The Celluloid Closet

Mar 15, 1996

1h 42m

★ 7.1

Overview

Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

ZDF

ARTE

Brillstein-Grey Entertainment

HBO

Telling Pictures

Channel 4 Television

The Celluloid Closet Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Lily Tomlin

Self

Tony Curtis

Self

Susan Sarandon

Self

Gore Vidal

Self

Whoopi Goldberg

Self

Antonio Fargas

Self

Shirley MacLaine

Self

John Schlesinger

Self

Armistead Maupin

Self

Arthur Laurents

Self

Tom Hanks

Self

Farley Granger

In 2019, some still consider homosexuality as a disease that needs to be cured. Focusing on movements with roots in the United States, which draw on both religion and psychiatry to justify so-called conversion therapies, an investigation into the devastating consequences of certain practices that seem to successfully avoid any control by European public authorities.

6.4

Primary

Nov 8, 1960

Primary is a documentary film about the primary elections between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in 1960. Primary is the first documentary to use light equipment in order to follow their subjects in a more intimate filmmaking style. This unconventional way of filming created a new look for documentary films where the camera’s lens was right in the middle of what ever drama was occurring. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 1998.

7.0

Romeo & Julius

Sep 1, 2009

A young group of actors are preparing an updated version of Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET. Two boys perform the central roles - both of them struggling with their own questions of love alongside their roles on stage. And as rehearsals begin, reality soon starts to interfere with the play.

7.1

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

Jun 30, 1896

A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.

0.0

Arena

Sep 28, 2021

A story of forbidden love. An LGBTQ drama set in Ancient Rome. Arena tells the incredible true story of adopted son of one of Rome's cruelest emperors who must choose between his life as the future ruler of the Ancient world or a love and friendship once forcefully forgotten.

6.6

The Stroll

Jan 23, 2023

The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.

6.7

Kokomo City

Jul 28, 2023

Four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City break down the walls of their profession.

0.0

Blaxploitalian: 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema

Jun 8, 2016

A documentary that uncovers the careers of a population of entertainers never heard from before: Black actors in Italian cinema. With modern day interviews and archival footage, the documentary discloses the personal struggles and triumphs that classic Afro-Italian, African-American and Afro-descendant actors faced in the Italian film industry, while mirroring their struggles with those of contemporary actors who are working diligently to find respectable, significant, and non-stereotypical roles, but are often unable to do so. Blaxploitalian is more than an unveiling of a troubled history; it is a call-to-action for increased diversity in international cinema through the stories of these artists in an effort to reflect the modern and racially diverse Italy.

4.2

Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story

Apr 5, 2001

This documentary contains dramatized episodes about the lives of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant children of German writer Thomas Mann.

4.0

Rent Male Unrated

Dec 15, 2016

Kaio Brandon is a male prostitute trying to find himself in the big city. He has been selling his body for money since he was 14, unaware that many others like him are part of a worldwide sex industry and human trafficking that corrupts children forever. Kaio wants to change his life and become a nurse, but will h be able to overcome the labels?

0.0

ALHIVE

Oct 18, 2024

One morning, Leonardo Galicia wakes up with a dull pain and an intense fever. After a pandemic experience that made him aware of his mortality, the last thing Leonardo expected was an HIV-reactive result.  The illness caused by the virus takes hold of Leonardo's body and forces him to take an indefinite break while recovering in a hospital. There, he meets a mysterious young man, Augusto. By sharing common thoughts, hopes, and dreams, the two will find refuge in each other's arms.

6.5

Taboo

Dec 18, 1999

Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.

1.0

A Worm in the Heart

Jan 17, 2020

Shot in six cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway, this documentary details the current state of the Russian queer community - giving both broad societal overviews and deeply personal accounts from activists and non-activists alike. The film follows Paul Rice and Liam Jackson Montgomery, a gay couple from Ireland, as they travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway, meeting with a diverse range of LGBT+ people-from Nobel Peace prize nominees and drag queens to those who have suffered brutal homophobic and transphobic attacks.

6.1

Caravaggio

Aug 29, 1986

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

5.3

The Truth About Webcam Girls

Feb 24, 2014

A documentary that follows three women who perform via webcam to paying customers.

8.1

Prayers for Bobby

Jan 24, 2009

Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.

0.0

Ours to Tell

Jan 21, 2020

Four people - Brittany, Hannah, Nick, and Ylonda - tell their stories about how access to abortion in their community helped them empower themselves to lead lives they want to live.

6.8

Bent

Nov 26, 1997

Max is a handsome young man who, after a fateful tryst with a German soldier, is forced to run for his life. Eventually Max is placed in a concentration camp where he pretends to be Jewish because in the eyes of the Nazis, gays are the lowest form of human being. But it takes a relationship with an openly gay prisoner to teach Max that without the love of another, life is not worth living.

5.0

The Story of Rock 'n' Roll Comics

Jul 1, 2011

Todd Loren, whose scandalous series of unauthorized comic book biographies of rock stars enraged and sometimes charmed his subjects, provoked numerous lawsuit threats from the likes of Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses and Skid Row, and eventually led to a landmark First Amendment case, all before he was savagely murdered in 1992. Includes first hand accounts from many of the artists and writers who were inspired and exploited by Loren, along with interviews with Alice Cooper, Mojo Nixon and more.