Where to Start with the Queer Cinematic Canon

Coming out is hard work: not only do you have to do the work of being honest with yourself and everyone in your life, it falls to you to learn about the community you’re entering, often without a lot of helpful outside guidance.

But there’s good news: if you want to learn about queer culture and history and don’t know where to start, visual media is here for you. Sure, you could read a lot of books about gay life and what it means. Or you could sit down with a cherished cinematic classic and see history unfold before your eyes.

If you’re wondering where to start, here’s a list of essential docs and feature films to watch that will get you broadly up to speed on centuries of queer history.

The Celluloid Closet, 1995

Vito Russo’s groundbreaking 1981 book about queer representation in film became a groundbreaking documentary in 1995. Not only does Russo’s work guide us through the pre-code days of sissies and sapphic screen kisses, he takes us all the way up to the early 90s when out-gay representation was starting to flourish. This documentary does, however, have one important flaw: Russo focuses almost exclusively on white representation, so be aware that you’re only really getting half of the story in this doc.

Related:

Into It / Not Into It: Using ‘Cis’ as a Slur

“In order to get to the bottom of this, I spoke to queer people and experts to ask them if ‘cisgender’ could really qualify as a slur.”