shaped by the desires...
Directed by Basil Dearden • 1961 • United Kingdom
An extraordinary performance by Dirk Bogarde grounds this intense, sobering indictment of early-sixties social intolerance and sexual puritanism. Bogarde plays Melville Farr, a married barrister who is one of a large group of closeted London men ...
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France
In her provocative first feature, Chantal Akerman stars as an aimless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend. With its famous real-time c...
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 Naïla Guiguet • 2020 • France
Starring Dustin Muchuvitz, Félix Maritaud, Raya Martigny
In an abandoned warehouse, a crowd—including a young transgender woman and her boyfriend—dances as one to techno music. As the night wears on, collective hysteria morphs into sweet melancholy, and ...
For decades, the queer experience on-screen was defined by invisibility and marginalization. The trailblazing works of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have been instrumental in changing that. Since the 1970s, when he contributed to the Mariposa Collective’s WORD IS OUT—a landmark documentary tha...
Directed by Akosua Adoma Owusu • 2016 • Ghana
Starring Kwame Edwin Otu
This epistolary short film invites us into the unsettled life of a young Ghanaian man struggling to reconcile his love for his mother with his queer identity amid the increased tensions incited by Ghana’s anti-LGBT politics. ...
Directed by Paul Schrader • 1985 • Japan, United States
Starring Ken Ogata, Kenji Sawada, Toshiyuki Nagashima
Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collagelike portrait of the acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradicti...
Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland • 2020 • United States
The brilliant work, personal struggles, and cultural impact of American writers Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams explode onto the screen in this innovative dual-portrait documentary. Filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland masterfully coll...
Like any facet of human identity, queerness is inextricably linked to matters of class, race, and socioeconomic status. It’s impossible to truly reckon with our sexuality without acknowledging this intersectional reality. In this latest edition of Queersighted—an ongoing series that takes a look ...
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...
An experimental short film and a prescient blackmail drama offer stirring indictments of a shameful time in British history when the law forbade homosexuality.
Directed by Jennie Livingston • 1990 • United States
Starring Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Angie Xtravaganza
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African America...
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. ...
Two nuanced, emotionally raw queer romances get real about the intricacies of love, sex, and relationships. In Matthew Puccini’s sensitively observed, award-winning short DIRTY, a young couple’s relationship is put to the test as they navigate intimacy together for the first time. Its tender yet ...
Directed by Wong Kar Wai • 1997 • Hong Kong
Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing
One of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheun...
In 1994, Marlon Riggs died from AIDS at the tragically young age of thirty-seven. Riggs’s untimely passing robbed the world of an artist of uncommon vision and empathy, but not of his work’s ability to galvanize and inspire future generations. This program comprises a selection of stylistically a...
Directed by Jennifer Reeder • 2015 • Canada
Starring Kelsey Ashby-Middleton, Morgan S. Reesh, Marissa Castillo
Countdown to prom night is actually countdown to irreversible change for three girls. While two of them fall in love with each other against all expectations, the third is forced to mot...
Two visions of love and longing among military men unfold amid lush, senses-stunning landscapes in these ravishing cinematic hallucinations. An island overrun by hydrangeas whose rich purple color seems to drip from each frame is the dreamily apocalyptic setting for a romance between two soldiers...
Directed by Shikeith • 2014 • United States
This experimental documentary mines the psycho-emotional landscape of Black masculinity. Shot in striking black and white, #BLACKMENDREAM features nine men from diverse backgrounds who, with their backs turned to the camera, discuss the obstacles—incl...
Directed by Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore • 1981 • United Kingdom
Starring Gilbert Prousch, George Passmore
See the world through the beautiful, humorous, shocking, and absurd lens of British “living sculpture” provocateurs Gilbert & George, a couple in life and art-making whose defiantly ...
