Vintage gay films

Here are a just few groundbreaking pieces of queer cinema from early European, pre-code American, and the silent era of film. A Photograpic History of Men in Love. Insider has compiled a list of several must-watch queer films from or earlier, from the silent film "Michael" to the breakout New York City-set documentary "Paris Is Burning.". Dear millennials, the generation born during the '80s, these are the gay-themed movies — some wonderful, some wonderfully terrible — worth your time.

Germany has been churning out gay hits for nearly a century. Here, 11 gay movies, from the dramatic to the comedic, from the absurd to the touching, from the Weimer Republic to unified. Few countries can rival the UK when it comes to making great and diverse gay films. This may come as a surprise from a country where male homosexuality was illegal until as recently as , and where gay marriage continues to ruffle right-wingers, swivel-eyed or otherwise.

Yet despite their often taboo nature, films with gay characters have been around since the silent era. So what key British gay films are out there? And if you like Vicious millions seem to , you may get a perverse kick out of Staircase , a dreadful vehicle for Richard Burton and Rex Harrison as two ageing queens in a perpetual state of mutual- and self-loathing.

This list should really be a Top 11 — the omission of Sunday Bloody Sunday , the first British film to feature a gay kiss, is borderline inexcusable. But gayest of all remains Borderline, a hotbed of sexual passions set around an interracial love triangle. It was directed by Kenneth Macpherson, the editor of the landmark film journal Close Up — sadly, following the poor critical reviews for Borderline, he did not direct again.

In this zingy comedy, based on the German film Viktor und Viktoria, Matthews plays a woman who earns her coin pretending to be a man who masquerades as a female impersonator. Matthews is fantastic, but Hale matches her as her supportive mentor, himself a drag queen, who at last gets his moment in the spotlight in an unforgettable final number.

old lgbt movies

The story was adapted again in as Victor Victoria, starring Julie Andrews in the lead. Dirk Bogarde, an actor who never acknowledged the rumours of his homosexuality during his lifetime, took a real career risk in playing a lawyer who, following a string of blackmail attempts against gay men, begins to realise his own sexuality. Made when gay sex was illegal in the UK , it could have been a career-ruiner, but instead saw him progress from matinee idol roles to meatier arthouse fare.

Did this film help change the law? Victim was released four years after the publication of the Wolfenden report, a paper which recommended that male homosexuality no longer be regarded as a criminal offence. But The Leather Boys has the most explicit storyline. Few films outside gay feature as much male flesh as Sebastiane, the feature debut of Derek Jarman co-directed by Paul Humfress.

While his fellow exiles fight, fuck and frolic naked in the desert, Sebastian resists such hedonism and instead recites poetry praising God, a predilection that leads to his violent death. Some praised it for its realistic portrayal of a gay teacher unsuccessfully seeking a loving relationship in the newly sexually liberated clubs of London.

Now Nighthawks can be re-evaluated as an invaluable time capsule of the late s gay scene, in the liberated period between decriminalisation and the outbreak of AIDS. What could be more crowd-pleasing than a gay love story between a Pakistani immigrant and an ex-National Front member? If My Beautiful Laundrette offered a snapshot of 80s Britain, Isaac Julien takes on the late 70s, a time when punk rebelled against the jubilee and right-wing extremism was on the rise.

The murder of a gay man triggers an avalanche of trouble for two black pirate radio DJ s, one of whom starts a relationship with a white, gay punk. Every gay teen deserves a good gay teen film, and in the s this was it. You knew this one was coming. Few gay-themed films, British or otherwise, have resonated with audiences quite as much as Weekend. Skip to content. Director: Kenneth Macpherson.

Director: Victor Saville. Director: Basil Dearden. Director: Sidney J. Directors: Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress.