This week the Supreme Court is hearing arguments on two historic cases that seek to expand the scope and definition of equal rights in America to include gay people. In honor of The Supreme’s two rulings that most of us hope will declare Prop 8 and DOMA to be unconstitutional in a few months, it might be interesting to look at how far the depiction of LGBT characters in film has come in the last century. A couple of years ago we had a poll to let readers rank your favorite gay films of the past 30 years. That poll was deliberately restricted with a cutoff date of 1970 because frankly I didn’t see many films pre-1970 that didn’t make gays look evil, ridiculous or pathetic. I didn’t want to offer straight people an opportunity to say their favorite gay movie was the self-loathing pity-party on display in The Boys in the Band. After 1970 we finally began to see the emergence of New Queer Cinema — movies about gay people made by gay people or made by straight filmmakers more sympathetic to gay characters. The poll was intended to cover movies with gay characters that gay people could be proud to watch as role models, so movies like Compulsion and Rope didn’t qualify.
But the list I came up with last night is less about gay pride and more about actual gay history as reflected in film. The reality of perception about gay life and its portrayal in mainstream movies hasn’t always been pretty but I think it’s important to acknowledge. The evolution of that perception is a fascinating even when its repellant.
So I’ve expanded the original list of 250 brilliant gay-themed movies produced since 1970 to include over 100 title featuring gay people in the first 60 years of film history. My criteria are arbitrary and the further back in time we go the more lenient the standards to qualify become. I’ve included some movies that have no more than gay innuendo and veiled subtext and left out others that are more overt. My reasons are as varied as the movies themselves. The list is a work in progress, not carved on stone, still fluid. I’m open to suggestion to add titles and remove others. Please feel welcome to point out omissions and make your case.
Wiki has a mind-boggling collection of “lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films” that’s way too inclusive to have much purpose beyond being all-inclusive. For example, if asked to list the gay films of 2012 I would not name On the Road, but it’s one of the 2250 films wiki gathers as pole poking around the periphery of its Big Tent list — which seems to include any movie with any character who’s ever done anything gay. The list below only features 15% of the movies wiki names.
375 Gay Milestones in Film History
Algie the Miner (1912)
A Florida Enchantment (1914)
The Wings (1916)
Different from the Others (1919)
Salomé (1923)
Ponjola (1923)
Leblebici Horhor (1923)
Augusto Anibal quer casar (1923)
Michael (1924)
Beverly of Graustark (1926)
Sex in Chains (1928)
Pandora’s Box (1929)
Morocco (1930)
Mädchen in Uniform (1931)
The Blood of a Poet (1932)
Ladies They Talk About (1933)
Queen Christina (1933)
Zero for Conduct (1933)
Victor and Victoria (1933)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
Top Hat (1935)
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
La Garçonne (1936)
Lady Killer (1937)
Hôtel du Nord (1938)
Rebecca (1940)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
Children of Paradise (1945)
Gilda (1946)
Crossfire (1947)
Fireworks (1947)
Germany, Year Zero (1948)
Red River (1948)
Rope (1948)
Die Reise nach Marrakesch (1949)
Thirst (1949)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Caged (1950)
A Strangers on a Train (1951)
Glen or Glenda (1953)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Air of Paris (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Tea and Sympathy (1956)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Les Tricheurs (1958)
Mädchen in Uniform (1958)
Compulsion (1959)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
Pillow Talk (1959)
Spartacus (1960)
The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)
Purple Noon (1960)
Accattone (1961)
The Children’s Hour (1961)
A Taste of Honey (1961)
Victim (1961)
Advise & Consent (1962)
Billy Budd (1962)
The L-Shaped Room (1962)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
Agostino (1962)
The Balcony (1963)
The Haunting (1963)
The Servant (1963)
491 (1964)
Blow Job (1964)
The Leather Boys (1964)
Les amitiés particulières (1964)
Love Meetings (1964)
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Manji (1964)
Becket (1964)
Darling (1965)
The Knack …and How to Get It (1965)
The Life of Juanita Castro (1965)
Hustler (1965)
Vinyl (1965)
Winter Kept Us Warm (1965)
The Nun (1966)
Persona (1966)
Young Törless (1966)
The Fox (1967)
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Portrait of Jason (1967)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
If… (1968)
The Detective (1968)
Flesh (1968)
Gates to Paradise (1968)
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
Les Biches (1968)
Les jeunes loups (1968)
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Lonesome Cowboys (1968)
The Sergeant (1968)
Teorema (1968)
The Damned (1969)
The Gay Deceivers (1969)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Satyricon (1969)
Staircase (1969)
Venus in Furs (1969)
Women in Love (1969)
The Conformist (1970)
Just the Two of Us (1970)
Edward II (1970)
Trash (1970)
The Music Lovers (1970)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
The Boys in the Band (1970)
Death in Venice (1971)
The Love Garden (1971)
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
Cabaret (1972)
Lucifer Rising (1972)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Butley (1974)
Female Trouble (1974)
Fox and His Friends (1975)
The Naked Civil Servant (1975)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Satan’s Brew (1976)
Sebastiane (1976)
Bilitis (1977)
The Consequence (1977)
Outrageous (1977)
Desperate Living (1977)
Word is Out (1977)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
You Are Not Alone (1978)
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)
Nighthawks (1978)
We Were One Man (1979)
To Forget Venice (1979)
The Tempest (1979)
La Cage Aux Folles (1979)
Pixote (1981)
Querelle (1982)
Making Love (1982)
Victor Victoria (1982)
Deathtrap (1982)
Personal Best (1982)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
Yentl (1983)
The Hunger (1983)
The Fourth Man (1983)
The Bostonians (1984)
Another Country (1984)
An Early Frost (1985)
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
Desert Hearts (1985)
Mala Noche (1985)
The Color Purple (1985)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1985)
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
Caravaggio (1986)
Matador (1986)
Parting Glances (1986)
Maurice (1987)
Withnail & I (1987)
Law of Desire (1987)
Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
Apartment Zero (1988)
Coming Out (1989)
Longtime Companion (1990)
Strip Jack Naked (1990)
Europa Europa (1990)
Paris Is Burning (1990)
Poison (1991)
The Hours and Times (1991)
The Lost Language of Cranes (1991)
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
The Living End (1992)
Edward II (1992)
The Crying Game (1992)
Orlando (1992)
Swoon (1992)
For a Lost Soldier (1992)
Totally Fucked Up (1993)
And the Band Played On (1993)
Philadelphia (1993)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Go Fish (1994)
Wild Reeds (1994)
Maybe… Maybe Not (1994)
Priest (1994)
Vive l’Amour (1994)
I Can’t Sleep (1994)
The Sum of Us (1994)
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
The Doom Generation (1995)
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)
Jeffrey (1995)
The Celluloid Closet (1995)
Antonia’s Line (1995)
Stonewall (1995)
The Birdcage (1996)
Crash (1996)
Lilies – Les feluettes (1996)
Beautiful Thing (1996)
Bound (1996)
Fire (1996)
Bent (1997)
Happy Together (1997)
Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997)
Ma Vie en Rose (1997)
Chasing Amy (1997)
Love and Death on Long Island (1997)
Nowhere (1997)
In & Out (1997)
Wilde (1997)
Gia (1998)
Love Is the Devil (1998)
Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
The Opposite of Sex (1998)
Get Real (1998)
Wild Things (1998)
Edge of Seventeen (1998)
High Art (1998)
Surrender Dorothy (1998)
Gods and Monsters (1998)
The Object of My Affection (1998)
Fucking Åmål (1998)
Trick (1999)
Criminal Lovers (1999)
American Beauty (1999)
Aimée & Jaguar (1999)
All About My Mother (1999)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999)
Beau Travail (1999)
Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Second Skin (1999)
Billy Elliot (2000)
Just a Question of Love (2000)
Before Night Falls (2000)
The Broken Hearts Club (2000)
Come Undone (2000)
Urbania (2000)
Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000)
Just a Question of Love (2000)
Burnt Money (2000)
Big Eden (2000)
O Fantasma (2000)
The Iron Ladies (2000)
Circuit (2001)
Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)
Lost and Delirious (2001)
Y tu mamá también (2001)
All Over the Guy (2001)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
What Time Is It There? (2001)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
À cause d’un garçon (You’ll Get Over It) (2002)
Tipping the Velvet (2002)
The Trip (2002)
L.I.E. (2001)
The Hours (2002)
Far From Heaven (2002)
Yossi and Jagger (2002)
Angels in America (2003)
Latter Days (2003)
Monster (2003)
Camp (2003)
Tarnation (2003)
Mambo Italiano (2003)
Bulgarian Lovers (2003)
A Thousand Clouds of Peace (2003)
Father and Son (2003)
Bad Education (2004)
Walk on Water (2004)
Eating Out (2004)
Touch of Pink (2004)
Summer Storm (2004)
A Home at the End of the World (2004)
Tropical Malady (2004)
Saved! (2004)
Kinsey (2004)
Grande école (2004)
My Summer of Love (2004)
Mysterious Skin (2004)
Changing Times (2004)
3 Dancing Slaves (2004)
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Transamerica (2005)
Kinky Boots (2005)
Capote (2005)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
Odete (Two Drifters) (2005)
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (2005)
Time to Leave (2005)
Boy Culture (2006)
Wild Tigers I Have Known (2006)
Notes on a Scandal (2006)
Quinceanera (2006)
Small Town Gay Bar (2006)
Running with Scissors (2006)
Shortbus (2006)
The History Boys (2006)
The Bubble (2006)
Infamous (2006)
Save Me (2007)
Shelter (2007)
XXY (2007)
Love Songs (2007)
The Witnesses (2007)
Let The Right One In (2008)
Brideshead Revisited (2008)
Antarctica (2008)
Milk (2008)
Chef’s Special (2008)
Born in 68 (2008)
Eyes Wide Open (2009)
I Killed My Mother (2009)
An Englishman in New York (2009)
Brüno (2009)
A Single Man (2009)
Outrage (2009)
Redwoods (2009)
To Die Like a Man (2009)
I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)
The Kids Are All Right (2010)
Let Me In (2010)
Plan B (2010)
Easy A (2010)
Howl (2010)
Black Swan (2010)
Undertow (2010)
Pariah (2011)
Kaboom (2011)
Beauty (2011)
Tomboy (2011)
Weekend (2011)
Beginners (2011)
We Were Here (2011)
J. Edgar (2011)
The Perfect Family (2011)
The Dark Side of Love (2011)
The Mayor of Castro Street (2011)
Any Day Now (2012)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Gayby (2012)
Farewell, My Queen (2012)
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Jaurès (2012)
Mixed Kebab (2012)
Keep the Lights On (2012)
My Brother the Devil (2012)
A Perfect Ending (2012)
Last Chance (2012)
Laurence Anyways (2012)
Struck by Lightning (2012)
Young and Wild (2012)
The Skinny (2012)
Bambi (2013)
Concussion (2013)
Continental (2013)
Kissing Darkness (2013)
Simple Moves (2013)
Truth (2013)
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Don’t forget Cruising (1980) with Al Pacino.
I just watched a 1967 film called “The Incident,” a story about 2 thugs who terrorize a host of stereotypical passengers on a NYC subway car. Interesting is the depiction of the token homosexual. All alone, separated from his fellow passengers, he is subject to so much more viciousness and humiliation than his co-passengers. I guess even hoodlums were more sympathetic than gay people were in 1967.
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Not sure why “Zero de conduite” is on this list. I just finished watching the 1933 film with English subtitles and noticed nothing that made it “gay” noteworthy. Please tell me it’s not because there are two scenes showing teenage butt. In fact the boys in question may not have even been teenagers yet.
I just finished watching the 1933 film with English subtitles and noticed nothing that made it “gay” noteworthy.
Sorry that you missed it. You didn’t pick up on it that Tabard is gay? That’s why Zero de conduite was condemned by the Catholic Church and the film was pretty much banned from France until 1945.
Scenes showing butt? What are you talking about? What I hope is that you can perceive that a character is gay even if he’s not having sex.
As fascinating as the list is, the glaring omission of “L’Atalante” is sort of bothersome. Bisexual characters are too often overlooked in the field of queer film studies, IMO (which would also explain the exclusion of “Caligula”, as dreadful as that film may be).
Missing : Chuck and Buck
Great movies missing
Doña Herlinda and her son (Hermosillo)
Burn the bridges (Franco)
Law of desire (Almodovar)
Glue (dos santos)
O phantom (Rodriguez)
Broken sky and Raging sun raging sky (hernandez)
A place without limits (Ripstein)
The mudge boy (Burke)
La virgen de los sicarios (Schroeder)
Absent (Berger)
Head on (kokkinos)
Nordzee Texas (Defurne)
Eleve libre (Lafosse)
“Cruising”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080569/?ref_=sr_1
Why are there transgender-themed films in this list? Isnt this a list about ‘gay cinema’. I always find the confusion between sexuality and gender identity themes unacceptable. Imo, transgender films are not part of ‘queer cinema’.
I’m sorry but many transgendered folk I know identify as queer.
“World According to Garp”?
Where is “Bride of Frankenstein”?
Why so serious? How about some more comedies on the list?
Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown
The Closet
Partners
Little Miss Sunshine
Y tu mamá también
Pedale doce
8 women
Sitcom
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Silence of the Lambs is also a classic, while it has a horrible gay villain (buffalo bill), Clarice (which you can argue is a lesbian) is the ultimate movie heroine
Hannibal Lector was so clearly gay to me even as a child.
Taxi zum Klo. Don’t forget about the humorous adventures of Frank and Bernd!
Wow what an awesome list. Movies helped me realize I was gay for sure. I was a teenager in my small town and rented that Angelina Jolie movie Foxfire many times just to see the preview of Beautiful Thing over and over again. And then finally bought the VHS for like $30 at a Suncoast when I was able to get to the city.
The only thing I can think of on the top of my head are some experimental stuff, but maybe Rock Hudson’s Home Movies by Mark Rappaport. And his scrapbook movie Color Me Lavender is better than The Celluloid Closet.
Must Add: “A Special Day” — Mastroianni playing a gay man in a 1970’s movie
Controversial Add: “Laura” from the 1940’s
Should Add: “Carrington,” “M Butterfly,” “Albert Nobbs”
“Third” Leads: “Silkwood,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “As Good As It Gets”
THE L SHAPED ROOM HAS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND UNDERRATED PERFORMANCES BY …..
CICELY COURTNEIDGE
SHE IS AMAZING AS AN OLDER VAUDEVILLE ENTERTAINER WHO HAD A PARTNER, SADLY NOT EVEN SHE OR HER OR ANY PICTURE WAS SEEN OF HER LOVER, SUCH SUBTLE WORK, BEAUTIFULLY DONE! TOO BAD HER ROLE PROBABLY WAS TOO CONTROVERSIAL TO GARNER A BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINATION. SHE WAS WAY BETTER THAN MARGARET RUTHERFORD IN THE VIPS
NOT TO MENTION A SHOULD HAVE WON OSCAR FOR LESLIE CARON
Paris is Burning is among the best or most important, in my opinion. One of the more unforgettable, enriching, complex, and once in a lifetime type of documentaries and a great time capsule of New York. Some may find it boring but for a less than 80 minute movie it just packs so much in, and some of it was not consciously realized at the time- it just happened that way.
Am I the only one who thinks there was a lot to disagree about in The Celluloid Closet? Not in the old Hays Code, cryptic signs of queerness but how it seemed way too happy and positive toward the inclusion of gay characters in contemporary cinema, specifically Tom Hanks in Philadelphia that today is rightfully regarded as a ‘safe’ (read: asexual) saintly portrayal than a three-dimensional character. Frankly when you consider Silence of the Lambs (and it is a fine time to separate Buffalo Bill’s gender identity from sexuality, as it seemed to be gay groups who raised hell about the character when the movie came out) arguably has Clarice and Hannibal both as gay in very coded ways, Philadelphia seems more like a regression from that and playing to what people prefer to see at the time. Keith Uhlich wrote a good piece on it in Sense of Cinema when doing an entry for Jonathan Demme.
And I am also on the side of A Single Man is on The Lost Weekend level of ruined queer adaptations and in 2009 there should be no excuse for that, especially when you consider who was directing. Why did he have to be suicidal? Then again, I also am the person who did not care for Bening and Moore’s pretty heteronormative characters in The Kids Are All Right and wished the was more focus on, you know, the kids. I blame a college class for making me a crank at this genre.
And while not all of Fassbinder, Sirk, Almodovar, and Waters movies feature central gay characters their movies are just so very super queer and deservedly canon.
I still can’t believe Dog Day Afternoon got past any censorship and being attracted to a pre-op transwoman was not even considered a character flaw of a very flawed Al Pacino character. Applause to Lumet and Frank Pierson for really being ahead of the curve.
I’d also add The Paperboy (there is a **twist** and the way Efron is shot is total queer gaze) and Patrick Wang’s The Family to the list.
Thanks CGM. Raising the bar, once again.
Goddamn it I forgot to consider IN THE FAMILY for my list. One of the few “epic” dramas of the last couple of years and my 2nd favorite film from last year.
I would include the 1991 film, “The Lost Language of Cranes”. Not only does it feature great performances from Brian Cox, Angus MacFadyen and Corey Parker but it also deals with a crumbling gay LTR and a father coping with coming out late in life. This just wasn’t seen portrayed in film this early. There are probably more (such as “Our Sons” with Julie Andrews, Ann-Margaret and Hugh Grant also from 1991) but thanks for compiling such a “definitive” list!
Good suggestions, guys
overnight additions:
Apartment Zero (1988)
The Lost Language of Cranes (1991)
Wild Tigers I Have Known (2006)
The Bostonians (1984)
We Were Here (2011)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
some adds of my own:
Word is Out (1977)
Agostino (1962)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
(double feature with Cabaret — Helmut Berger vs. Helmut Griem)
Just saw this interesting POST by Bob Mondello on NPR.
I don’t think I’m all that confident that you’re Supreme Court is going to come through. The Orwell quote seems to have infected them: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Shame.
steve50, I’m not giving up hope, although most court pundits are sensing that the rulings that come down in June will overturn Prop 8 and DOMA on the narrowest terms possible. (Thanks for the reminder that I needed to add “The Trials of…” to the full title of 1960’s “Oscar Wilde.”)
Also, while it’s correct to include Let the Right One In on this list, I think it’s entirely mistaken to include its remake Let Me In. Let Me In, in its attempt to be more “culturally accessible” or whatever they claimed they were doing, completely stripped the material of all gay subtext. There’s no grisly castration shot, there’s no strange friend-of-dad, none of that enigmatic subtext. Plus, it was a pointless remake. Why is it in bold? I Love You, Philip Morris is much more deserving of boldface.
Stephen, Those are some incisive questions. You’re right about Let Me In. I defend it past the point of rationality sometimes. There’s no reason to have it highlighted in bold as especially significant.
But I believe Captain Renault has all the qualities of the stalwart “bachelor” gay pal, so I can’t be dissuaded about Casablanca.
Awesome compilation. Someone argued that A Single Man shouldn’t be in bold, but I disagree. It’s one of the first semi-mainstream films I’ve seen that doesn’t try to be A GAY FILM. It’s just about a grieving man. The fact that he’s gay seems wholly incidental. It wasn’t about coming out or being closeted or dealing with gay issues… it was just about human issues. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was a fresh step forward for gay cinema.
I’d also include Rocky Horror. I mean, if Female Trouble is on the list….
Also, Wild Tigers I Have Known. Beautifully captures the experience of being a confused gay kid in love with a straight best friend who selfishly enjoys the attention.
Also, the recent AIDS documentary We Were Here, which is a complete sobfest.
Also, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which I maintain is a gay allegory for many, many reasons.
Why is Casablanca on the list exactly? I’m missing something. Was Ferrari gay? Or are we implying that Renault is gay? I don’t get it.
“Wild Tigers I Have Known. Beautifully captures the experience of being a confused gay kid in love with a straight best friend who selfishly enjoys the attention”
Ugh! why’d you have to remind me of that kid in Wild Tigers! LOL
I swear one of the most creepy characters I’ve seen in motion pictures. That movie distressed me.
Female Trouble has the speech Edith Massey gives her nephew calling heterosexual marriage disgusting and hoping that he ‘goes queer’. It firmly embraces queerness and drops any intent of heteronormativity. It’s John Waters’ best movie though for many reasons besides that speech.
Oops! The Bostonians – 1984 Ivory/Redgrave
Olive will be pissed if we leave her out.
Love love love The Bostonians. Vanessa Redgrave is a genius!
OK, I need to go get some sunlight! (West Coast)
Before I do: “Apartment Zero” with Colin Firth and Hart Bochner should be included.
Ryan, great picture! I’d seen Taji once before, but this shot is fantastic. Is Taji a Russian Blue? (I admit to pet ignorance; all I’ve ever had are some fish — feh — as a kid.) I wanna kidnap that cat. While nothing could take his place, I would leave something in his stead. Maybe Fassbinder’s BRD trilogy? Satantango? The 1960 Housemaid/Hanyo? The Baker’s Wife? Walls of Malapaga?
The glaring omission I noticed was that of The Color Purple not making the list. The film heavily edited the relationship between Celie and Shug Avery, but they do share an on-screen kiss (which was highly taboo at the time).
good catch, Jonathan. A comprehensive history should cover films that caused controversy because of what they felt compelled to omit.
I think there is most certainly homosexual attraction and multiple overlays of same from both characters in “Becket” with Peter O’toole and Richard Burton. In some scenes, there is defintely an early 60s unrequited love vib going on, and O’toole’s whipping scene is quite sado-masochistic, in a sexual sense.
keifer, Becket added, with boldtype significance. The scenes where Henry II was taunting Thomas with the voluptuous village wench — classic situation of a guy recruiting a girl for him and a buddy to “share,” yes?
Ryan, Alain Delon in “Purple Noon” might even get me to contemplate switching teams. Not that either team is really begging me to be on it.
🙂
Taji is mortified that my negligence has made him look like a philistine.
http://twitpic.com/cewe1s
A case could be argued that every movie Alain Delon ever made has a gay subtext.
https://twitter.com/filmystic
Alain Delon was my first movie crush. I saw him in a film called Christine with Romy Schneider adn fell in love. It’s a good thing he was in France or I would have probably become a stalker.
Btw, should “Pillow Talk” be added? There was that portion of the film when Rock Hudson’s character suggested that he was gay. (I wonder if he ever discussed that with anyone. It would be interesting.)
Tony, I think Pillow Talk qualifies — if for nothing else, just on the basis of the gay undercurrents trickling so close to the surface that I’m sure gay men of the era could sense from thousands of miles away.
How did I not notice the absence of “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimy Dean Jimmy Dean?” Its VHS and laserdisc would have to be pried from my cold dead hand (heh) — at least until a DVD comes out.
Seriously, Karen Black (who has a secret) and Cher immediately makes it very gay.
Pariah!
A film that should be seen. If you haven’t seen it, please do. It stars Adepero Oduye who will have a significant role in 12 Years a Slave and hopefully in the awards season.
Good conversation. Thanks to Steve for reminding me of Steam, a film that really sneaks up on you. The final 30 minutes or so are so unexpected. Highly recommended.
and the Turkish guy is pure sex
Great list, Bryce. I forgot you had such admiration for The Conformist. I try to bring it up on the podcast at least once a month.
Do you know about this book?
http://twitpic.com/cewg9e
Part of the BFI series of monographs. Excellent.
Ryan yess THE CONFORMIST is one of few titles that never leave my ever chaning All Time Top 10. And yess are you kidding me? I devoured it in one night! This should be a thread sometime. Best books about movies. SCORSESE ON SCORSESE, CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG, THE BATTLE FOR BRAZIL, MAKING MOVIES (Sidney Lumet), the book on Hichcock by Truffaut.
Bryce, When Sasha, Craig and I began the survey of 1970s on the podcast right after the Oscars we somehow inexplicably skipped from 1971 to 1973 and missed talking about Oscar night April, 1972. That’s when Bertolucci was nominated for the screenplay for The Conformist. I’ll see if I can convince the podcast team to back up and fill in the gap we’ve left.
We were in a hurry to get to The Godfather — but of course The Conformist was a big visual influence on The Godfather trilogy, right?
And — maybe you’ve heard this — when Coppola had a clash with Haskell Wexler and fired him from The Conversation, in the interim break while they found a replacement cinematographer, Coppola watched his private print of The Conformist over and over in the Zoetrope screening room every day for a couple of weeks straight.
Same here, Bryce – I watched The Conformist again recently and it’s just as crisp and riveting as the first time I saw it. Bertolucci, Storaro and Delerue at their best, not to mention the cast. It landed in my all-time top ten when I first saw it and remains there today.
Did not know about Coppola, but I can only imagine him grilling Storaro a few years later about all things THE CONFORMIST. Similar to Tarkovsky knowing he had to at least work with the guy’s cinematographer (Nykvist) at some point.
I’m gonna try to simplify because the list is kind of overwhelming and I’ve seen a good number of the films. The criteria is a mix of primarily is how great the movie and secondarily the gay element and how innovative/groundbreaking I believe it is in cinematic terms. How LGBT’s are represented, how much gay sex is there, how “positive” the agenda or unintended consequences of the movie might be are all of little consideration. Admittedly I haven’t seen many of the “lesbian love” movies.
My Top 25
1. PERSONA (my interpretation is not very gay to be honest but it’s the best film in the list LOL)
2. THE CONFORMIST
3. ZERO FOR CONDUCT
4. ROPE
5. IF….
6. Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN
7. SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
8. DEATH IN VENICE
9. DOG DAY AFTERNOON
10. RED RIVER
11. MULHOLLAND DR.
12. WOMEN IN LOVE
13. CRASH (1996!)
14. MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO
15. PURPLE NOON (@Ryan, you should add this one)
16. THE BOYS IN THE BAND
17. MYSTERIOUS SKIN
18. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE
19. FATHER AND SON
20. TEOREMA
21. YOUNG TORLESS
22. LAW OF DESIRE
23. HAPPY TOGETHER
24. WILD REEDS
25. FOX AND HIS FRIENDS
26. WATER DROPS IN BURNING ROCKS
27. BAD EDUCATION
28. TRASH
29. THE WITNESSES (not very timely I realize, but my favorite film about the 1980-90’s AIDS calamity)
30. Sorry tie: L.I.E./THE LIVING END
BONUS: Best Feel-Good Gay Movie: BILLY ELLIOT
I tired to make room for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but it was impossible in the end.
Ryan, The Dying Gaul from 2005. <3 Peter Sarsgaard OM NOM NOM
I love Rebecca, especially when Mrs. Danvers is showing the second Mrs. de Winter Rebecca’s dressing room: “This is where I keep all of her clothes.” And even better, when showing Mrs. de Winter some sheer fabric of Rebecca’s: “Did you ever see anything so delicate? Look, you can see my hand through it.” Yes, Mrs. Danvers, we can!
Ryan knows that I’m a straight, conservative guy, but I bet he’d be shocked by the huge amount of these movies that I’ve seen. The list above is pretty comprehensive (nice pick up of “Love and Death on Long Island”). Off the top of my head, I’d throw add in some stuff like Ripley’s forerunner “Purple Noon,” “Love Is the Devil” (Ryan, how could you miss a good movie with full frontal Daniel Craig?), maybe some like 90’s comedies like “Kiss Me Guido” (indie) and “Maybe Maybe Not” (German).
Aside #1: It bugs me so much that 1931’s “Madchen in Uniform” hasn’t been released on DVD (not even laserdisc); at least the VHS release is very good, as far as VHS goes.
Aside #2: “These Three” from the mid-1930’s is a “straight” adaptation of “The Children’s Hour,” and it is an excellent movie. (At least this one made it to laserdisc, but alas, no DVD yet.)
Good work, Tony! Purple Noon is one of my all-time favorites. One of those films I rewatch whenever I need to soak my eyes in technicolor.
Steam: The Turkish Bath (orig. title: Hamam, by Ferzan Ozpetek) (2000) – great film that played at Cannes, got good reviews from NYT, LAT, VV and LA Weekly. Allessandro Gassman plays an Italian designer who goes to Istanbul to dispose of an inheritance (a hamam), and ends up restoring it and staying.
Glad to see Burnt Money, C.R.A.Z.Y and Yossi & Jagger on the list.
Thanks for the recommendations! They’ve all been added.
ok, so I’m a bad person for wishing some of these suggestions were more suggestive.
You left off my all time favorite lesbian film “Desert Hearts (1985)”
A couple more movies that should be included on the list are Peter Jackson’s HEAVENLY CREATURES and Pawel Pawlikowski’s MY SUMMER OF LOVE
My Summer of Love! Very good film. Gotta love the Blunter!
Please consider Alexander Sokurov’s FATHER AND SON. I mean it’s sort of full of incestuous homoerotic undertones so I don’t know it if counts as a “gay movie” but it’s certainly as beautiful as anything by Sokurov. Not that I endorse incest.
I endorse incest if both parties are v. fit and willing to film it and distribute it online for free. tkhxbye
ORRRR ‘kthxbye’
I endorse incest if both parties are v. fit and willing to film it and distribute it online for free
next you’ll be saying it’s ok if they’re twins…
Even more ok if they’re triplets…
Bravo, Ryan! And thanks for breaking down that wall and going back beyond 1970 because it’s all a part of our history, good and bad. The old restriction blocked important characters like kinky TE Lawrence, homme fatale (literally) Billy Budd, and most of Dirk Bogarde’s best performances, not to mention 1919’s Different From the Others. For every Boys in the Band, there’s a Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Speaking of bad (characters, not films) – if anybody wants an interesting triple-feature, watch Rope (Hitchcock-48), Compulsion (Fleischer-59) and Swoon (Kalin-92) consecutively. They are all based on the Leopold/Loeb “crime of the century” murder. All three are fascinating in style, brave in approach to the material, and beautifully filmed.
I’m looking forward to the day when we can have:
1 – a balls-to-the-wall romantic epic; there are plenty of good, pulpy mm novels out there begging to be filmed.
2 – a true GAY villain (everybody loves a great villain) that isn’t looked upon as slanderous by one side or held up as an example for repression by the other.
3 – the day the label of “gay” simply falls off and disappears, and we see relationships onscreen between people, not types.
thanks steve50
Dirk Bogarde + The Naked Civil Servant made me remember that I forgot The Servant …unf! Talk about seminal.
Nice list! I’d also recommend adding “Cabaret.”
I would DEFINITELY add “Dog Day Afternoon” from 1975. It was the first film I ever saw that contained a gay main character and Pacino’s performance still stays with me.
I wish Pacino would have won the Oscar for Dog Day Afternoon, but that was the year of Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest.
I am so glad you included “Butley” from 1975 too. Alan Bates is amazing in that movie!
And “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is one helluva film. I saw it again recently. It really holds up well. God bless John Schlesinger. He made such great movies in his lifetime.
Yes Yes, added added.
I was sad to learn that not too long after the movie the transwoman who inspired the Chris Sarandon character died of what is now considered AIDS-related complications. But the money from the movie rights actually did pay for her surgery. So bravo to Sonny for keeping his word, I guess.
Ryan, I think you forgot about IF….
I am also a big fan of “The Children’s Hour”. MacLaine and Hepburn are at their finest in this movie.
Both are utterly heartbreaking. Lillian Hellman always maintained (rightfully) that it was never a movie about lesbianism – although it does feature prominantly in the story line. The play and movie were about the power of a lie – in this case, a little girl’s false accusation. The movie was beautifully directed by William Wyler (not bad, he) – and also for film score fanatics a great unheralded score by Alex North (his best, in my opinion).
Had it not been for the subject matter of the film, I think both would have received Best Actress nominations in 1961.
Please. Tell me the movie from which your photo is taken
Thanks.
Mark, The headline photo is from Mädchen in Uniform (1931).
“a sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers. One of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality.” (wiki)
Remade in 1958 with a lot more pink.
I don’t understand the animosity toward THE BOYS IN THE BAND. I just think it’s great and one of Willy Friedkin’s best. So what if every single character is despicable. That of course is a matter of opinion. I love love love THE BOYS IN THE BAND. Even like it more than something like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I like the boldness of the bold situation but I don’t agree with every single instance. A perfectly good film like A SINGLE MAN wouldn’t be bold in my personal list but I could never forgive myself for not including masterpiece SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY in the bold ones. That’s just a matter of taste I realize so no biggie. Admirable job Ryan. I should make a top 25 immediately.
I could never forgive myself for not including masterpiece SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY in the bold ones.
Oversight. Fixed. Thanks!
A good production of the BITB is better. Definitely less bitter.
Also, Making the Boys is a great documentary where it includes great archive footage, interview with Mart Crowley (who is such a sweet man but sometimes come off as having survivor’s guilt), critics of the work like Edward Albee, and many gay writers who found the play and movie as a lifeline.
I saw Boys in the Band along with Fortune in Men’s Eyes at the St. Marks Cinema on the East Side of NYC when they first came out. They were double billed. I hated Boys in the Band but at the same time could totally relate to the type of characters being portrayed. Fortune in Men’s Eyes was rather earth shattering in some regard because it was ugly. Ugly emotionally and the brutality was extreme. But then Boys in the Band was also rather ugly emotionally. What I do remember is that they were ground breaking at the time simply because the whole premise of both movies were completely gay. I think one of the reasons they were actually made is because they came on the heels of the Stonewall riots and a general pervasion of our refusing to sit in the back of the bus anymore. Neither film really brought anything to the table except the fact that they were made. But I can’t tell you how many “gay” parties I attended where you could witness almost any character from Matt Crowley’s play. The nice thing about Boys in the Band now is that those characters or those characteristic traits that we developed to evade or escape society’s concentration camp mentality regarding gays at the time have over the years evaporated for the most part. In those days a gay party was somewhere to “read” each other and our way of assimilating or conforming to society’s expression of how they thought we should behave and we accomodated them. But thank god that whole genre of characters has basically dissappeared from gay society. I mean you can find the “gay divas” but for the most part you can attend a gay party and it’s not the “read” each other type of gathering it was in the past. We’ve come a long way to break out of those stereotypes. Now if we could only get television to stop protraying us as a the comic relief I’d be even more happy.
I was wondering what the bold was for 😀 I was so mad last night, on the news they had this thing about how gay rights is coming along and it showed a bunch of clips from TV and movies with the idea that those shows influenced things and helped to push things forward. And not a smidgen of Brokeback Mountain. I insist that film left one of those 2001 type monoliths behind.
Anyway, about the movies. The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is my favorite Fassbinder. I’m sure everyone knows about him now but I didn’t until almost a decade ago when Netflix recommended him to me. If I was going to recommend him to someone I’d probably pick In a Year of 13 Moons.
I also like to recommend The Children’s Hour to people. I think it’s a really great one and one that maybe not that many people have seen it even with those stars. And I love Venus in Furs.
I know how much you love Star Wars but when I was a kid I thought R2 and C3PO were married boy robots. I didn’t think it was a problem at the time. And I like the relationship between Sam and Frodo. It’s not gay gay, but still. I’m not saying to put them on the list. Just giving them a shout-out. I’ll also mention Streets of Fire, which I love, and it’s been playing on cable if you want to catch it. I think Amy Madigan’s character was meant to be gay and winking about it which even in the 80s really didn’t happen that much. And I’m going to do one more mention for not a movie but a music video. Bronski Beat, “Smalltown Boy”. It was like a whole little movie by itself and it probably spoke to what people were going through more than a lot of other media back then. Not stuff to be on a list like this but just in case anyone wants to see stuff like that I thought I’d put them out there.
Antoinette, In honor of Small Town Boy we can add the great documentary Small Town Gay Bar (2006)
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant is now in boldtype too. In my haphazard haste, I accidentally skipped it. A masterpiece by any measure.
Vince is correct. Major decisions like these come out in June.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the court will rule for a couple months. They’re only hearing arguments right now. Perhaps I misunderstood.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the court will rule for a couple months.
You’re right of course. I guess I’m thinking that the justices have already decided in their minds how they will rule. But then, by that measure, I’m sure they all decided how they feel about gay rights years ago.
But thanks. I’ll fix the wording in the post.
Just to further aggravate, I’ve arbitrarily put 100 of the most significant and most outstanding gay films in bold face type.
Quite proud of myself for resisting the urge to use the word “seminal” to describe these movies.
Thanks, Ryan, for making this list, it’s definitely a nice resource to find films I might have missed along the way.
I do wish you would include Love and Death on Long Island with John Hurt and Jason Priestly. It’s really a hilarious look at a topic that’s not terribly funny. Haven’t seen it in a bit so maybe now that a gay sensitivity is more common the film will rub me the wrong way, but I doubt it. It was just too damn entertaining.
A recent film that’s not on this list is Beauty (English Title) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1922721/ It’s a South African film that played at Cannes. It’ centers around a middle aged closeted man who’s also disturbingly racist who has developed an inconvenient crush on a friend’s son and, well, it doesn’t play out in a very affirming fashion, but it’s nonetheless an interesting film and certainly captures the “gay” experience for too many. Without saying what happens, I will say it’s a difficult film to watch (and no, it’s not predictable) but one I was glad I did.
I really think “gay” films can be broken into two categories, one where the “gayness” is the defining characteristic and ones where the “gayness” is a secondary characteristic the film doesn’t concentrate on. I think films such as Brokeback Mountain fall into the former category and something like the recent Keep the Lights On is in the latter category. I much prefer films in the latter category. Even films that straddle the line, like Latter Days are better than stuff like Milk, in my opinion.
Another way to divide gay films are ones that come from an insider’s perspective and ones that come from an outsider’s perspective. Films like, again, Brokeback Mountain are made for a straight audience and often seem like they are there to educate (think Philadelphia). As a gay man, I often find these films to be patronizing and often offensive. Although there are exceptions, such as Gods and Monsters.
And then there are films that are innately about and for homosexual audiences. Gregg Araki is probably the best known filmmaker in this category, although I wouldn’t put him as solidly in this category as I would the recent Keep the Lights On, or the more disturbing L.I.E. that incorporate gayness so innately that it’s difficult for an outsider to grasp what the filmmaker is trying to say in its entirety.
[Gay] films… made for a straight audience often seem like they are there to educate (think Philadelphia). As a gay man, I often find these films to be patronizing and often offensive.
Jeff Wells flung all kinds of bitchy attitude at me 2 years ago because I left out The Boys in the Band for that very reason. Doesn’t matter to me that the author of the play, Matt Crowley is gay. I’ve always found that movie to be repulsive. At a time in history when the notion of Gay Rights was a new thing, I don’t think it was helpful to show mainstream America all the worst examples of the gay lifestyle. It’s trash and reads like a cautionary tale.
I’m all for exploring the wide range of gay characters, from good guys to bad. I don’t think it’s unfair to compare the dysfunction flaunted in The Boys in the Band with the same level of nastiness seen in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But because The Boys in the Band was the ONLY movie of the time that anybody was talking about, I think it fails in its obligation to show a wider range of gay male “types” within its own universe.
I have huge respect for William Friedkin, but he’s pulled a couple of ugly boners over the years and it’s weird that both involve gay loathing — The Boys in the Band and Cruising are disgusting films in my view. Both those movies did damage to the cause of advancing the acceptance of gay men at a crucial time in our history. William Friedkin is no authority on gay men and those films are crude blots on his distinguished career.
rufussondheim, thanks for your terrific suggestions. I really love Love and Death on Long Island. Don’t know how I neglected to include it.
I wish there was a way to justify including The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York as ‘movies’ even though they were made for TV. oh wait, I don’t have to justify a damned thing. We have Angels in America on the list so I’m going to add John Hurt’s other great portrayals of gay men as well.
Never heard of Beauty until now. The best part of making a list like this is learning about the great things I left out.
Beauty is one of the best films I saw last year. Deon Lotz is exceptionally good in the lead. Its portrayal of closeted homosexuality is perceptive and provocative; that it centres upon an unattractive gay man is not the point, rather it’s that his prejudice and hypocrisy make him unattractive, and his homosexuality is evidently something which he doesn’t understand. To a casual viewer, it might be a homophobic film, but to a more sensitive viewer, it’s perhaps the opposite. Beauty exposes society as the primary offender in this case.
Also I can’t recommend Keep the Lights On enough. That film KILLED me.