12 Inspiring LGBTQ+ Documentaries To Celebrate Pride
With Pride parades taking place across the country in the summer, with one of the biggest in London this weekend [5th July], we’ve put together a list of some of the best documentaries about the lives of LGBTQ+ people to celebrate. You’ll find some uplifting and inspiring true stories, as well as films that shine a light on the issues that affect people around the world.
LGBTQ+ Documentaries To Watch This Month & Beyond
Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay
You’ll know Olly Alexander as the breakout star of Russell T. Davies’ AIDS drama It’s A Sin, and the UK’s Eurovision entry from this year, but this documentary takes you into his personal life story. Growing up as someone who initially struggled with but then quickly embraced his identity, Alexander has dealt with depression, anxiety and bullying, and this documentary explores both his past and the lives of young people currently battling similar issues. With his campaigning voice and outspoken advocacy for a better understanding of mental health, the singer lends his support to those he meets along the way and explores why the gay community is more vulnerable to these struggles. It’s available on iPlayer, and is a perfect watch this Pride Month.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson
This widely acclaimed documentary, which released on Netflix in 2017, focuses on both Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who were both prominent and important figures in the gay and transgender rights movement in New York. It chronicles how from the 1960s to the 1990s, the two vigorously campaigned for LGBTQ rights, with Johnson becoming involved with the Stonewall uprising in 1969. Victoria Cruz, another activist in the movement, is featured in the documentary investigating the suspicious events of Johnson’s death- the campaigner had been found dead in the Hudson river in what was initially ruled as suicide. The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson celebrates the lives of both activists, while looking for the truth behind Johnson’s death.
The Times of Harvey Milk
One of the first truly groundbreaking LGBTQ documentaries, this film focuses on Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in the state of California, who was an important figure in the history of LGBTQ rights and represented something of a watershed moment. The Times of Harvey Milk, made in 1984, is an illuminating documentary of someone who broke through prejudice as he campaigned both for gay rights and to be elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors. It features interviews and footage from the time, painting a picture of Milk’s life story, before it was tragically cut short by his assassination, alongside mayor George Moscone, in 1978. The politician was memorably portrayed in an Oscar winning performance by Sean Penn in 2008’s Milk.
Watch on APPLE TV, HULU OR AMAZON
Welcome to Chechnya
HBO’s Welcome to Chechnya is a harrowing but powerful documentary about activists in the Chechen Republic in Russia. LGBTQ rights have been increasingly eroded in Putin’s Russia, and in 2017 violent anti-gay purges were enacted under the republic’s head, Ramzan Kadyrov. The documentary, using footage covertly filmed on phones, GoPros and other hidden cameras by activists going under cover, shows how several survivors of torture were rescued from their imprisonment. It uses innovative AI techniques and effects to hide the faces of interviewees, while still allowing them to show human emotions and expressions. It makes for an incredible watch about an event that is still ongoing.
Watch on BBC, APPLE TV or HBO
How to Survive a Plague
How to Survive a Plague is the first documentary film directed by David France, who also made The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and Welcome to Chechnya. It chronicles the early years of the US AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and accompanies his later book of the same name. As activists in the gay community began to understand the scale and spread of the HIV virus, they began to campaign for greater awareness, but received almost no response from the US government at the time. How to Survive a Plague shows how they took more drastic measures, including their attempts to convince the FDA by themselves to approve drugs that could help deal with the illness. France, whose partner Doug Gould died from pneumonia resulting from AIDS, states that many of those featured in the documentary knew that they would die, but pressed on regardless.
Watch on AMAZON PRIME or Apple tv
Andy Warhol’s Diaries
Andy Warhol is one of the most iconic artists of the modern era, and lived openly as a gay man even before the gay liberation movement began. The aim of this series from Netflix is to make the enigmatic figure more understandable, though the series states that Warhol’s version of events is not always entirely accurate. You’ll step into the mind of someone who held a deep dislike of themselves, hating his own appearance and sexuality, and believed himself to be a freak, despite his later fame and reverence. The story is told through his obsessions and relationships, not just his art, and the series makes for truly great viewing as it paints a very real and human picture of the man who has a truly unique place in our pop culture.
Paris is Burning
The much-lauded Paris is Burning, which tells the story of the drag ball culture in New York City, had a strong influence on the creation of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and remains an important piece of documentary work today. Released in 1991, it brought new attention to the ballroom scene in NYC, and particularly the involvement of African-American, Latino and transgender communities in it. It took seven years to put together and film all the footage in a cinema verité style, showing the fashion runways and dance battles that have become part of the drag mainstream. It also features plenty of ball slang that has now become common use, like “shade”, “fierce”, “Yaas Queen” and “work it”. It’s a fascinating watch about a culture that has become more understood and accepted in the decades since.
Before Stonewall and After Stonewall
These two documentary films work as companion pieces to each other: Before Stonewall was released in 1984, and focuses on the LGBTQ community in the decades before the Stonewall riots in 1969. It features interviews with plenty of prominent figures in the gay rights movement prior to 1969, like Ann Bannon, Ivy Bottiini, Harry Hay, Frank Kameny and Barbara Grier. Their actions and outspoken campaigning helped to lay the foundations for the modern LGBTQ rights movement, and helped shape public attitudes. After Stonewall is a follow-up piece, released in 1999, and looks back at the three decades that had elapsed since the Stonewall uprising. With a growing movement now celebrated with Pride Month, and has led to more rights and acceptance, the LGBTQ community still faces both discrimination and bigotry and issues like the AIDS epidemic, and the documentary covers how work still has to be done.
Kiki
Kiki is something of a spiritual successor to Paris Is Burning and follows several members of the LGBT African American ball community. It features much of the same drag culture explored in that previous film, showing how the drag scene has changed since the late 80s, and it still faces similar problems. Kiki features, and was made in collaboration with, Twiggy Pucc Garcon, a prominent figure in the ballroom scene and LGBTQ activist. Many of those in the community are people who were kicked out of their houses just for their identity and have nowhere to go and find acceptance in the ball community. While there’s plenty of exploration of the issues that LGBTQ people face, like HIV/AIDS, there’s also a lot of showcasing what makes the ballroom scene what it is: intense and electrifying dance competitions that participants train vigorously for, and find their identity in.
Disclosure
Disclosure, which is available on Netflix, is a documentary that looks at the depiction of transgender people on screen in Hollywood, and the influence their portrayals have on the transgender community. It puts the history of Hollywood films under the microscope, showing how movies over the decades have often been damaging or regressive in how they depict transgender people, or gender identity and issues in general. It features some of the biggest and most influential transgender actors, such as Laverne Cox, Chaz Bono, Angelica Ross and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez as they discuss these portrayals and how it has affected their own lives and attitudes to going into showbiz. It also examines how films and entertainment are getting better and more authentic in how transgender stories are depicted, though there’s still some way to go.
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero
Queer artist Lil Nas X has had one of the biggest breakthroughs of the past five years, launching into superstardom through hits like Old Town Road and Industry Baby. Often switching between his stage persona Lil Nas X and real name Montero, Long Live Montero offers viewers a glimpse behind-the-scenes of his first tour, a diaristic film showcasing an intimate portrait of an artist navigating identity, family, expectations and acceptance.
watch on hulu, amazon prime or Apple
A Secret Love
If you’re looking for heartwarming LGBTQ documentaries, this one is for you. Terry Donahue, a former professional girls’ baseball league player, and partner Pat Henschel opened and managed an interior decorating business together for decades, but unknown to their customers and their families, they were keeping their lesbian relationship secret. A Secret Love tells the fascinating and heart-warming story of two women keeping their love going for 72 years despite the threat of prejudice and discrimination. They were the great aunts of Chris Bolan, the film’s nephew, and told him their story when he visited them on a trip. Inspired, he turned it into this documentary. It features interviews and archive footage of both women, as they recount their first meeting in 1947, and their relationship across the years. It follows them from 2013 to 2018, with the couple finally marrying in 2015. It was released in 2020, one year after the death of Terry, aged 93.
for more entertainment, visit our culture section
