Best gay documentaries

Looking for more movies that may not be a part of our collection? Check these out!

Documentaries

• The Adonis Factor
• Beautiful Daughters
• The Celluloid Closet
• Check It
• Friends of Essex
• Just Notify Me Kade
• L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin
• Major!

• Before Stonewall: The Making of A Homosexual and Lesbian Community

  Traces the social, political and cultural history of homosexuality in America from the 1920s to 1969; the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement after a police raid on Stonewall Inn, a homosexual bar in New York City; and the three-day riot that followed.
  Rating: UR (Unrated)

• Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

  A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin who, although one of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was forced to play a background role in landmark civil

  The Silver Screen Oasis

  Re: MoMA: "Queer and Uncensored," May 28-June 27, 2025

  Postby Swithin »

  MoMA announced the list of films in the "Queer and Uncensored" series. Many of the films are shorts, though there are a scant features, such as Salome (Nazimova) and Blue Feature (Andy Warhol).
  
  You call to click on each day's title for details.
  
  https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5807
  
  Here's the list of short films for June 1:
  
  Mary Magdalene. 1991. USA. Directed by MM Serra. 30 min. 16mm
  The Dance. 1992. USA. Directed by Jim Hubbard. 8 min. 16mm
  Naked Boys Cleaning. 2018. USA. Directed by Jack Waters. 7 min. Digital
  Belle de Nature [Excerpt]. 2009. France. Directed by Maria Beatty. 11 min. Digital
  Birth. 2022. USA. Directed by Erica Schreiner. 9 min. Digital
  The Pleasure Garden. 1953. USA. Directed by James Broughton. 38 min. 16mm

  40 Essential LGBTQ+ Documentaries 

  (Photo by ©Off White Productions/ Courtesy: Everett Collection.)

  Queer cinema hinges on stories about the one and the many. LGBTQ+ documentary films, though, can only ever extend both: portraits of individuals necessarily speak more broadly about the community they come to represent, while chronicles of a organization (or a family, or a segment of the population) can only ever do so through individual testimonials and the unusual vision of the filmmaker at hand. Films fancy Portrait of Jason and Tongues Untied,for instance, declare contemporary viewers as much about the individual stories about gay Black men presented on screen as about the communities (real and imagined) that their respective filmmakers brought to bear on their finished films. The following list of LGBTQ+ documentaries applications us windows into the past, allowing us glimpses into moments made worthy by their mere documentation.

  Yet to say nonfiction filmmaking has merely documented the LGBTQ+ community is to sell short the work that some of the seminal documentaries listed below include accomplished. Projects like 1977’s Word is Out, which compiled testimonials from men and
  

  Must-Watch Documentaries About LGBTQ History, Rights and Visibility

  In addition to the many, many queer scripted shows available to stream right now, there are a growing number of documentary films and series re-examining the history, rights and visibility of the gay, lesbian, attracted to both genders and transgender community. These many projects chronicle everything, from the fight for rights during the pre-Stonewall era, how the AIDS epidemic had a lasting impact on the community, to depictions in media today.

  More specifically, docuseries like Pride, Equal and Book of Queer take viewers assist in time to spotlight various queer moments throughout history, while films, including Howard, The Death and Animation of Marsha P. Johnson and The Times of Harvey Milk, dig deeper into the lives of icons within the community. 

  In celebration of Pride Month in June -- as successfully as LGBTQ History Month in October -- here’s an updated list of some of the best and most notable documentaries accessible to stream right now. 

   

  A Secret Love

  A Secret Love is one of several Netflix projects that gleam a light on untold histories from Ryan Murphy. The
  
  
  

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