These films that are an indelible part of the queer canon and not just part of the Black LGBTQ+.

These films that are an indelible part of the queer canon and not justpart of the Black LGBTQ+.

From documentaries and biopics, to romantic comedies and dramas, this unranked list of films is a testament to the beauty and complexity of the Black LGBTQ+ experience, all of which we consider a part of the queer film canon.

Moonlight Moonlight made history at the 2017 Academy Awards, becoming the first LGBTQ+-related film and the first with an all-Black cast to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The film Moonlight is extraordinary for many reasons, but to me it is most so for two. First, it considers black boys to be precious, at a time when news stories perpetually make it seem as if the United States considers them to be utterly expendable. Second, it acknowledges the effects that the stalking ghosts of premature death and incarceration have upon gay black masculinity –and it manages to do so without ever diminishing the lives full of complex humanity that black gay men still manage to have in America while navigating that reality. It was based off of the play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, written by Tarrell Alvin McCraney.

Bessie

The “Empress of Blues” not only fought against racism, sexism, economic inequality, and violent white supremacists, but she also subversively made music that captured aspects of what it means to be bisexual. Queen Latifah stars as Bessie Smith in this film that highlights the legendary Blues singer’s family life, internal struggles, and industry battles, demonstrating the resilience that makes Smith a true trailblazer.

The Wound

It’s one of the few major films to question what it means to be a man and to love another man within the context of South African culture. Inxeba is a story that needs to be told, especially in a country wracked by stigma that forces same-sex love and expression underground. It’s a repression that not only destroys lives and families but also fuels the high rate of HIV infection among MSM (men who have sex with men). Plus, the movie stars Nakhane, a South Africa singer, songwriter, actor and novelist.

Paris Is Burning

This iconic 1990 documentary looks at the ballroom scene in New York City during the 1980s. The featured interviews brought ball culture to greater mainstream consciousness through lessons on vocabulary, as well as painting an intimate portrait of the scene and its members. Paris Is Burning highlights the importance of chosen families, as well as creativity and community borne amid struggles with poverty, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and access to health care.

Naz & Maalik

NAZ & MAALIK centers around two closeted Muslim teens living in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn whose daily mix of family responsibilities, street life, and raging hormones is interrupted by an undercover FBI agent who suspects them as terrorists. For tonight’s presenter, New York Times bestselling author David Barclay Moore, the film challenges many clichés of gay coming-of-age storylines associated with its genre. “Black queer people navigate our lives while wearing a multitude of masks, depending upon their circumstances,” Moore writes. “The two young actors in this film portray a wide variety of emotion and perspective throughout, helping it feel sympathetic, real, and timely.”

Blackbird

This 2014 film follows a gay high schooler raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as he reconciles his sexuality and Christian faith, as well as a complex family dynamic. The teen’s sister has gone missing, and experiences affirmation from one parent, while the other (portrayed by Oscar-winner Mo’Nique) lashes out upon realizing her son is romantically involved with a slightly older filmmaker.

Portrait of Jason

On the night of December 2, 1966, Clarke and a tiny crew convened in her apartment at the Hotel Chelsea to make a film. There, for twelve straight hours they filmed the one-and-only Jason Holliday as he spun tales, sang, donned costumes and reminisced about good times and bad behavior as a gay hustler, sometime houseboy and aspiring cabaret performer. The result is a mesmerizing portrait of a remarkable, charming and tortured man, who is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking.

PORTRAIT OF JASON is a film that plays with complexities. While it was shot in a cinema vérité style, the film’s subject is a man who readily admits to deceiving everyone — and may be lying to the camera. Was Clarke giving Holliday a stage on which to perform in what he calls his “moment,” or just using him? She worried about that herself. As Holliday notes about the ironies of life as a houseboy, “it gets to be joke sometime as to who’s using who.” Later, Clarke would say “The result, I’m convinced is a portrait of a guy who is both a genius and a bore. Although Jason says he really hasn’t had any fun as a ‘hustler’ conning people, he appears to have had the last laugh.” Any way you look at the film, it remains of the most fascinating documentaries in cinema.

Now, almost fifty years after it was filmed, PORTRAIT OF JASON is also a potent reminder of what the world was like for black gay men in the heat of the Civil Rights movement and before the Stonewall Uprising.Holliday talks about serving time at New York’s Riker’s Island jail after propositioning (or being propositioned by) an undercover cop. And his observations on the casual racism he experienced are funny, stinging, and painful.

Tangerine

Tangerine follows the lives of two trans women who are close friends and engage in sex work, after one of them gets released from a month-long prison sentence. Sin-Dee (Kitana Rodriguez) learns that while she was in prison, her boyfriend and pimp cheated on her with a cis woman. Sin-Dee and her friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) embark on a revenge-fueled mission during Christmas time in Los Angeles.

Pariah

Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents Audrey and Arthur (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood. She has a flair for poetry, and is a good student at her local high school.

Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the sometimes boisterous support of her best friend, out lesbian Laura (Pernell Walker), Alike is especially eager to find a girlfriend. At home, her parents’ marriage is strained and there is further tension in the household whenever Alike’s development becomes a topic of discussion. Pressed by her mother into making the acquaintance of a colleague’s daughter, Bina (Aasha Davis), Alike finds Bina to be unexpectedly refreshing to socialize with.

Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity –sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.

Difficult Love

Directed by Zanele Muholi and Peter Golsmid, Difficult Love provides a glimpse into Muholi’s life and the lives, loves, and struggles of other black lesbians in South Africa. Muholi introduces us to a fraction of the stories and people that have moved her to create images that speak of something other than heterosexism, images that speak about us and the multitude of identities that a woman’s body can hold.

Zanele Muholi is a South African photographer and visual activist who uses her work to present her lived experience as a lesbian in South Africa. She uses photography, poetry, and video to record and express the violent complexity of being LGBTQI in South Africa. With few people willing to record and present queer black history in Africa, Muholi’s visual activism creates witnesses out of each of us.

Muholi is an inspiring figure that brings visibility to black queer identity in Africa in a manner that is selfaware and intentional in its rejection of the long imposed binaries resulting from colonialism.

Black Is, Black Ain't

In what would be Black gay documentarian Marlon Riggs’ final film, Black Is, Black Ain’t illustrates how there’s no singular, monolithic way for people to be Black within a community that’s diverse in its own right. Riggs blends various artforms, scholars, interviews and his own direct addresses to the audience, as he hurries to finish the film while dying of complications from AIDS.

Gun Hill Road

After returning home from prison, a father arrives to a family dynamic that’s changed while he was incarcerated. He learns that his wife cheated on him, and that one of his children has transitioned. Together, they navigate various life decisions in an environment that isn’t affirming of LGBTQ+ people.

Brother to Brother

After his parents kick him out for being gay, a young Black painter enters a homeless shelter, where he meets an older Black gay poet. The elder character is based on the life of Bruce Nugent, who made important contributions during the Harlem Renaissance, and imparts that he endured some of the same hardships that the younger artist has come to encounter.

Holiday Heart

After his boyfriend dies, a Black gay drag queen (Ving Rhames) becomes friends with a single mother and her daugther. He unwittingly becomes a father figure to the young girl after her mother (Alfre Woodard) relapses with a drug addiction, and makes an effort to build with the family.

Set It Off

Four friends set out on a bank robbery spree in search of financial freedom, after one of them gets wrongfully terminated from a banking job. The scheme gets devised by a rebellious queer woman, Cleo, portrayed by Queen Latifah. She stars alongside Vivica A. Fox, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Kimberly Elise.

PUNKS

PUNKS, a 2000 film made by Noah’s Arc creator Patrik-Ian Polk, follows four Black gay men who are all close friends searching for a fulfilling romantic relationship. The comedic take (which is quite difficult at actually viewing as there were distribution issues) explores what it means to be Black and gay while also shedding light on the everyday struggles shared as part of the human experience.

The Watermelon Woman

In the first feature film directed by a Black lesbian (Cheryl Dunye), Watermelon Woman depicts a lesbian woman and movie enthusiast who works in a video store. After discovering and taking exception to how Black women are uncredited or depicted as stereotypes in films throughout history, she makes it her mission to learn more about one actress who was only noted as “The Watermelon Woman.”

Mississippi Damned

Mississippi Damned features three siblings who each confront their family’s generational traumas and whether or not they’ll choose to lead lives that break the cycle. The movie takes a look at their lives as children in 1986, and then skips 12 years into the future. Among the characters is Leigh, a lesbian who isn’t out and struggles with the news that her girlfriend is marrying a man. Tessa Thompson also stars in Mississippi Damned, which is directed by Black lesbian film maker and screenwriter Tina Mabry.

Rafiki

Two young Kenyan women enter a budding romance despite the fact that their fathers are running against each other for local political office. Together, they build a relationship that must remain secret because homosexuality is illegal.

The Skinny

The Skinny depicts five college friends, including four gay men and a lesbian woman, who get together for Pride in New York City. The otherwise pleasant reunion turns into a wild weekend that brings out the best and the worst in the group’s friendship dynamics in this Patrik-Ian Polk-directed film. Jussie Smollett stars in the movie.

Kiki

If you loved Paris Is Burning, there’s a solid chance you’ll also fall in love with Kiki, a 2016 documentary that focuses on a group of young LGBTQ+ people in New York City that are a part of a subset of the ballroom community. While the film highlights the beauty in what ballroom presently looks and feels like, Kiki also examines the systemic injustices experienced within the community, such as homelessness, prejudice in policing, and lack of access to vital resources.